Special Purpose

Military Aviation News Archive

Turkey’s $50-billion jet program in question

07/30/2013

Turkey must spend nearly $50 billion if it goes ahead with its plans to build and buy 200 locally built fighter jets and acquire 100 more F-35s from an US arms maker. And that amount doesn’t even include the cost of engines for the Turkish fighter.

Rafale and F-35

07/30/2013

No one disputes the fact that Canada needs to procure new fighter jets, but that’s where universal agreement ends. Several aircraft types are competing to be Canada’s next fighter jet. In this ongoing series, defence analyst Richard Shimooka examines the pros and cons of each contender. He wraps up the final installment with a look at the Dassault Rafale and the Lockheed Martin F-35.

Squadron groundings affecting readiness, pilot careers

07/30/2013

The grounding of Air Force combat squadrons will not only have an effect on the long-term readiness of the fleet but also on the careers of pilots and maintainers whose planes were idle. The Air Force on July 15 lifted the four-month grounding of 19 combat squadrons, with pilots returning to the air at a rate that will restore their currency in about three to four months.

China shows off military hardware ahead of PLA Army's anniversary

07/30/2013

Was it a charm offensive, or a show of force by the largest army in the world? In a rare move to allow access to foreign journalists to tour a military base, the People's Liberation Army showed off its anti-aircraft brigade in Lintong, about an hour's drive east of Xi'an in Shaanxi province, ahead of the important August 1 anniversary recognised as the army's founding in 1929.

M’sia to enhance defence spending, says Najib

07/30/2013

Malaysia is looking to enhance its defence expenditure, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Razak said. Najib said this will be done through deficit reduction and strengthening of the Malaysian economic and fiscal position. He said the question on the country’s defence requirements in the future is of budgetary consideration.

Rafale jet deal put on the back burner, French Minister leaves with hopes alone

07/29/2013

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian came to Delhi, charmed his counterpart A K Antony, but could not conquer. After three days in India, when he held formal talks with the Indian defence ministry top brass and also lectured the Indian military think-tank IDSA, Le Drian returned home Saturday empty-handed, without even the Rs 1 lakh crore combat jets deal for which French Rafale was chosen as the lowest bidder in January 2012.

Luke AFB preparing for arrival of F-35 Lightning II fighter jets early next year

07/29/2013

With the arrival of the first wave of F-35 Lightning II fighter jets at Luke Air Force Base just months away, construction is under way on facilities where pilots will be trained and the planes will be maintained. In all, Air Force executives have projected a $265 million, seven-year construction program specifically to accommodate the F-35 pilot-training program at the base in west Glendale.

U.S. Army Scales Back Plans For Large UAVs

07/29/2013

The U.S. Army recently began full rate production of its new MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAV. After eight years of development and field testing, the army is ordering as many production models as it believes it can afford. The current order is for 49, the last of them to be delivered by late 2015.

SPANISH GOVERNMENT INCREASES MILITARY SPENDING

07/29/2013

Almost half of the total budget, 337.5 million euro, is destined for the Eurofighter program, whose prime contractor, EADS, will gain. Over 93 million will go towards the public shipbuilding company Navatia, who will be constructing the Juan Carlos I. Another 88.26 million will be spent on the Tiger helicopter.

A Place In The Sun

07/29/2013

Japanese are becoming more alarmed at increasing Chinese military activity in waters and air space around Japan. It’s not just disputed areas, especially the Senkaku Islands, but around distant Okinawa and increasingly east of Japan, in the Pacific. Operating out there is what the Chinese would have to do for a blockade of Japan.

Serbian Army Sufficiently Trained To Defend Serbia’s Territory – Vucic

07/29/2013

The Serbian Armed Forces (VS) are sufficiently trained and equipped to protect Serbia’s territory from any potential aggressor, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Saturday, summing up the work of the Defence Ministry in the first year of the current government’s term, Tanjug reported.

Navy eyes C-2, H-60 replacement programs

07/29/2013

The Sikorsky H-60 Seahawk helicopter and Northrop Grumman C-2 Greyhound carrier-on-board delivery (COD) plane are longtime stalwarts of Navy operations. The 35 Greyhounds constantly shuttle passengers and cargo to and from the fleet’s aircraft carriers, while some 460 H-60s of various models carry out a wide range of missions.

Navy awards contract to Boeing to prepare EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jet to accept Next-Generation Jammer

07/29/2013

U.S. Navy officials are asking combat aircraft designers at the Boeing Co. in St. Louis to prepare the company's EA-18G Growler carrier-based electronic warfare jet to carry the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ), for which Raytheon Co. was selected to build earlier this month.

