March 19, 2012 Military Aviation News
03/19/2012
AUSTRALIAN Defence Force heavy-lift and amphibious capability has been boosted with the purchase of a sixth C-17 Globemaster cargo plane at a cost of $280 million and an off-shore support ship for $130 million. The additional C-17 purchase will bring to six the number of Globemasters available to the Royal Australian Air Force for military deployment support or disaster relief, Defence Minister Stephen Smith said.
(Read More...)
03/19/2012
China, the world’s top weapons importer for much of the past decade, fell to fourth from second on an annual list from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute as it produces more arms at home. China received 5 percent of the volume of international transfers of “major conventional weapons” from 2007 to 2011, Sipri said in a report released today.
(Read More...)
03/19/2012
Military helicopter experts at the Boeing Co. Defense, Space & Security segment in Mesa, Ariz., are moving forward with the Apache Block III attack helicopter program with a $187 million contract Friday from the U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., for development, integration and testing requirements on the Apache Block III program.
(Read More...)
03/19/2012
Air Marshal Tahir Rafique Butt took over as the new chief of the air staff of Pakistan Air Force (PAF) at a ceremony held here at the Air Headquarters on Monday. Born in 1955, Air Marshal Tahir Rafique Butt received his early education at PAF Public School, Sargodha. Subsequently, he joined Pakistan Air Force and graduated from PAF Academy, Risalpur in March, 1977.
(Read More...)
03/19/2012
Syria imported nearly six times more weapons in 2007-2011 than in the previous five-year period, with Russia accounting for 72 percent of the arms supplies to President Bashar Assad's regime, an international research institute said Monday.
(Read More...)
03/19/2012
Recently, the UK Ministry of Defence announced that it was changing its Procurement decision on the Joint Strike Fighter, the Lockheed F-35 Lightning II, from the STOVL F-35B to the CV F-35C, with a planned order of 50 aircraft. It was deemed that the extra payload and range capability of the F-35C, coupled with the larger deck size of the new carrier provided a cost-effective procurement compared with the F-35B.
(Read More...)
03/19/2012
One year ago, on March 19, 2011, Western leaders, alarmed by the disaster unfolding in Libya, voted in the U.N. Security Council to intervene militarily with "all necessary means," arguing that they could not stand by and watch civilians get massacred. As a result of the U.N. resolution, NATO launched a bombing campaign, led by Britain, France and the U.S., and flew about 10,000 bombing sorties over Libya, helping to obliterate Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year dictatorship in just seven months.
(Read More...)
All Articles