Military Aviation News Archive
09/20/2011
Azerbaijan’s armed forces will take delivery of 60 Orbiter and Aerostar unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) by the end of this year, the Azerbaijan Press Agency (APA) said on Monday quoting military sources.
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09/20/2011
Qatar's government is said to be considering purchasing a substantial stake in EADS – the European aerospace and defence conglomerate which owns Airbus, Eurocopter and other major manufacturers.
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09/19/2011
Dassault Aviation is expected to put an offer to sell about 60 Rafale fighterjets to the United Arab Emirates this month, in a sign that negotiations are progressing, Les Echos newspaper reported on Thursday. Last month another French newspaper said an agreement could be reached between September and the end of the year.
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09/19/2011
BAE Systems is teaming with Northrop Grumman to propose its Hawk trainer for a forthcoming U.S. Air Force competition to replace the T-38C fast-jet trainer. The team plans to announce their partnership on Sept. 19 at the annual Air Force Association conference, according to industry officials. Competitors are likely to include Lockheed Martin/Korea Aerospace Industries’ T-50 and Alenia Aermacchi’s M346.
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09/19/2011
A Turkish military cargo plane was attacked by anti-aircraft weaponry after parachuting humanitarian aid into Libya on Sunday. Turkish and National Transitional Council, or NTC, executives had decided to parachute the aid into Waddan, south of Sirte and near Libya’s border with Niger, early on Sunday. The two cargo planes took off from Benghazi Military Airport and when they reached Waddan, one of them became the target of anti-aircraft fire.
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09/19/2011
The Obama administration has decided to upgrade Taiwan's existing fleet of F-16 fighter jets but not sell it the new planes it also wants, congressional staff said. The administration gave a briefing on Capitol Hill on its decision Friday, but has yet to issue a formal notification of the intended deal. An announcement is expected by the end of this month.
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09/19/2011
Pakistani troops battled Taliban militants Sunday morning to win control of the remnants of a CIA drone that crashed in the nation’s borderlands, according to Pakistani security officials.
The cause of the crash of the unmanned Predator aircraft, among the drones the CIA uses to fire missiles at Taliban and al-Qaeda hideouts in the rocky region bordering Afghanistan, remained in dispute hours after it was downed in Zangarha village in South Waziristan.
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09/19/2011
India is swiftly moving towards inking another major deal for training aircraft to teach rookie pilots the intricacies of combat flying before it stitches up the over $10.4 billion (Rs 42,000 crore) project to acquire 126 top-notch fighters. The Rs 2,900 crore deal for acquiring 75 Swiss Pilatus PC-7 turbo basic trainers is in the final stages now, with the "note" prepared for the Cabinet Committee on Security being "vetted" by the finance ministry at present, say defence ministry sources.
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09/19/2011
Romania cannot afford to purchase second-hand F-16 combat aircraft unless granted a long-term financing plan, Romanian president Traian Basescu said on Sunday. "We have no money and we cannot commit ourselves to such a contract without a long-term financing scheme," Basescu said during an interview on private TV channel ProTV.
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09/19/2011
Marines in Arizona will soon duke it out with a crop duster and a Russian helo in a new effort to understand enemy tactics and weaponry. The Antonov An-2, built after World War II, and the Russian Mi-24 Hind, a 1980s-era helo, will be flown at the biannual Weapons and Tactics Instructor course aboard Marine Corps Air Station Yuma.
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09/18/2011
Over the past decade, the Air National Guard has shrunk in size and continues to fly with some of the oldest aircraft in the Defense Department’s inventory. “I’m very concerned about the future of our Air Guard and the Air Force,” said Gen. Craig R. McKinley, chief of the National Guard Bureau.
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09/18/2011
Boeing has selected BAE Systems to provide touch-screen control panels for the U.S. Air Force's KC-46A aerial refueling tanker. The panel allows control of a variety of interior functions on the aircraft, such as lighting, potable water and waste tanks.
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09/18/2011
On Thursday, The Washington Times reported that President Obama has finally made a decision on the long-pending issue of arms sales to Taiwan. According to an unnamed official, the administration has approved the arms package worth $4.2 billion. The package is likely to include upgrading F-16 A/B fighter aircraft, but not the supply of 66 advanced F-16 C/D model aircraft requested by Taiwan.
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09/18/2011
Taiwan and Japan have been sending officers and NCOs to the United States to obtain useful tips on how to adapt American military experience from the last decade. China has also been mining this experience, but does not have the same close access to American troops that allies like Japan and Taiwan do.
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09/17/2011
Increases in defense spending over the past decade have been good for the Indiana economy, boosting the state’s defense manufacturers and increasing its take of federal dollars. But with U.S. involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, and Congress looking to cut into the massive federal debt, the spending pendulum is swinging the other way.
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09/17/2011
The annual Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) have approved measures designed to further strengthen the alliance's cooperation, interoperability, and capabilities of the two nations' military resources.
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09/17/2011
When Marines are in a firefight in Afghanistan and need back up, they call in helicopters to blast the enemy from the sky. Sounds simple enough, but it’s not — according to current standard operating procedures for close-air strikes, ground troops radio coordinates to a pilot who then has to rifle through 60 to 80 pounds of maps to find the building he’s supposed to hit.
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09/17/2011
The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] on Sept. 15 celebrated the 20th anniversary of the first flight of the C-17 airlifter. On Sept. 15, 1991, test aircraft T-1 took off from the Boeing Long Beach site on a two-hour flight that proved the engineering and design concepts of the aircraft and marked the beginning of the program.
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09/17/2011
Eighteen Su-30K fighter jets which were delivered by Russia to India in the 1990s could end up in service with the Belarusian air force, respected Russian business daily Kommersant said on Friday.
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09/16/2011
With two flagship programs in the balance, EADS is awaiting formal government endorsement of both its Eurofighter Typhoon active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and Talarion unmanned aircraft endeavors.
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09/16/2011
F-35 production could be frozen at around 32 aircraft for four years, if a US Senate committee's version of the fiscal year 2012 defence budget is signed into law. The Senate's defence panel, on the appropriations committee, recommended a $695 million reduction in the F-35 programme, and freezing new production orders at 32 aircraft through FY2013.
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09/16/2011
The F-16 production line at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics ' Fort Worth plant could see extended life beyond 2013 should pending orders from Iraq and Oman come through as expected. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that the company is close to landing orders from the two nations.
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09/16/2011
The potential sale of 18 Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters to Iraq looks “very promising,” according to the senior Air Force general in the country. “We are hearing very encouraging words and we certainly hope that that will be soon,” Maj. Gen. Russell Handy, commander of the 9th Air and Space Expeditionary Task Force-Iraq and Director of the Air Component Coordination Element-Iraq, said Wednesday during a briefing at the Pentagon.
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09/16/2011
The major "Velayat 3" drills showed that sanctions imposed on Iran by the US and its European allies over the past three decades were futile, Commander of the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) Brigadier General Hassan Shah-Safi told reporters, Press TV reported with reference to IRNA.
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09/16/2011
The Israeli military has identified an operational requirement for an unmanned vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) platform that will be used to perform resupply and medical evacuation tasks from the front line. Efforts are now being made to allocate a budget for the requirement in the services' new multi-year acquisition plan and the defence ministry will participate in the funding of the proposed solution.
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