Military Aviation News Archive
05/31/2013
China's Defense Ministry dismissed as ridiculous on Thursday a U.S. report that Chinese hackers have gained access to designs of more than two dozen major U.S. weapons systems, saying the country needed no outside help for its military development.
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05/31/2013
The F-35 Lighting was the first choice of the Australian air force. But several thunderbolts have struck the stealth aircraft, including the arrival of new generation Sukhois that are skewing the odds against the Australians.
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05/31/2013
Italian opposition parties and some lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Party called on the government on Thursday to abandon its plans to buy 90 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets.
Italy's total planned investment in the new Lightning II Joint Strike fighters (JSF) exceeds 10 billion euros ($12.97 billion) even though it cut its order last year to 90 aircraft from the 131 it had originally penciled in to buy more than a decade ago, a move it said would save 5 billion euros.
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05/31/2013
The chief executive of Saab AB SAAB-B.SK +0.71% believes the growing focus on value for money in defense procurement is an opportunity for the Swedish aero-defense group. "There is no point being cheap if you can't win a war," Hakan Buskhe told The Wall Street Journal from his office at Saab's headquarters. "But when money is getting tighter around the world, you still need to be able to afford flying."
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05/31/2013
The Defence Minister AK Antony today expressed hope that the country’s indigenously developed fighter aircraft, LCA TEJAS, will get Final Operational Clearance of the Indian Air Force by the end of next year.
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05/31/2013
Moscow is trying to persuade Tehran to withdraw its lawsuit against Russia’s state-run arms export company Rosoboronexport over a cancelled deal to supply S-300 air defense systems to Iran, Russian Technologies (Rostech) CEO Sergei Chemezov said. Iran’s Defense Ministry and The Aerospace Industries Organization have launched a $4 bln lawsuit against Rosoboronexport in an international arbitration court in Geneva in April 2011.
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05/31/2013
Reports that Syria’s president had confirmed receiving a consignment of Russian-manufactured S-300 air defense systems emerged Thursday, but were quickly brought into question. In comments widely reported across the world, Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar quoted Syrian President Bashar Assad as saying Damascus had received initial deliveries of the S-300 system.
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05/31/2013
Russian and Norwegian naval forces will conduct a joint exercise in the Barents Sea on June 4-7, Northern Fleet spokesman Vadim Serga said on Thursday. Russia’s Northern Fleet will contribute the tugboat SB-523, an Ilyushin Il-38 maritime patrol aircraft and an Mi-8 Hip helicopter to the Barents-2013 exercise.
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05/31/2013
Russia is ready to expand military contacts with Finland and to help the country modernize its armed forces, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday. Shoigu is on a two-day visit to Finland hosted by his Finnish counterpart Carl Haglund. “This is the first contact at the defense ministerial level. I hope we will expand contacts at the level of chiefs of staff and commanders of military districts,” Shoigu said at a joint news conference with Haglund in Helsinki.
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05/30/2013
The Syrian president has told Lebanon's Hezbollah-owned TV station that Damascus received the first shipment of Russian air defense missiles, according to remarks released by the station Thursday.
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05/30/2013
European military transport and multiple aircraft producer Airbus Military has confirmed that it is in the early stages of talks with South Africa about its C295 light/medium aircraft family.
"We've been talking with South Africa about the 295, for maritime surveillance and transport," Airbus Military light and medium aircraft programmes head Rafael Tentor told Engineering News Online in Seville, Spain, on Wednesday.
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05/30/2013
The White House is declining to confirm reports that a U.S. drone killed the Pakistani Taliban's second-in-command White House spokesman Jay Carney says if the reports are true, the death of Waliur Rehman would deprive the militant group of its chief military strategist involved in "horrific attacks" against America at a CIA base in Afghanistan, other attacks against Pakistani civilians and soldiers.
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05/30/2013
The Marine Corps may join the Air Force in moving up its expected initial operating capability from 2016 to the latter part of 2015. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos made the announcement during a presentation May 29 at the Brookings Institution. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley last week said the service will issue a report detailing the operational start date to Congress in coming days.
