Military Aviation
Aug
23
Ukraine warplane shot down
A Ukrainian warplane was blown out of the sky over rebel-held territory Wednesday as fierce clashes between government troops and pro-Russian insurgents left dozens of civilians dead. Fighting intensified as Kiev appeared to ramp up a deadly offensive to crush the ailing rebellion in the east ahead of a fresh round of diplomacy that will see the presidents of Russia and Ukraine meet next week for the first time in ...
Category: Military Aviation
A group of major Japanese firms are planning a test flight next year for the nation’s first homegrown stealth fighter jet, a report said Tuesday. The consortium led by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is developing a jet that has similar technology to US-made F-35 stealth fighters, with a prototype set for a test run in January, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper said. About 39.2 billion yen ($384 million) has been invested in ...
Category: Military Aviation
Three Sukhoi ground attack jets shown landing in Iraq in a video released by the defence ministry are likely from Iran, a think tank said on Wednesday. Iraq has purchased more than a dozen Sukhoi jets from Russia in a bid to bolster its forces in their battle against a sweeping militant offensive that has overrun large areas of five provinces. On Tuesday, the defence ministry said a second group ...
Category: Military Aviation
More than 400 large US military drones have crashed around the world in the past 13 years, a Washington Post investigation has found. The Post obtained documents detailing accidents including collisions with homes, farms, runways, roads, waterways and even an air force transport plane in midair. Several drones vanished while at cruising altitude and were lost. In April, an army drone crashed next to an elementary-school playground in Pennsylvania; in ...
Category: Military Aviation
China is improving its military doctrine, training, weapons and surveillance to be able to conduct more sophisticated attacks against the United States and other adversaries, including Japan, according to the Pentagon. After jamming communications and mounting other forms of electronic and cyberwarfare ...
Category: Military Aviation
South Korea is spending several hundred million dollars to upgrade most their 140 KF-16 fighters. These were assembled in South Korea from 1994 to 2004 under license and are going through a mid-life upgrade in the United States. This will involves installing a more powerful AESA radar, new electronics (displays, sensors and computers) as well as new cabling and other related components f0r 134 KF-16s. The upgrades will begin in ...
Category: Military Aviation
The fate of the A-10 close-air support platform has been the most contentious issue between the Air Force and Congress over the last six months. If comments made Tuesday are any indication, it’s a fight that isn’t going away. At a hearing called to discuss the future force mixture among active, Guard and Reserve components, Secretary Deborah Lee James and Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh ran into an A-10 ...
Category: Military Aviation
Airspace over Ukraine's Crimean peninsula was closed late Friday, officials said, and a Kiev newspaper reported that at least five Ilyushin-76 Russian transport planes landed at a Russian naval airstrip near Simferopol. The reported moves followed a day of major escalation of the strategic confrontation between Crimea's ...
Category: Military Aviation
Long disliked by the US Air Force, the A-10 Thunderbolt II ground-attack jet may finally be heading for the chopping block due to budget constraints. The “Warthog,” first designed as a tank buster to target Soviet armored vehicles in the middle of the Cold War in the early 1970s, is shunned by many aviators. Although the twin-engine aircraft is slow, it is incredibly efficient at providing close air support for ...
Category: Military Aviation
Boeing’s chief F/A-18 test pilot pulled the nose of the Super Hornet up into a steep 40-degree angle, then tilted the wings to the left and right, as he demonstrated the popular Navy fighter jet’s ability to manoeuvre, even when under attack. Loops, pirouettes and even a freefall on the plane’s back followed during a demonstration flight on the opening day of the Dubai Airshow, where Boeing is showcasing a ...
Category: Military Aviation
Oct
04
J-31 Chinese junk?
A new fighter plane built by China is drawing more snickers than raves from aviation experts, and the People’s Army is now saying the jet was really ticketed for export all along. The J-31 “Falcon Hawk,” likely designed by reverse-engineering a downed U.S. stealth fighter, was supposed “to become China’s next generation of carrier-based aircraft” and take its place next to the U.S.-made F-35 Lightning II as the gold standard ...
Category: Military Aviation
Prague expects to renew its lease on 14 Swedish fighter jets beyond 2015, outgoing Czech prime minister Jiri Rusnok said Monday. “The negotiations are at an advanced stage. The ball is actually in our court. The Swedes are awaiting our final answer to their recent offer,” he told reporters. The new contract with Stockholm over the supersonic JAS-39 Gripen combat jets could be inked at the end of the year ...
Category: Military Aviation
An American F-15 fighter crashed into the sea after its pilot ejected from his plane off Japan’s southernmost Okinawa prefecture on Tuesday, the US Air Force said. “A Kadena-based F-15 aircraft developed a problem that ultimately resulted in the pilot ejecting from the aircraft over the Pacific Ocean approximately 70 miles (110 kilometres) east of Okinawa,” the air force said, referring to the hub of American air power in the ...
Category: Military Aviation
A carrier-borne aviation force has been formally established as part of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, military sources said on Friday. The forming of the force, approved by the Central Military Commission (CMC), demonstrates that the development of China’s aircraft carriers has entered a new phase, the sources said. ...
Category: Military Aviation
