Military Aviation News Archive
10/18/2012
Military cooperation between the giants is once again on the rise with China accounting for 15 percent of Russian military exports. India remains Russia’s largest market. The slowdown in military and technical cooperation between Russian and China observed in the mid-2000s was followed by an active growth phase. Russian officials have recently said that defence exports to China are now close to $2 billion, which is comparable to the level achieved in the 1990s.
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10/18/2012
SPITFIRE aircraft buried in Burma at the end of the Second World War are to be returned to the UK, after a 15-year search by an aviation enthusiast.
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10/18/2012
The engines roared overhead as an F-35A fell into formation. Although this is a basic maneuver for the test pilots, the possibilities for combat environments created by these elite aircraft working together are anything but mundane. The F-35, which features three variants to be used by the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy, is a single-seat aircraft capable of stealthy operations, equipped with an enhanced computer technology system.
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10/18/2012
iEntertainment Network Inc., the developer of the WarBirds 2012, Combat Simulation Game Series, announces the launch of a KickStarter funding project on www.KickStarter.com, to raise funds for development of a brand new modern aircraft combat simulation game about the US Military's new jet fighter, the F-35 Lightning II, Joint Strike Fighter.
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10/18/2012
A F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) aircraft completed the first in-flight weapons release of a 2,000 pound GBU-31 BLU-109 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) from a 5th Generation fighter, Oct. 16. The flight was conducted by U.S. Air Force Maj. Eric "Doc" Schultz. The aircraft, known as AF-1, jettisoned an instrumented GBU-31 over the China Lake test range from the left internal weapons bay.
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10/18/2012
Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] received a $34.1 million contract from the U.S. Air Force for follow-on production of paveway II Plus Laser Guided Bomb (LGB) GBU-10, GBU-12 and GBU-16 guidance kits. With this contract, Lockheed Martin received the majority share of a $56 million paveway II Plus LGB procurement. Production is expected to begin in early 2014. The contract is part of an overall $475 million five-year.
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10/18/2012
Lockheed Martin marked the completion of the first F-35 Lightning II Full Mission Simulators (FMS) at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Yuma, Ariz. The air station will be home to the first operational Marine Corps F-35 squadrons worldwide. Two of six planned Joint Strike Fighter FMS systems have been installed on site. The FMS installation and software completion will allow pilot familiarization and transition scenarios to begin later this year.
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10/17/2012
The Air Force has not had a permanent senior acquisition executive in more than three years. The job of assistant secretary for acquisition remains vacant, and likely will stay that way until a new administration takes charge next year.But that hasn't stopped the Air Force's massive weapons industrial complex from accomplishing a sweeping reorganization over the past year. Twelve major bureaucracies that oversaw weapons programs have been consolidated into five.
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10/17/2012
Northrop Grumman Corporation hosted a special event to honor the 40th anniversary of the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) radar, one of the company's longest-running programs and a vital part of the premier air battle command and control aircraft in the world.
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10/17/2012
Turkish tanks are deployed on hilltops overlooking Syria and additional combat aircraft have been moved to bases close to that war-torn country in an escalation that began Oct. 3, when a Syrian artillery round landed in the border town of Akcakale, killing five Turkish civilians.
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10/17/2012
Airbus Military has successfully performed simulated air-to-air refuelling (AAR) of the new generation A400M airlifter from a C-160 Transall tanker of the French Air Force. The two aircraft conducted 20 "dry contacts", in which no fuel is passed, including one lasting 12 minutes - representative of a normal refuelling operation. It is expected that "wet contacts" will take place in the first quarter of next year.
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10/17/2012
Facing Nato member Bulgaria’s continuing shortcoming in fighter jets, Defence Minister Anyu Angelov has revived moves for the country to spend about $400 million on multi-role fighters to take the place of outmoded Soviet-era combat aircraft. The saga of Bulgaria’s attempts to acquire fighter jets dates back more than a decade and has seen several twists and turns in what has been largely a competition between US F16s and Sweden’s Gripen multi-role fighters.
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10/17/2012
A senior Iranian military official claimed Tuesday that Iranian-made surveillance drones have made dozens of apparently undetected flights into Israeli airspace from Lebanon in recent years to probe air defenses and collect reconnaissance data. An Israeli official rejected the account.
