Military Aviation News Archive
12/02/2012
Syrian rebels say a former army missile specialist in their ranks used captured shoulder-launched weapons to down two government aircraft in as many days last month. Rebel commanders said that the army helicopter shot down on November 27 and the fighter jet shot down the following day were both hit with Russian-made surface-to-air missiles captured from an army base west of Syria’s second city Aleppo in mid-November.
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12/02/2012
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter got a boost last month when the Pentagon established the first operational squadron of the stealthy, supersonic jet under development by Lockheed Martin.
The rollout in Yuma of the most technologically challenging of three versions in initial production — one for the Marine Corps that lands like a helicopter — may muffle criticism about the Defense Department’s largest and most costly weapons procurement.
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12/01/2012
China has turned down the reports that their latest aircraft 'carrier-borne fighter jet J-15' has been copied from United States technology. Defence Ministry spokesperson Geng Yansheng said China had stuck to independent innovation and had the capacity to build and develop its own aircraft carrier.
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12/01/2012
Even as the F-35, America’s first 5th generation fighter, struggles to achieve liftoff, the U.S. Air Force is starting to plan on how to get the 6th generation of jets off the ground. What capabilities a 6th generation jet will possess remains unclear, but Gen. Mike Hostage, the head of Air Combat Command, dropped some hints at an event hosted this morning by the Center for Strategic and Informational Studies.
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12/01/2012
Today, the nEUROn, Europe's unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) stealth technology demonstrator, successfully completed its maiden flight from the Dassault Aviation company's flight test base in Istres, in collaboration with the flight test personnel of the French defense procurement agency (DGA). The nEUROn was launched in 2005 by the customer, DGA, and involves France, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Greece and Switzerland. It defines a future for the aeronautic excellence of Europe.
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12/01/2012
Inside a plain beige trailer, a pair of aviators stare intently at a bank of computer screens. Air conditioners hum loudly in the background. The sensor operator zooms in on an object on the ground more than 14,000 feet below. The pilot moves a joystick, turning a drone that’s miles away and flying at a sluggish 120 mph over the Nevada desert as part of an exercise to find a downed pilot.
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12/01/2012
In the same week, Northrop Grumman's X-47B combat aircraft system demonstrator has arrived on the aircraft carrier deck - by crane - and made its first catapult launch - on land. Air vehicle AV-2 was lifted off a barge and on to the flightdeck of the USS Truman on Monday (Nov 26) to begin a few weeks of deck handling trials, in port and at sea.
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12/01/2012
Syrian rebels are making headway against President Bashar al-Assad. In recent weeks, they have seized several military bases and shot down military aircraft, reportedly with shoulder-fired missiles, but there is no end in sight to the war. More than 40,000 Syrians have been killed, 2.5 million are now displaced and more than 600,000 are refugees in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon.
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12/01/2012
Canada's new chief of defence staff has contradicted Defence Minister Peter MacKay by suggesting that other fighter jets do offer some of the stealth capabilities the military needs.
Tom Lawson said during testimony Thursday before the Commons defence committee about the planned $25-billion purchase that most fighter jets offer some degree of stealth capability, including Canada's aging fleet of CF-18s.
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12/01/2012
The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin reached an agreement in principle on Friday on the price of a fifth batch of F-35 fighter jets after a year of tense negotiations over how to lower costs. Military officials said they would pay about $3.8 billion for 32 of the next generation of radar-evading planes and additional equipment to manufacture and test them.
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12/01/2012
The US Senate unanimously approved a measure that would effectively end the relationship between the Pentagon and Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state run arms export firm which has provided weapons to the Syrian government.
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11/30/2012
Keeping China’s growing military prowess in mind, the Indian Air Force (IAF) will now be part of India’s proposed mountain strike corps that will be based in Uttarakhand and the North-East.
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11/30/2012
The U.S. Defense Department may fund initial work on a new military helicopter in a year or two to preserve the industry's critical design capabilities for that sector, the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer said on Wednesday.
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11/30/2012
Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) has conducted the maiden flight of a Sepecat Jaguar fighter that features upgraded avionics. The upgraded type is designated as the "Darin III". It includes a new mission computer, engine and flight instrument system, a solid date digital video recorder, an improved inertial global positioning system, autopilot, radar and radar warning receiver.
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11/30/2012
Saudi Arabia has signed a 'direct commercial sale' contract with Raytheon for a Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) . The system will be delivered by Raytheon's Network Centric Systems business. The direct sale means the Saudi’s defence ministry will manage the buy and the implementation project themselves. This is in contrast to the Foreign Military Sale process, which routes contract negotiations and management through a selected department of the US military.
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11/30/2012
An HC-130J Combat King II takes off for Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. from the Lockheed Martin facilities here today. Aircraft number 5708 is the fifth of 15 HC-130Js to be delivered to the U.S. Air Force’s Air Combat Command. The HC-130J replaces the HC-130P/N as the only dedicated fixed-wing personnel recovery platform in the Air Force inventory.
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11/29/2012
Syrian opposition fighters say they shot down three regime military aircraft in the past 24 hours, including a MiG fighter jet. They've posted two videos online to support their claims. One shows a bloodied pilot.
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11/29/2012
China on Thursday dismissed claims that its carrier-based fighter jets plagiarized foreign models and would make Beijing more assertive in tackling maritime disputes with neighbors.
It is at least unprofessional, if not an intentional attack, to claim China copied foreign aircraft carrier technology through a simple comparison since the laws for military development are objective, and the principles of building military equipment, the command and safeguard methods are similar.
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11/29/2012
Russia’s state arms exporter Rosoboronexport denied on Wednesday media reports that it had lost tenders on the delivery of heavy-lift helicopters and aerial tankers to the Indian air force. “Rosoboronexport denies media speculation about Russia’s loss in both tenders as these reports are false,” the company said in a statement.
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11/29/2012
Members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) started on Wednesday large-scale drills to test the capabilities of their joint air defense network, the Russian Defense Ministry said. “The exercises involve air defense and air force units from Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine,” spokesman Col. Alexei Zolotukhin said.
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11/28/2012
At China’s biennial air show in Zhuhai this month, an imposing fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles was on display — drones bearing a striking resemblance to the American aircraft that have proved so deadly in attacks on insurgents in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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11/28/2012
It’s not enough for Yemen’s skies to fill up with armed U.S. drones. Now the Pentagon wants to buy its Yemeni ally small, piloted spy planes. It’s a sign that the U.S. is upgrading the hardware it gives the Yemeni military, and digging in for a long shadow war.
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11/28/2012
A Chinese-made training airplane crashed during an air force flying exhibition on Tuesday and the military helicopter sent to rescue the pilots also went down, authorities said. The two pilots in the K-8 aircraft successfully ejected before the crash and none of the crew of the Cougar helicopter were injured, authorities said.
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11/28/2012
Lockheed Martin today announced that it has successfully demonstrated a portable, ground-based military laser system in a series of tests against representative airborne targets. Lockheed Martin developed the Area Defense Anti-Munitions (ADAM) system to provide a defense against short-range threats, such as rockets and unmanned aerial systems.
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11/27/2012
Teenagers raised on "Call of Duty" and "Halo" might relish flying a massive Predator drone -- a surprisingly similar activity. Pilots of unmanned military aircraft use a joystick to swoop down into the battlefield, spot enemy troop movements, and snap photos of terror suspects, explained John Hamby, a former military commander who led surveillance missions during the Iraq War.
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