December 16, 2011 Military Aviation News
12/16/2011
U.S. officials in Baghdad have spoken of the sacrifices made by both Americans and Iraqis at a formal ceremony marking the end of U.S. military operations in Iraq after nearly nine years of war. U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that "after a lot of blood spilled by Iraqis and Americans, the mission of an Iraq that could govern and secure itself has become real."
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12/16/2011
The US Department of Defense on December 14th, has announced that Lockheed Martin have been awarded $600M fixed-price contract for a Foreign Military Sales program that will provide the government of Oman 12 additional F-16 C/D block 50 Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft.
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12/16/2011
There is no chance that Canada will cancel its order for about 65 F-35 joint strike fighters.
That fact was underlined again this week with reports from Japan that before Christmas, Tokyo will announce its intention to buy as many as 50 of the state-of-the-art stealth warplanes.
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12/16/2011
The most interesting intelligence-related incident in recent times has been the loss of an American RQ-170 Sentinel ''stealth'' Unmanned Aircraft System to Iran earlier this month. Another term for the aircraft is ''low-observable Unmanned Aerial Vehicle'' or UAV. The ''RQ'' denominator indicates that it is not an armed aircraft, unlike the Predator or Reaper UAVs with their ''MQ'' prefix and air-to-surface-missile fits.
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12/16/2011
The raging arms race in the region between the U.S, China, Japan and Russia has shifted from naval weapons to fighter planes. The Japanese government says it will select Lockheed Martin's F35 stealth jet as its choice for the next-generation fighter plane. Tokyo will apparently announce its selection later this week. It will purchase four of the radar-evading fighters in 2016 and deploy a total of 50 in stages. The total cost is estimated at W10.23 trillion (US$1=W1,156).
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12/16/2011
The British government's most senior defence and security policy advisers are finally facing up to a fundamental shift in the world's military and economic balance. More than two decades after the end of the cold war, they are acknowledging some harsh realities - Europe will no longer be able to rely on the US, Europe is getting progressively poorer, and the people of Europe want to spend less on weapons, not more.
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12/16/2011
The Air Force made public a long-awaited report about the death of a pilot who crashed in the Alaskan wilderness in the military's most expensive fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor. An Air Force accident investigation board issued a report that said Capt. Jeff "Bong" Haney, 31, was at fault when his F-22 crashed near Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson during a test mission at night in November 2010.
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12/16/2011
Develop one aircrew mask that can be used on over 100 different air frames. That is the challenge for researchers assigned to the Joint Service Aircrew Mask-Fixed Wing Program.
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12/16/2011
There’s been much talk in the media of an apparent offer by the Seychelles of a base for Chinese ships deployed to the Gulf of Aden and the West Indian Ocean, to help combat piracy. While it’s not yet clear if the offer has been accepted, Chinese media reports suggest that Beijing is actively considering it as a “resupply” base.
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12/16/2011
Belarus has taken delivery of the first consignment of advanced Tor-M2 antiaircraft missile systems from Russia, Belarusian Defense Minister Yury Zhadobin said on Thursday. “The first two units arrived yesterday,” he told the Belta news agency. All 14 systems will have been delivered before December 24, he said, adding that the first Tor-M2 battery would be based in the Brest region.
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