Military Aviation News Archive
12/28/2012
Boeing has received a $145 million order from the U.S. Navy for two additional C-40A Clipper transport aircraft, increasing the service's ability to move military personnel and cargo around the world. The modified Next-Generation 737-700 aircraft will be the 13th and 14th C-40As in the Navy's Unique Fleet Essential Airlift Replacement Aircraft Program, which is replacing the Navy Reserve's aging fleet of DC-9-based C-9B Skytrains.
Read More...
12/27/2012
The U.S. military has begun a staged, five-year process that will see each of its three main stealth warplane types deployed to bases near China. When the deployments are complete in 2017, Air Force F-22s and B-2s and Marine Corps F-35s could all be within striking range of America’s biggest economic rival at the same time. With Beijing now testing its own radar-evading jet fighters.
Read More...
12/27/2012
The Russian Air Force has taken delivery of five new multifunctional Su-34 bombers on Wednesday, according to an official statement. Earlier this year, the Russian MoD and the Sukhoi Corporation signed a contract worth 2.5 billion euros for 92 Su-34 bombers. The aircraft is referred to a 4+ generation aircraft due to its combat readiness after tests completed in 2011.
Read More...
12/27/2012
Drones are to be deployed in Zimbabwe soon after they were given the green light for use to track criminals fleeing neighbouring South Africa, ZimEye can reveal. The effect of the permission means as done before the deadly machines could easily be used to track poachers escaping South Africa across the nations borders into Zimbabwe, Mozambique Botswana or Namibia.
Read More...
12/27/2012
The Defence Research and Development Organisation's faltering project to develop an indigenous jet engine has sparked to life again. With the Kaveri engine, born from this project, found short on power for the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, the ministry of defence has nominated the Kaveri to power the hush-hush Unmanned Strike Air Vehicle, a pilot-less bomber aircraft that the DRDO is developing.
Read More...
12/27/2012
“Iknew wherever I was that you thought of me and that if I got in a tight place, you would come — if alive.” This statement was contained in a letter dated March 10, 1864, written by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. It expresses an ageless ethos among warriors, especially those within the U.S. military. The commitment to come to the aid of fellow Americans in times of duress and danger has always been one of the foundations of America’s fighting forces.
Read More...
12/27/2012
It was hardly on the level of the J-20's appearance two years ago, but the advent of the Xian J-20 transport over the Christmas holidays was nonetheless important. If nothing else, it's the third all-new Chinese military aircraft to emerge in two years, a pace of innovation unknown since the Cold War. It is also by far the largest indigenously developed Chinese aircraft.
Read More...
12/27/2012
Next year the Russian Air Force will abandon its gray camouflage coloring and use several new color patterns for its warplanes, a source in the Russian defense ministry said on Wednesday. Earlier in the day Izvestia reported that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has reversed the order of his predecessor Anatoly Serdyukov to repaint all warplanes only using different shades of gray.
Read More...
12/26/2012
Even without $1.2 trillion in "sequestration" cuts that could begin Jan. 2, the enormous U.S. military budget – which has consistently made up almost half of the country’s annual discretionary spending – is entering a period of austerity unseen in more than a decade. Since late 2011, defense contractors big and small have been planning for the previously announced reduction in defense spending of $487 billion over 10 years. But they could lose an additional $492 billion under sequestration.
Read More...
12/26/2012
Is the U.S. getting ready to wage the Cold War again? If one believes the critics, that’s the aim behind a planned $10 billion modernization of the B61 nuclear bomb, the backbone of the Pentagon’s tactical nuclear arsenal. Actually, there are some other reasons for the upgrade: to reinforce global deterrence, to provide options against a range of future threats, and to make the U.S. stronger and safer. Achieving those goals is worth the money.
Read More...
12/26/2012
They were the Bravest of rescue operations overseas — a team of four FDNY firefighters flying into combat to tend to wounded troops in Afghanistan. The smoke-eaters of the 101st Rescue Squadron of the New York Air National Guard were deployed to more than 50 missions and saved nearly 100 lives between September and November while stationed at Camp Bastion in the southern part of the war-torn country.
Read More...
12/26/2012
The Obama administration appears determined to vacate Afghanistan as fast as possible. If the latest leaks are to be believed, officials are willing to leave as few as 6,000 U.S. troops behind after 2014, concentrated at the Bagram air base and a few other installations around Kabul. The mind boggles at what this would mean in military terms.
Read More...
12/26/2012
It was a historic day for India. For the first time a visiting Russian head of State was greeted by booing crowds rather than by the usual, choreographed cheers and waves. Vladimir Putin’s visit comes at a time when India-Russia relations are at their lowest ebb (except for perhaps in the mid-1960s when the Soviets threatened to sell tanks to Pakistan) and Putin had some hard-talking to do in his 18 hours in India.