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05/30/2013
An indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity task order has been given to Northrop Grumman by the U.S. General Services Administration for a combat simulator. The enhanced Combat Electromagnetic Environment Simulator, for the U.S. Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, is an advanced technology simulator that generates complex, dynamic electromagnetic environments to simulate true-to-war conditions.
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05/30/2013
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff will make a state visit to Washington in October, US Vice President Joe Biden announced Wednesday during a visit to Rio. "President (Barack) Obama has asked me to extend an invitation to your president to come to Washington in October for the only state visit that will occur in Washington this year," Biden said.
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05/30/2013
Fábrica Argentina de Aviones Brig. San Martin S.A. (FAdeA S.A.), based in Cordoba (Argentina), awarded Liebherr-Aerospace the contract to supply various components for the flight control system, the landing gear and the air management system of the IA-63 Pampa aircraft. Liebherr-Aerospace Lindenberg GmbH, Lindenberg (Germany), Liebherr’s center of excellence for landing gear and flight control systems.
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05/30/2013
Perhaps the Chinese government turned loose its hacker squad to poach sensitive U.S. military documents, giving President Obama a new set of grievances to lodge in his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. However, that simplistic explanation may be just plain wrong. "For almost anything that happens, we point at China as the culprit," noted security expert Ken Silva.
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05/30/2013
The anti-Naxal operations in Maoist hotbed of Jagdalpur in Chhattisgarh are set to get a boost with Indian Air Force (IAF) deciding to provide helicopter support from Nagpur where a new unit is being set up. Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a DRDO function, IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne said there was need to deploy some new systems in the Maoist-hit areas which would provide better surveillance capabilities to the forces there.
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05/30/2013
It seems India needs the support of US Navy to complete crucial trials of the naval version of Light Combat Aircraft (LCA-N). Absence of pilots experienced in carrier-based operations has forced the Aeronautical Development Agency ( ADA), lead partner in the development of LCA-N, to request the US Navy to train its test pilots in catapult assisted take-off and barrier arrested recovery (Catobar).
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05/30/2013
Russia is disappointed with the EU move to end the ban on arms sales to the Syrian opposition and may reconsider its own commitments to restrictions on weapons deliveries to the war-torn country, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday. “Every decision has two sides. If one side lifts restrictions, the other may consider itself free from observing earlier commitments,” Shoigu said at a joint news conference in Helsinki with his Finnish counterpart, Carl Haglund.
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05/29/2013
A suspected US drone has crashed in the southern Lower Shabelle region of Somalia, according to reports. The militant group al-Shabab said on Twitter that an American unmanned aircraft had come down near a town under its control. A regional governor told Reuters that fighters had shot at the object.
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05/29/2013
A U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter crashed off the southern Japan island of Okinawa early Tuesday after the aircraft developed problems in flight. The pilot ejected and was recovered safely.
The F-15, flying out of Kadena Air Base, went down in the Pacific about 70 miles east of Okinawa, the military said in a statement.
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05/29/2013
Freedom doesn’t come easy, or cheap, and America is leading the charge for the world’s latest and greatest weapons systems. From the best in fighter planes and unmanned aircraft to the latest combat ships, the U.S. isn’t lacking in highly sophisticated tools to stave off the enemy.
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05/29/2013
The last American A-10 attack aircraft has left Europe. A-10s were designed during the Cold War for combat against Russian ground forces in Europe. That war never happened, but the A-10 proved to be a formidable combat aircraft in post-Cold War conflicts, first in the 1991 liberation of Kuwait and later in Afghanistan and Iraq. During the last decade the most requested ground support aircraft in Afghanistan has been the A-10.
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05/29/2013
Combat aircraft are the traditional Paris air show scene-stealers. But it has been a long time since there was an undisputed vedette to hog the limelight—a gap that the Sukhoi Su-35S fighter could fill this year as it makes its debut outside Russia.
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