Military Aviation News Archive
10/08/2012
The Indian Navy has successfully test-fired a BrahMos supersonic cruise missile launched from a warship off the western Goa coast, India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) reported on Sunday. The BrahMos missile, a joint development of Russian and Indian specialists, was launched from the guided missile frigate INS Teg built by Russia on order from the Indian Navy. “The missile hit the designated target at a distance of 290 km,” the DRDO said.
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10/08/2012
Inspectors from Britain will conduct an inspection flight over Russia under the Open Skies Treaty, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said. “In the period from October 8 to 12, a British mission will conduct a surveillance flight on board Swedish SAAB OS-100 surveillance aircraft over the territory of the Russian Federation under the international Treaty on Open Skies,” the spokesman told journalists.
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10/07/2012
For nearly four decades, the F-16 has ruled the skies in the international market for fighter jet sales, a money-making flying machine for Lockheed Martin and its predecessor, General Dynamics. Now a number of nations are planning to spend billions to upgrade their fleets of older F-16s with modern "avionics," digital electronic controls, communications and combat systems.
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10/07/2012
Be careful how you use a laser pointer. Operating the device in a malicious manner could land you in some serious trouble. According to the FBI, laser attacks have reached "epidemic levels." Since 2005, incidents involving laser pointers has risen 1,100 percent and they're predicting that 3,700 incidents would occur by the end of the year.
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10/07/2012
Denmark’s center-left minority coalition has come under renewed fire from rankled industry chiefs, who claim the government has not done enough to help local companies win more systems and component contracts from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) development program.
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10/07/2012
The US Marine Corps completed the deployment of 12 Osprey transport aircraft in Okinawa on Saturday amid strong public opposition, NHK TV reported. Three tilt rotor Ospreys arrived at the US Futenma Air Station hours after leaving a US air base in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture. As nine Ospreys flew to Futenma on Monday and Tuesday, the US Marines now have all of their planned 12 aircraft deployed in Okinawa.
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10/07/2012
The Israeli air force has shot down a small unmanned aircraft after it entered the south of the country, the military has said. Troops are searching for remains of the aircraft in the north of the Negev desert. It is not clear where it came from. Local media quoted officials as saying the aircraft flew in from the west, but not from the Gaza Strip. It was intercepted at around 10:00 local time (08:00 GMT).
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10/06/2012
U.S. military flight tests have shown how drones could handle midair refueling by themselves, without human pilots. That raises the possibility of automated "flying gas stations" topping off robotic aircraft over future battlefields.
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10/06/2012
The Department of Defense issued the following ministerial media release:
Minister for Defence Stephen Smith and Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare today welcomed three United States Navy (USN) EA-18G Growler aircraft to RAAF Base Amberley.
In August, the Government announced that it had decided to acquire the Growler electronic warfare capability for the Super Hornet at a cost of around $1.5 billion.
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10/06/2012
The IAF is all set to raise four more squadrons of Su-30 MKI fighter in the near future as it prepares to induct the tenth unit of the aircraft in Punjab along the Pakistan border. Codenamed 'Flying Lancers', the process to set up the new Number-15 squadron will be initiated in December and will be fully operational by middle of the next year, Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne said.
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10/06/2012
Dassault and Thales announced delivery of the first production Rafale to carry the Thales RBE2 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. The companies noted that the aircraft, production number C137 for the French Air Force, is the first AESA-equipped European combat aircraft to enter service. The development was completed on time and budget, they added.
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10/06/2012
JSC Irkut Corporation has handed over the first batch of six Yak-130 combat trainers to the Russian Air Force. Pilots of Borisoglebsk training center completed transported the three aircraft from Irkutsk aviation plant to the base aerodrome in Borisoglebsk city. According to the terms of the contract signed in 2011, the Russian AIr Force will recieve 55 Yak-130 combat trainers delivery by 2015.
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10/06/2012
Russian and Central Asian military pilots are carrying out joint exercises to repel missile strikes over Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, Russian Defense Ministry Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Vladimir Deryabin said on Friday. The Clear Sky 2012 military exercises get underway on Friday and run through October 16, with planned scenarios including intercepting cruise missile attack.
