Military Aviation News Archive
07/19/2011
Recent briefings in Brussels and London on Operation Unified Protector reveal that attack helicopters provided by France and the UK are now making key contributions to NATO-led operations over Libya, which has been extended until the end of September.
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07/19/2011
Ukraine's arms exports in 2010 reached almost a billion dollars with the bulk of weaponry sold to African countries, the Kommersant-Ukraine newspaper said on Monday. "The portfolio of contracts signed by state-run arms exporter Ukrspetsexport increased in value from $799.5 in 2009 to $956.7 billion [in 2010]," the paper cited data released by the State Service for Export Control.
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07/19/2011
Russia's Irkut aircraft holding is in talks with the Defense Ministry on the delivery of up to 40 Sukhoi Su-30 multirole fighters to the Russian Air Force, the company said on Monday.
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07/19/2011
The third production C-5M Super Galaxy took its first flight today here at the Lockheed Martin facility in Marietta. Aircraft 0005 is stationed at Dover Air Force Base, Del. and assigned to be flown by both active duty and reserve airlift wings there.
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07/19/2011
The fifth Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II Short Take Off/Vertical Landing (STOVL) flight test aircraft delivered to the Marine Corps arrives at Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River, Md., Saturday, July 16.
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07/18/2011
Since early May, pilots at Langley Air Force Base have been living life at less than supersonic speeds. The Air Force ordered a stand-down of its F-22 Raptor fleet on May 3 after reports of potential malfunctions in the oxygen system. The investigation has since expanded to include all aspects of the aircraft, according to Air Combat Command, which is headquartered at Langley.
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07/18/2011
Somebody should get the AVIC and CATIC marketing staffs back on the same page. I realized yesterday that I had picked up two different product cards in the exhibit halls of the Paris Air Show for the JF-17 Thunder, the low-cost, multi-role, Chinese-Pakistani collaboration.
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07/18/2011
France recently announced that it has been spending about $2.5 million a day for operations in Libya. France and Britain are the largest contributors, in terms of warplanes, to the Libya operation. But the U.S. is still contributing most of the aircraft, except that most of these are support (intelligence, electronic warfare, refueling and transport).
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07/18/2011
Noting that there was a “mismatch” between Indian procurement requirements and the American license regime, the US business chambers has strongly pitched for finding “breakdown” in these procedures and also recommended issuance of a list of “pre-approved” technologies by the US to India.
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07/18/2011
NATO aircraft have carried out a "major strike" today on a military depot at Tajura, north-east of Tripoli, the U.K. Ministry of Defence said.
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07/18/2011
It is rare for two serving Air Force chiefs to concur, but in an appraisal of the Eurofighter Typhoon, one of the two contenders for a multi-billion dollar Indian Air Force tender, they unanimously voted it as very reliable as seen in the operations against Libya.
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07/18/2011
One of the fastest helicopter prototypes ever developed, the Sikorsky X2 technology demonstrator, is being retired after making its final flight last Thursday. The X2 has served its purpose, and the technological lessons learned from the prototype are blending into the Sikorsky S-97 Raider helicopter program, which Sikorsky will propose for the U.S. Army's future Armed Aerial Scout program.
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07/18/2011
TechNewsDaily was recently invited to take a rare behind-the-scenes tour of a UAS ground control station in Italy that is jointly shared by the Italian and U.S. air forces to demystify some of the operations of these robot warrior aircraft.
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07/17/2011
An international consortium for the development of an advanced fighter aircraft? It sounds familiar – and the precedent isn’t encouraging. The programme to build the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) involving the United States and eight other countries has become a cautionary tale over the complexity and runaway expense of developing a next-generation fighter aircraft.
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07/17/2011
China has been dedicated to a peaceful external environment so that it can concentrate on domestic agendas, bring more welfare to the world's biggest population and remain committed to world and regional peace and stability.
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07/16/2011
Sikorsky Aircraft launched its new hybrid helicopter line, the S-97 Raider, this week, creating what could generate the future lines of all its helicopters, one analyst said. The launch of the S-97 follows the final flight of an experimental aircraft, the X2, in Florida on Thursday, which management credited for paving the way for the new line.
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07/16/2011
Minister of external affairs S M Krishna mistook Washington’s suspension of the $800 million military aid to Pakistan as its termination and endorsed the US move. It is not just bad advice he acted on that’s at fault. There’s something gravely amiss in India’s Pakistan policy. Does the Indian government think that India or the United States is better placed to decide how much security is enough for Pakistan than the Pakistanis themselves?
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07/16/2011
French air force and navy Rafale F3 combat aircraft are touted as true “omnirole fighters.” Military officials say there are multirole fighters that conduct reconnaissance, air-to-air combat, air-to-surface attack or deterrence, but only one at a time. The F3 can perform all in a single mission, they maintain.
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07/16/2011
Lockheed Martin recently delivered the final AN/AAQ-39 targeting system full production unit to the U.S. Air Force. Q-39 is the electro-optical/infrared targeting system for the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command AC-130U Gunship.
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07/16/2011
The first Lockheed Martin production model F-35 Lightning II to be assigned to the 33rd Fighter Wing arrived here today at 1:18 p.m. CDT after its more than 90-minute ferry flight from Fort Worth, Texas. The aircraft, known as AF-9, will be used for activities in concert with training F-35 pilots and maintainers who begin coursework at the base’s new F-35 Integrated Training Center this fall.
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07/16/2011
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called on the alliance’s members to send more aircraft to deliver surgical strikes on Libyan targets, Western media said on Friday.
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07/16/2011
Several Belarusian firms will showcase over 40 types of military-purpose electronic equipment and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) at the MAKS-2011 air show near Moscow in August, a Belarusian defense industry official said.
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07/14/2011
It is costly to operate in the vast and inhospitable Arctic. But the Canadian military is exploring a way to cut costs and speed up the movement of troops and equipment by building several new northern bases.
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07/14/2011
Western Libyan rebels pushing towards Tripoli plan to attack a pivotal city within a week, a top commander said, speaking hours before his forces lost ground captured last week from loyalist forces.
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07/14/2011
The past 20 years has been a tale of near-continuous decline for the ex-Soviet military. Once it was the largest military force on the planet. Of late it has fallen to a mere shadow of its former self. So low have the fortunes of Russia’s conventional military fallen that it was barely able to defeat Georgia in their short conflict in 2008. The Soviet Union was once known for its massive nuclear arsenal. Now it is barely able to maintain a viable force; most of its systems are obsolescent and ag
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