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10/17/2012
Israel has known for six years that Hamas is holding anti-aircraft missiles in the Gaza Strip. Last week, the reports were proven true, when a “Strela” shoulder-fired missile was launched at an [Israeli] aircraft during an Air Force operation in the southern Gaza Strip.
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10/17/2012
India is cutting its order for a fifth-generation stealth fighter being developed jointly with Russia by a third, India's Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne told India Strategic. India's Hindustan Aeronatics Limited (HAL) is to build the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA), a derivative of the Sukhoi T-50, in India. The two nations signed a 50/50 joint venture to build the aircraft in December 2011.
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10/17/2012
Boeing this week begins assembling the first refueling boom for the U.S. Air Force's next-generation aerial refueling tanker aircraft in the KC-46 Boom Assembly Center that opened today at Boeing Field in Seattle.
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10/16/2012
Throughout this year, as fighting intensified in Syria and antigovernment fighters grew in numbers and in strength, it had seemed inevitable that they would acquire heat-seeking shoulder-fired missiles and turn them against the Syrian military aircraft. This blog had documented the part-by-part appearance in rebel hands of one old heat-seeking system, known as the SA-7. Since midsummer there have been occasional sightings of full systems but none, as far as we know.
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10/16/2012
A Yemeni jet fighter crashed immediately after takeoff during a training mission on Monday, killing its pilot, Yemen's Defense Ministry said. The ministry's online newspaper said the Russian-made MiG-21 aircraft crashed inside al-Annad air base in the southern province of Lahj due to technical failure.
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10/16/2012
In the past, there was a tradition in the U.S. military to paint pin-ups on aircraft. Today, that tradition lives on in Japan. But there's an important difference: they're not cheesecake pin-ups. They're anime girls. The annual festival at the Japanese Self Defense Force's Kisarazu base allowed visitors to check out the aircraft and vehicles.
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10/16/2012
Air Force CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor — a hybrid warplane that takes off like a helicopter and cruises like an airplane — crashed in southern Afghanistan, killing four people on board. When Brig. Gen. Don Harvel, the lead accident investigator, concluded that engine failure might have been to blame for the Osprey’s loss, he was overruled by a superior officer who Harvel says was eager to protect the military’s $36 billion investment in the controversial V-22.
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10/16/2012
Iran has flexed its military might by showing off what it claims is a new "indigenous" reconnaissance drone capable of reaching Israel and launching a series of anti-warship missiles in the Persian Gulf. In what appears to be a reaction to the recent naval exercise in the region by the US and its allies, Iran's elite revolutionary guards have unveiled an unmanned aerial vehicle, called Shahed-129.
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10/16/2012
As the West debates military intervention in Syria, a former Syrian general says a single U.S. aircraft carrier and U.S. combat jets based in neighboring Turkey would be enough to control a 75-mile-deep northern no-fly zone for anti-regime rebels. Retired Brig. Gen. Akil Hashem, a supporter of the Free Syrian Army and a staunch advocate of Western intervention, calls the embattled regime of President Bashar al-Assad "a paper tiger."
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10/16/2012
Turkey has banned all Syrian aircraft from its air space as it takes an increasingly firm stance against President Bashar al-Assad, while Syrian rebels said on Sunday they had made more gains in a key province near the Turkish border.
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10/16/2012
China has begun flight training on its first aircraft carrier, with photographs posted on websites Monday showing navy pilots practicing touch-and-go landing exercises. Military enthusiast websites posted pictures of a J-15 fighter-bomber executing the maneuver, in which the plane makes brief contact with the flight deck before flying on. It wasn’t clear when the pictures were taken, and they did not appear on the Defense Ministry’s website or in official media.
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10/16/2012
The Russian Navy's Northern Fleet is carrying out flight tests and warfare trials of its modified Kamov Ka-27M anti-submarine helicopter from large destroyers, the fleet's spokesman, Captain Vadim Serga, said on Monday. "The modernized Ka-27M (NATO codename Helix) is completing deck landings on a ship as well as trials of its main systems," he said.
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