Indian Air Force at war with Hindustan Aeronautics; wants to import, not build, a trainer

07/29/2013

Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne has assailed Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), which builds most of the fighter aircraft the IAF flies. Writing directly to Defence Minister A K Antony in the first week of July, Browne has savaged HAL's proposal to design and build a basic trainer aircraft (BTA) for rookie IAF pilots.

Is America's Naval Supremacy Sinking?

07/29/2013

Seth Cropsey, a former assistant secretary of the Navy in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, now a fellow at the Hudson Institute believes so. His recent book, titled Mayday: The Decline of American Naval Superiority, sounds an alarm that as the number of U.S. ships and aircraft continue to decrease, as our defense budgets are dictated by politically correct policies.

US Military Aid to Egypt

07/28/2013

In 1986, Egypt’s Minister of Defense Field Marshall Abd al-Halim Abu Ghazala, complained that the 1.3 billion dollars of US military aid were no longer enough, and pledged to ask US officials for a raise of a several more hundred million dollars. Egypt had started to receive this annual amount of security aid seven years earlier, after signing the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, and Abu Ghazala explained that global prices of arms increased ever since.

Unmanned aircraft may be future of aviation

07/28/2013

Chris Hetrick, an Air Force major who graduated from Flathead High School, says unmanned aircraft are the future of aviation but integrating them with piloted aircraft will be a challenge. Representing the First Reconnaissance Squadron out of Beale Air Force Base in northern California, Hetrick gave a presentation on the Air Force’s growing use of unmanned aircraft to the Flathead Pachyderm Club on Friday in Kalispell.

$1.2 billion power line proposal raises concerns at White Sands Missile Range

07/28/2013

SunZia, the company proposing a $1.2 billion power transmission system that could create 18,000 construction jobs in New Mexico, says it will scotch the project if its preferred route is rejected by the federal government.

America Needs To Develop A New Bomber Now

07/28/2013

The existing bomber force cannot cope with new challenges indefinitely. As countries like China pursue anti-access strategies and more agile air defenses become available to potential adversaries, the U.S. must recapitalize its aging bomber fleet. Failure to do so could eventually result in major military setbacks, since future enemies will doubtless attack the joint force where it is weakest. Defense analyst Lauren B. Thompson comments in a recent report published by the Lexington Group.

Russia Begins Inspection Flights Over United States

07/28/2013

Russian military inspectors will begin on Sunday a series of monitoring flights over the United States under the international Open Skies Treaty, a Russian nuclear security official said. According to Sergei Ryzhkov, head of the National Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, Russian experts will carry out two consecutive monitoring missions in a Tupolev Tu-154M/LK-1 aircraft from July 28 through August 12.

Al-Qaeda just surviving in Afghanistan, says senior US commander

07/27/2013

Pockets of Al-Qaeda militants will endure in Afghanistan beyond next year’s departure of most Western combat forces, but they have lost the ability to mount serious attacks of the kind that triggered the Afghan war, a senior US commander said.

'Rafale is as good as any 5th-generation aircraft'

07/27/2013

French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, visiting India at present, spoke to foreign editor Pramit Pal Chaudhuri about the $15 billion (Rs 87990 crore) Rafale fighter deal that is stilling awaiting formal completion and the Indo-French defence relationship.

F-4 Fades Away Very Slowly

07/27/2013

On June 29th Germany retired the last of its 263 F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers after 41 years of use. A third of these were used mainly for reconnaissance, but most were expected to do ground support and air defense. This retirement is part of a growing trend. In 2010, also after 41 years of service, South Korea retired the last of its 222 F-4s. South Korean F-4s (and F-5 fighters) were replaced, over the previous 15 years, by 40 F-15K fighter-bombers and 180 F-16s.

The Flight of 'Drone' From Bees to Planes

07/27/2013

Drone-strike disclosures have prompted headlines like this one from the Atlantic Wire: "How the NSA Is Using Cell Phone Data to Drone Civilians (In Pakistan)." "Drone" has increasingly come into play as a verb, meaning "to target or kill in a drone strike," especially among critics of the Obama administration. But how did "drone" become the label for unmanned aircraft in the first place?

Weapons Developers Prioritize Energy Efficiency

07/27/2013

Senior Pentagon leaders and weapons developers are looking to more fully integrate operational energy considerations into the acquisition process by working with the services to build energy-efficient aircraft, ships, vehicles, solar panels and new high-efficiency engines, among other things.