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10/06/2012
The U.S. Army has awarded Boeing a five-year Performance-Based Logistics (PBL) contract for CH-47 Chinook support, an arrangement that reduces customer costs while allowing Boeing to invest in improving products and processes. The $185 million contract covers management of the production, overhaul and distribution of the Army's supply of Chinook helicopter rotor blades.
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10/05/2012
Russia snubbed India as it postponed Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov's visit to New Delhi as the dates are clashing with Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani's visit to Moscow starting from October 5.Apparently, Moscow has conveyed to New Delhi that the meeting of annual India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC), which was to be held on Thursday.
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10/05/2012
Saab's Gripen F test aircraft touched down in Emmen, Switzerland, on 3 October, as part of a campaign to sell 22 of the new-generation combat aircraft to the nation's air force. Accompanied on its 2h journey from Linköping in Sweden by a twin-seat Gripen D, the next-generation development aircraft will remain in Switzerland for 10 days. During this time it will be shown to personnel from the nation's defence committees and also appear at the Axalp air show on 10-11 October.
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10/05/2012
Pilots, maintainers and analysts from the Republic of Korea Army, Test and Evaluation Group, and the Boeing Company received guided tours and operational briefings from the 3rd Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, 159th Combat Aviation Brigade, Sept. 24-25. The South Korean government is currently looking at several attack helicopter platforms for purchase that would improve their ability to meet current and future threats in the Pacific region.
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10/05/2012
Military aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation is upping the ante in Malaysia with the hopes of supplying its combat aircraft Rafale to the Government, which considering to retire the ageing fleet of Russian made MIG-29N under the Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA) programme.
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10/05/2012
Six of the RAAF's now retired F-111 strike bombers, affectionately referred to as "pigs", are set to go on display at aircraft museums and historical organisations across Australia. Defence Materiel Minister Jason Clare said these aircraft, which retired in 2010, would be loaned out to help preserve an important part of Australia's military heritage.
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10/05/2012
Russia’s Irkut aircraft-manufacturing plant delivered the first six Yakovlev Yak-130 Mitten combat trainers to the Russian Air Force on Thursday, a spokesman for the Western Military District said. “On October 4, the first batch of Yak-130 combat trainers fly from the Irkut plant to the Borisoglebsk airfield [Voronezh region] after an extensive flight testing program,” Col. Andrei Bobrun said.
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10/05/2012
Russia's Defense Ministry on Thursday signed a contract worth about 140 billion rubles ($4 billion) to buy 39 IL-476 transport planes, President Vladimir Putin announced. "This is the first, essentially new plane, that Russia's aviation industry has produced in the past 21 years" President Putin said "I am confident that this plane will enjoy great demand here, and among our possible partners abroad."
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10/04/2012
The Taliban have claimed credit for the downing of a NATO helicopter but international forces denied the allegation. The NATO Boeing CH-47D Chinook twin-engine, tandem rotor heavy-lift military transport helicopter crashed Monday Zabul province in southern Afghanistan. The Taliban stated that, in addition to downing the helicopter, all aboard were killed.
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10/04/2012
Years before F-22 pilots began getting dizzy in the cockpit, before one struggled to breathe as he tried to pull out of a fatal crash, before two more went on television to say the plane was so unsafe they refused to fly it, a small circle of Air Force experts knew something was wrong with the prized stealth fighter jet.
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10/04/2012
The Syrian government's army has been driven out of many areas in this province, a stronghold of the opposition forces arrayed against Syrian leader Bashar Assad. Even so, it would be a mistake to call this a liberated zone. Unable to make much headway on the ground, the Syrian air force is hitting back with increasing ferocity, dropping bombs from planes and helicopters and chasing the civilians who are trying to get out of the war.
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10/04/2012
On Tuesday, two Saudi F-15 fighter planes intercepted “an unidentified aircraft coming from the Horn of Africa [and] flying at a low level,” according to Saudi Arabian Arabic website, Jazan News. The Saudi website didn’t mention its sources and did not provide additional details but said the authorities will treat the matter as “the situation requires.”
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