July 2011
Jul
29
F-16 damaged during landing
The Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jet was damaged when it overshot a runway at an air show in Oshkosh, Wis. The jet came to rest nose-down into the grass, officials said. The pilot was not injured, but the plane’s nose gear collapsed and the nose cone was cracked, officials said. A cause of the mishap has not been determined. The incident occurred Thursday at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture in ...
Category: Military Aviation
Jul
28
The USMC and the F-35C
The Lockheed Martin F-35C for the Marines makes little sense the sine-qua-non of Marine Aviation is first and foremost support the 0311 Rifleman. Tethering the Marine tactical fixed wing to a CBG, which may or may not be available as needed, or a long airfield, which again may or may not be available, rather than deploying the emerging three dimensional F-35B capability makes little technological sense-let alone tactical sense. Since all ...
Category: F-35 Lightning II
According to the Russian International Information Telegraph Agency refuses regarding India to purchase the Mig-35 fighter plane incidents, Russia strategy and technical analysis center assistant director Constantine Markey extended the branch saying. Russia should let the Indian Air force undertake the consequence for own decision. In the Moscow tradition to maintains the restraint to the Pakistani sell weapon, but refuses in India to purchase under the Mig-35 new situations, should ...
Category: MiG News
Russia’s Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA fifth-generation fighter has been placed on a short list of a South Korean tender for the delivery of advanced fighter jets, a Russian arms industry think-tank said on Monday. Korea is seeking to buy 60 fighters with advanced stealth capability from a foreign aircraft maker in the biggest arms-procurement deal ever for the country with an estimated budget of $7.86 billion under a program code-named FX-III. ...
Category: Russian Aviation
C-130 Hercules transport plane slammed into a mountainside in bad weather in southern Morocco, killing all eighty people on board, hospital and military sources said. The army said overnight seventy eight people were killed on the spot and two rushed to hospital after the Hercules C-130 crashed on the edge of the Sahara desert in Morocco’s worst military aviation disaster. A hospital source later told AFP that the injured died ...
Category: Military Aviation
The French Defense Ministry said Thursday it has entered into talks with civil and military aviation company Dassault Aviation (AM.FR) for it to design variants of Israeli-made medium-altitude, long endurance unmanned drones for use by the French military, starting in 2014. The French Air Force needs to replace its aging fleet of Harfang drones made by European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. NV (EAD.FR) that will be phased out in ...
Category: Military Aviation
Russian aviation endured a weekend of near misses, with laser attacks, birds and engine failure endangering passenger jets. In Rostov-na-Donu a Boeing jet arriving from Moscow was targeted by a laser beam in another attempt to dazzle pilots as they came in to land on Saturday evening. The crew managed to land the plane, and its 95 passengers, safely despite a green beam interfering with their vision. Moreover, the pilots ...
Category: General Aviation
The RAF’s largest ever aircraft was officially named Voyager at a ceremony attended by the Defence Secretary. The aircraft flew into RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire for its first public appearance at this weekend’s Royal International Air Tattoo. The dual role air-to-air tanker and transport plane has a 60-metre wingspan and is nearly 60 metres long. Voyager, which is able to carry almost 300 troops more than 6,000 miles, will replace ...
Category: Military Aviation
The Ministry of Defence has announced that, in the coming days, the UK will deploy an additional four Tornado to Gioia del Colle air base in Italy, primarily in the reconnaissance role to further support operations over Libya. The aircraft are in addition to 12 RAF Tornados already deployed at Gioia del Colle. This latest deployment is intended to bolster NATO’s reconnaissance capability. Equipped with RAPTOR (Reconnaissance Airborne Pod for ...
Category: Military Aviation
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. “We will sign a contract with the Defense Ministry next year,” Irkut President Alexei Fyodorov said. The contract stipulates the initial delivery of 28 fighter jets and the supply of an additional 12 aircraft as an option. The ...
Category: Russian Aviation
EA-18G Growlers operated by U.S. Navy electronic attack squadron VAQ-132 safely returned to their home base at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Wash., on July 9, after completing an eight-month deployment that included combat operations in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) areas of responsibility. During the deployment, VAQ-132’s personnel and aircraft supported CENTCOM operations in Iraq before quickly transitioning to AFRICOM to conduct operations supporting ...
Category: Military Aviation
The People’s Liberation Army Navy has finally broken the silence about its new carrier-based jet fighter, the J-15. While outside observers have strongly suspected for several years that China intended to deploy the J-15 – an adaptation of the Russian Su-33 – aboard the PLAN’s first aircraft carrier Shi Lang, Chinese officials didn’t confirm it until last week.Confirmation of the J-15 came with some revealing details about the plane’s missions ...
Category: Military Aviation
The Department of Defense’s first F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter touched down at its new home here July 14, marking a major milestone in the nation’s military history. Upon arrival, the jet officially became part of the Air Force inventory. It now belongs to the JSF training unit, the 33rd Fighter Wing. Flying it in was Lt. Col. Eric Smith of the 58th Fighter Squadron, the first Air Force ...
Category: F-35 Lightning II
The F-35 integrated test force, along with the aircraft launch and recovery engineering team at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JB MDL), completed the first jet blast deflector (JBD) test on the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, July 8.The test was completed at JB MDL using the F-35C test aircraft designated ‘CF-2.’ The testing collected data on the effects of F-35C engine exhaust on fleet-representative 4- and 6-panel JBD units and the flight ...
Category: F-35 Lightning II
