April 10, 2012 Military Aviation News
04/10/2012
The Chinese military has added sea-based unmanned aircraft to its rapidly growing arsenal, with the first of those aircraft already deployed. The People's Liberation Navy (PLN) has begun fielding unmanned surveillance aircraft aboard its fleet of warships, according to recent news reports. Foreign intelligence agencies have already confirmed the existence of one Chinese-built maritime aerial drone aboard PLN ships, United Press International reported Monday.
(Read More...)
04/10/2012
As independent analysts everywhere accused the government of fantasy, a serious charge when the nation’s defences are in question, again we must ask if the charge is too harsh. To this the analysts reply that the hub of the SDSR’s thinking is the acquisition at some time in the future of two aircraft carriers equipped, at some further time in the future, with squadrons of the F-35B or F-35C Joint Strike Fighters.
(Read More...)
04/10/2012
The USS Enterprise has been sent to the Persian Gulf, the US Navy said Monday as tensions rise over Iran’s nuclear program. It will be the fourth time in the last decade the US has had two aircraft carriers on simultaneous missions in the area. The deployment of the second aircraft is "routine and not specific to any threat," stated Commander Amy Derrick-Frost of the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet. The Enterprise and its strike group entered the fleet’s area of responsibility on April 3.
(Read More...)
04/10/2012
It was 50 years ago this summer and fall that the last of the 744 B-52s built, an H-model that is still flying out of Minot Air Force Base, N.D., rolled off the assembly line and was accepted into the fleet. October also marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when all of the old Strategic Air Command’s bombers, including Barksdale’s B-52s, were put on 100 percent alert status for a full month.
(Read More...)
04/10/2012
One of the hottest topics in the defense and diplomatic worlds is the Obama administration's "rebalancing" of U.S. interests toward Asia. The new focus is a slate of military and geopolitical strategies meant as a hedge against China, and to a lesser extent its client, North Korea. But what does it mean for the armed forces when the White House focuses its gaze on a new part of the world, and a new foe?
(Read More...)
04/10/2012
No country would dare attack Iran, a top officer in the country's elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said on Monday, adding that Iranian forces planned to engage in more military drills in order to preserve their combat vigilance.
(Read More...)
04/10/2012
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence has summoned the chiefs of the three armed services to testify before it, an unprecedented move made after top military officials told the members that India may not be able to meet a two-front war.
(Read More...)
04/10/2012
Boeing has received a $55.3 million production contract from the U.S. Air Force to upgrade the B-1 Lancer navigation system. The upgrade will replace the original navigation hardware with a new ring laser gyro system. "We are no longer using a spinning mass gyro," said Rick Greenwell, B-1 program director for Boeing.
(Read More...)
04/10/2012
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said on Monday he will attend Tuesday’s test of Georgia’s first unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). “Tomorrow I will test our first drone, which has been designed to the highest technological specifications,” Saakashvili said. “More Georgian technology will follow.”
(Read More...)
04/10/2012
One of the Soviet Union's greatest test pilots, Pyotr Ostapenko, who helped develop MiG fighter planes for over thirty years, died aged 83 on Sunday, MiG said. "One of our country's oldest test pilots passed away on April 8," MiG said. "All his life Pyotr Maksimovich Ostapenko was inseparably connected with national and world aviation. His contribution as a test pilot to the development of world aviation was priceless."
(Read More...)
All Articles