The first Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II Navy carrier variant (CV) aircraft, CF-6, arrived at Strike Fighter Squadron 101 located at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., on Saturday. The jet is the Navy’s first 5th generation F-35 production aircraft. Strike Fighter Squadron 101 will serve as the F-35C Fleet Replacement Squadron, training both pilots and maintainers. CF-6 will join a fleet of 12 F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) jets ...
Category: F-35 Lightning II
Indications are that the F-35 joint strike fighter program - the most expensive aviation program in Defense Department history - is on track, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics told a Senate panel here June 19. Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee's ...
Category: F-35 Lightning II
Hess said negotiations were still under way with the U.S. Defense Department but he expected the contract’s final price to reflect a further cost reduction of less than 10 percent, continuing a trend seen in recent years. “We’re making progress there. We’ve gotten an offer from the (Joint Program Office) and I expect we’ll get that closed pretty quickly …certainly within 30 days,” Hess told Reuters in an interview ahead ...
Category: F-35 Lightning II
Russia’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) is expected to be the launch customer for the MiG-35 multi-role fighter. Sergei Korotkov, Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG (RAC MiG) general director, said the company and the MoD are negotiating an initial order for 24 aircraft, with an option that would increase the number to about 40. “Today, we are at the stage of preparing contract documents,” Korotkov told reporters on May 31, during a 60th-anniversary ceremony ...
Category: MiG News
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
The first in a batch of Su-34 production frontline bombers to be delivered in 2013 to the Russian Air Force under the State Defense Order for the year was delivered by the Sukhoi Company. Following the handover ceremony at the airfield of the Novosibirsk-based V.P. Chkalov aviation plant of Sukhoi, the aircraft departed for its assigned home base. Several more Su-34 bombers will be delivered to the Russian Air Force shortly. The work to ...
Category: Russian 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
The Indian Navy has commissioned its first squadron of MiG-29K / KUB shipborne fighters, dubbed the “Black Panthers,” a RSK MiG spokesperson in India said on Saturday. The ceremony at an airbase in Dabolim, in the state of Goa on India’s west coast, was attended by India’s Defense Minister A K Antony, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral D K Joshi and MiG Director-General Sergei Korotkov. The squadron comprises 12 single-seat MiG-29Ks and four ...
Category: MiG News
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KC-135 crash in Kyrgyzstan
Category: Military Aviation
Russia’s fifth-generation T-50 fighter jet will enter service with the country’s armed forces in 2016, and not 2015 as was previously announced, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. “The T-50 fifth generation jet should go into serial production and enter service in 2016,” Putin said at a live Q&A session with the Russian public. The Defense Ministry had earlier said the jet would be ready in 2015. Russia will start state flight ...
Category: Russian Aviation
To a pilot, a radar is only as useful as the information it provides, and Northrop Grumman’s Synthetic Aperture Radar mapping for the Scalable Agile Beam Radar delivers the largest, sharpest radar images ever available in an F-16. The company’s SABR has successfully demonstrated several advanced radar capabilities for the F-16, including Big SAR maps with automatic target cueing. The SABR Big SAR offers an unprecedented level of situational awareness ...
Category: Military Aviation
The Boeing X-48C research aircraft flew for the 30th and final time April 9, marking the successful completion of an eight-month flight-test program to explore and further validate the aerodynamic characteristics of the Blended Wing Body design concept. All 30 flights were conducted at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center. The X-48C typically flew for approximately 30 minutes on most flights, reaching speeds of up to 140 miles per hour and attaining an ...
Category: Military Aviation
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Korea for sixty F-35 Conventional Take Off and Landing aircraft and associated equipment, parts, training and logistical support for an estimated cost of $10.8 billion. The Government of the Republic of Korea has requested a possible sale of (60) F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Conventional Take Off and Landing aircraft. Aircraft will be configured with the Pratt & ...
Category: F-35 Lightning II
China has agreed to buy two dozen fighter jets and four submarines from Russia, state media reported Monday, the country’s first large-scale weapons technology purchases from Moscow in a decade. The agreement to buy the 24 Su-35 fighters and four Lada-class submarines was signed just before President Xi Jinping’s weekend visit to Russia, said the People’s Daily, the Communist Party organ, citing state television. The report, which did not give a value for the purchases, said ...
Category: Russian Aviation