Military Aviation News Archive
10/26/2011
Although it is far from certain that the Airbus Military A400M transport will meet two of its 2011 targets — receiving its type certification and flying the fifth test aircraft — program officials are generally upbeat about overall development progress and confident that the far more important objective, delivering the first customer aircraft, can be met next year.
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10/26/2011
An Air Force fighter jet crashed in a sparsely populated part of southern Nevada on Monday, but the pilot was able to eject from the aircraft and didn’t suffer any injuries, authorities said. The F-15C Eagle from Nellis Air Force Base crashed on federal land northwest of Alamo, Nev., said Lt. Ken Lustig, an Air Force spokesman. Alamo is about 100 miles north of Las Vegas.
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10/26/2011
Allied air power saved the Libyan revolt from being crushed at least once, if not twice, this past summer. Nearly 8,000 allied strike sorties kept Gadhafi's forces on the defensive, destroyed their command-and-control network, and eliminated much of their supply infrastructure.
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10/26/2011
From managing hot pursuits of an intelligence target halfway around the world, to real-time intelligence gathering at the scene at a far away location, to the firing of a lethal precision missile at a top terrorist - modern armies no longer consider these unmanned combat systems just expensive toys.
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10/26/2011
US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta assured anxious Asian allies that the U.S. will maintain its large military presence in the Pacific as a counterweight to China, despite mounting pressure at home to cut spending. US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta at a news conference during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defence ministers’ meeting ion Indonesia’s resort island of Bali, on Sunday.
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10/26/2011
America's Air Force has again grounded portions of its stealthy fleet of F-22 Raptor tactical fighter jets. This comes on the heels of a recent four-month grounding of the fleet earlier this year. While the call for accountability is certainly warranted, Air Force leaders appear to be doing everything possible to keep the pilots safe while trying to identify the problem.
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10/26/2011
Boeing delivered the 12th C-40A aircraft to the U.S. Navy on Oct. 21. The Boeing 737-700 derivative was modified at the company's Wichita facility for troop and cargo transport missions. Boeing and Navy representatives marked the milestone with a ceremonial "passing of the key" at the Wichita facility before the aircraft departed for its home base at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego.
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10/26/2011
Russian Mi-28N Night Hunter has lost a tender on the delivery of 22 attack helicopters to the Indian military in strong competition with the American AH-64D Apache, an Indian Defense Ministry source said on Tuesday.
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10/25/2011
The White House announced that once again, the United States would be reevaluating its defense partnership with the Republic of China on Taiwan. The administration decided last month that the arms package it would be selling to Taipei would be sorely reduced; the Pentagon has chosen not to sell Taiwan 66 late-model F-16 aircraft, a deal potentially valued at over $8 billion, after years of debate over whether to supply the free Chinese island with advanced strike aircraft to upgrade its aging ai
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10/25/2011
The first sea trials of the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter model designed for the Marine Corps were successfully completed last week, the program office said today. The F-35B short-take off and vertical landing version finished three weeks of tests on the Marine amphibious assault ship USS Wasp, achieving “all planned flight envelope test points,” Joseph DellaVedova, a spokesman for the Joint Strike Fighter program, said in an e-mail.
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10/25/2011
Saab AB’s joint venture with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to manufacture airborne electronic warfare systems in Bangalore will commence production in six months from now, the Swedish defence aircraft manufacturer said today. It was in February this year that the Stockholm-headquartered company announced its JV plan. Today, Saab India Technologies managing director Inderjit Sial said the two firms were currently working out the business plan, including financial details.
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10/25/2011
Witness accounts tell of Kenyan fighter aircraft attacking targets deep inside neighbouring Somalia, of hundreds of heavily armed soldiers backed by armoured vehicles, helicopter gunships and artillery deploying across the border.
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10/25/2011
The Defence Ministry has invited Eurofighter and Dassault Rafale - the two shortlisted vendors in the multi-billion dollar combat aircraft deal - on November 4 to open their commercial bids after which a final decision on giving the contract will be taken. The two shortlisted vendors have received a letter from the Ministry and have been informed that commercial bids for procuring 126 Multi-role Combat Aircraft (M-MRCA) tender will be opened on November 4, industry sources told PTI here.
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10/25/2011
One of the most-talked-about news this year was that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il could not come out of his underground bunker for nine days, fearful of the F-22 Raptors in the skies above during a joint military drill between South Korea and the United States late last year.
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10/25/2011
A lobbying effort to keep Joint Strike Fighter aircraft and repair work flying toward Cherry Point continues in earnest, spurred on by warnings that scrapping the F-35 program could compromise the nation’s defense. A Friday column by nonprofit Lexington Institute CEO Loren B. Thompson warns that “very few politicians or pundits seem to grasp the pivotal role that F-35 plays in future military plans.”
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10/25/2011
When Lt. Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti was the U.S. military commander in eastern Afghanistan last year, he toured the battlefield with his counterparts from Pakistan along both sides of the porous border. U.S. and Pakistani troops conducted coordinated operations to squeeze Taliban insurgents seeking sanctuary in the rugged mountains along the border.
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10/24/2011
The Pakistani military forced an Indian army helicopter to land for violating Pakistani airspace and detained four Indian army officers. The helicopter intruded into Pakistani territory in the Olding sector of the northern Skardu region at around 1pm (9am BST) on Sunday.
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10/24/2011
After receiving a month ago the first initial training aircraft for the Afghan Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training, this morning the first three of six new Cessna C-208B advanced trainers have arrived at Shindand Air Base. Capable of carrying a combination of ten passengers and up to 3000 pounds of cargo, they can serve in a light transport aircraft role, and as such twenty more will be acquired by the AAF to be stationed across Afghanistan.
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10/24/2011
Canada's new multibillion-dollar stealth fighters are expected to arrive without the built-in capacity to communicate from the country's most northerly regions — a gap the air force is trying to close.
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10/24/2011
NORAD says military aircraft intercepted two civilian aircraft in separate incidents in the Washington region.
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10/24/2011
Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots will officially get a taste of home-grown Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas with the 12th aircraft from the project flight-line and the seventh from the limited series production (LSP-7) block set to kiss the skies soon.
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10/24/2011
Technical glitches led to two aircraft crashes this summer within eight days of each other, according to separate accident investigations. An unmanned MQ-1B Predator was destroyed during a June 28 crash near Jalalabad, Afghanistan. A QF-4 crashed July 6 about 70 miles east of Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., with the pilot safely ejecting and suffering minor injuries.
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10/24/2011
Pentagon leaders are hoping a mandate to cut at least $350 billion from the defense budget over the next 10 years won’t disrupt plans for a more agile, efficient and modern force that still can reach across the globe to deliver a crushing blow when needed. That’s what they hope. The only thing for sure is that the military will be smaller when the budget-cutters get done.
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10/24/2011
Well, with the wounds closing up from last week’s flogging at the hands of Dark Souls, I decided to drop the sword and shield for a while and hopped into the cockpit to take on Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. Hilariously enough, it's published by Namco-Bandi, the same company that made Dark Souls.
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10/24/2011
Indian Air Force (IAF) chief, Air Chief Norman Anil Kumar Browne motivated defense scientists, to realize the importance of manufacturing a military aircraft engine for the home made Light Combat Aircraft (LCA).
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