Military Aviation News Archive
04/26/2012
Brazil will get US advanced technology transfer if it buys Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet to upgrade its air force, visiting US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said here Wednesday. The F/A-18 Super Hornet is up against the Rafale fighter, made by French firm Dassault Aviation, and Swedish manufacturer Saab's Gripen for Brazil's contract for 36 multi-role combat aircraft valued at between $4 billion and $7 billion.
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04/26/2012
The flight is slated for 10 am. But it will fly with some unresolved problems. The maiden flight, however, does not mean the team LCA has overcome all the technical glitches that had forced it to miss several deadlines in the past. The Centre for Military Airworthiness & Certification (CEMILAC), sometime last week, gave its clearance for High Speed Taxi Trial (HSTT) and flight.
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04/26/2012
Ukraine is close to signing one of its biggest ever defense deals for air-to-air missiles with India, according to Russian media reports. Nezavisimaya Gazeta says the deal for R-27 missiles, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, is in the final stages and is waiting for approval from the Ukrainian leadership. The Vympel R-27 (AA-10 Alamo) missile is a medium-to-long-range air-to-air missile developed by the Soviet Union. It is similar to U.S. AIM-7 Sparrow.
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04/25/2012
U.S. Rep. Sander Levin says he's hopeful that a Pentagon decision to add 24 C-130 air transport planes will offset sharp job cuts planned at Selfridge Air National Guard Base. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recommended Tuesday that the military budget the Air National Guard planes and the 2,200 personnel needed to support them.
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04/25/2012
Northrop Grumman and Bell Helicopter have received a Navy contract to produce the first of a possible fleet of unmanned helicopters. Northrop announced Tuesday that it has a $262 million contract to convert eight Bell commercial helicopters into unmanned aircraft for military use.
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04/25/2012
In combat zones, National Guard units generally take their orders from active duty commanders. Not so in Washington. For two months, the Air National Guard, with the help of governors from every state, has been battling the active duty Air Force over proposed budget cuts that would have trimmed the Guard’s force by more than 5,000 people and more than 200 aircraft.
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04/25/2012
Sudanese war planes bombed a market in the capital of South Sudan's oil-producing Unity State on Monday, residents and officials said, an attack the southern army called a declaration of war. Sudan denied carrying out any air raids but its President Omar Hassan al-Bashir ramped up the political tension by ruling out a return to negotiations with the South, saying its government only understood "the language of the gun".
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04/25/2012
Israel, the US, and some European powers have alleged that Iran aims to build nuclear weapons to complement its conventional arms, but Tehran says its current programme is for peaceful, civilian purposes. Regardless, Western powers generally agree that Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon and is at least many, many months away from having a deliverable warhead - if the development of one is indeed its goal.
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04/25/2012
The exercise, codenamed Operation Chimichanga, was held at the US military’s Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex near Eilson Air Force Base, Alaska, and involved a variety of combat aircraft and bombers, including F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, B-1 bombers, E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system (AWACS) and KC-135 Stratotankers air-refueling aircraft.
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04/25/2012
The Boeing Company delivered a second set of P-8A Poseidon training devices to the U.S. Navy on March 29 at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Fla. The devices consist of an Operational Flight Trainer (OFT), a Weapons Tactics Trainer (WTT) and four Electronic Classrooms. "The P-8A Weapons Tactics Trainer is a new innovation for Boeing," said Mark McGraw, Boeing vice president for Training Systems and Government Services.
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04/25/2012
On Saturday, Apr. 21, a Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] F-35A Lightning II conventional takeoff and landing aircraft completed the program’s first in-flight refueling mission while configured with external weapons at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. George Schwartz piloted the test aircraft, known as AF-4, with two external inert AIM-9X weapons and four external stores.
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04/25/2012
Russia signed a deal with Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday agreeing the rent Russia will pay for using military facilities in that country. The deal was signed following a meeting between Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and his counterparts from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in Beijing on Tuesday, Serdyukov’s spokeswoman Lt. Col. Irina Kovalchuk said.