Read More...
12/26/2012
A MiG-21 combat aircraft flown by a Syrian pilot who defected to Jordan in June was found to have been upgraded back in Syria to carry chemical weapons and to fly without a pilot, the Yisrael Hayom daily reported on Tuesday. According to the report, U.S. experts who examined the plane believe Russian engineers helped convert the plane and that Syria has more of them in its air force.
Read More...
12/26/2012
A military transport plane has crashed in southern Kazakhstan, killing all 27 people on board. News footage from the scene shows mangled fragments of the aircraft in a swirling blizzard. A crew of seven was on board, along with 20 military personnel. The twin-engined Antonov jet disappeared from radar screens at 7pm as it made its fourth attempt to land at Shymkent, the regional capital of South Kazakhstan.
Read More...
12/25/2012
The Obama administration appears determined to vacate Afghanistan as fast as possible. If the latest leaks are to be believed, officials are willing to leave as few as 6,000 U.S. troops behind after 2014, concentrated at the Bagram air base and a few other installations around Kabul. The mind boggles at what this would mean in military terms.
Read More...
12/25/2012
India plans to spend about $100 billion over the next 10 years to upgrade its largely Soviet-era military equipment, as Asia's third-largest economy looks to match its growing economic clout with military power. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, India, one of the world's largest arms importers, has shifted towards buying from the West as Russian products were plagued by delivery delays, maintenance problems and a lack of spare parts.
Read More...
12/25/2012
The launch of Astra, India’s air-to-air missile, for the third day on Monday from a static launcher on the ground at Chandipur, Odisha, proved to be a success. The flight-trials on December 21 and 22 from fixed launchers were equally successful. On Monday, Astra manoeuvred at 22g (gravitational force) and intercepted an electronic target with 6g. The three triumphs in a row have paved the way for its launch from an aircraft next year.
Read More...
12/25/2012
This year China stepped up its game as a military player with new fighter jets and an aircraft carrier, while also taking a more hawkish approach to political disputes with neighboring nations. China celebrated the successful flight of a the new Shenyang J-15 fighter aircraft - also called the Flying Shark - which was completely designed and manufactured in China and is equipped with domestically produced weapons and radar technology as well.
Read More...
12/25/2012
Five multi-role Su-34 bombers will be delivered for a second squadron of the Baltimore air base in Voronezh, southwest Russia, on Tuesday. “Today five Sukhoi Su-34 multi-role frontline bombers have flown from the Novosibirsk aircraft factory’s air field. The jets will make a non-stop flight from Novosibirsk to Voronezh, a distance of over 3,000 kilometers,” said Western Military District (WMD) spokesman Col. Andrei Bobrun.
Read More...
.jpg)
12/25/2012
NATO will continue chartering Antonov An-124 Ruslan heavy lift transport planes until at least December 31, 2014, Ukraine’s Antonov design bureau said on Monday. The Alliance has been using six An-124-100 planes, provided by Ukraine’s Antonov state company and Russia’s Volga-Dnepr group, to transport heavy equipment across the globe by air since 2006 under the SALIS (Strategic Airlift Interim Solution) program.
Read More...
12/25/2012
Russian aerobatic teams the Swifts and the Russian Knights will receive new Su-30SM and Su-35C fighter jets ahead of regular Russian Air Force units, the force’s commander Viktor Bondarev said on Monday. “When we wrap the preliminary troop tests of these two airplanes, they will be supplied [to the teams] on an advance basis,” Bondarev said at a press conference in the Moscow Region.
Read More...
12/25/2012
Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev on Monday reiterated that Manas international airport, which currently hosts a US airbase, is to be a purely civilian facility after the US base closes. “There will not be a military component at Manas airport: That is my firm position,” he said. Atambayev announced plans in November last year to close the base by 2014, when the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force is to be pulled out of Afghanistan.
Read More...
12/24/2012
The third in line to the throne has been serving as the gunner and navigator in an Apache attack helicopter for the Army Air Corps in Afghanistan since September. He is thought to have made his first “kill” a few weeks after arriving.
Read More...
12/24/2012
Is the Assad regime near the end of its road in Syria? The television network Al Jazeera is quoting Syrian opposition activists that are claiming that seven people were killed in the Homs area due to the dispersal of gas by the Syrian military. According to the reports, dozens were hurt from inhaling the gas in the Al Bidiya neighborhood in Homs, and suffered from nausea, muscular weakness, blurred vision and breathing difficulties.
Read More...