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04/25/2012
The first prototype of TAI-modernized T38 jet trainer aircraft has been delivered to the Turkish Air Force (TurAF) following a special handover ceremony at TAI's facilities. Turkish Aerospace Industries, Inc. (TAI), as a prime contractor, was awarded a contract by the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) to design, develop and implement an avionics upgrade for the TurAF under the T-38 Avionics Modernization (ARI) Program.
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04/24/2012
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, has made public its best guess about what might have caused its unmanned arrowhead-shaped Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2) to suddenly lose contact and crash in the Pacific just a few minutes after slicing through the sky at Mach 20 last August: it was going so fast its skin peeled off.
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04/24/2012
Rolls-Royce, the turbine and engine maker, has signed a contract worth up to $598m to supply engines for the US Marine Corps and Air Force’s V-22 tilt rotor aircraft. Under the terms of the contract UK Rolls-Royce will deliver 70 of the 268 AE 1107C engines in the first year, with the rest of the batch being part of an optional addition over four more years.
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04/24/2012
Boeing must perform on the new KC-46 tanker programme, the US Air Force is warning the company as the aircraft enters its preliminary design review (PDR). Otherwise the service could walk away. "We could buy more KC-46s or - make no mistake about it - if Boeing doesn't perform, we'll just start another competition," says Maj Gen Christopher Bogdan, the USAF's KC-46 programme executive officer.
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04/24/2012
AgustaWestland company, is pleased to announce the new generation AW149 military helicopter’s outstanding capabilities have officially been presented to a number of national and local dignitaries at Warsaw-Babice Airport.
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04/24/2012
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday dismissed Tehran's claims that it has recovered data from a U.S. spy drone that went down in Iran late last year. Panetta declined to provide any details, but said that "based on my experience ... I would seriously question their ability to do what they say they have done."
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04/24/2012
In an awesome show of strength, The Seymour Johnson Air Force Base's 4th Fighter Wing launched 70 F-15E Strike Eagles in a training mission to destroy more than 1,000 targets on bombing ranges across North Carolina. The exercise marks the 67th anniversary of the unit's predecessor gaining the milestone of a thousand 'kills' during World War II.
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04/24/2012
Sudanese war planes bombed a market in the capital of South Sudan's oil-producing Unity State on Monday, residents and officials said, an attack the southern army called a declaration of war. Sudan denied carrying out any air raids but its President Omar Hassan al-Bashir ramped up the political tension by ruling out a return to negotiations with the South, saying its government only understood "the language of the gun".
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04/24/2012
Russia’s defense electronics are up to 12 years behind foreign analogs, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Monday. “The technical level of electronics used in the development and manufacture of military hardware and equipment…is five to 12 years behind that in other countries,” he said. Microelectronics production in Russia is low scale and loss making, and needs government support, he said.
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04/24/2012
The Turkish Air Force has begun training for the acceptance of its new fleet of airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) systems from US manufacturer Boeing. The Seattle-based company has launched a training programme specifically designed to meet the individual requirements of the Turkish programme which will see the first aircraft – based on the 737 platform – being handed over later this year.
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04/23/2012
Israeli forces are carrying out more special operations beyond the country's borders and will be ready to attack Iran's nuclear sites if ordered, the chief-of-staff said in an interview on Sunday. In an extract from an interview with the top-selling Yediot Aharanot daily, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz said that 2012 would be a critical year in efforts to halt what Israel and much of the international community believe is an Iranian nuclear arms programme.
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04/23/2012
Brazil’s Embraer has threatened to pull out of the retendering of a politically charged light attack aircraft contract with the US Air Force if the product requirements are changed significantly. The Brazilian aircraft maker and its US partner Sierra Nevada won the contract last year but it was abruptly cancelled in February after the US Air Force said its staff had botched the documentation for the deal.
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04/23/2012
The U.S. and Afghanistan reached a deal Sunday on a long-delayed strategic partnership agreement that ensures Americans will provide military and financial support to the Afghan people for at least a decade beyond 2014, the deadline for most foreign forces to withdraw. The pact is key to the U.S. exit strategy in Afghanistan because it establishes guidelines for any American forces who remain after the withdrawal deadline and for financial help to the impoverished country and its security force
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