May 16, 2012 Military Aviation News
05/16/2012
After winding along a narrow mountain ridge, a caravan of 38 men and mules paused on the Turkish-Iraqi border. Then they heard the propellers overhead. Minutes later, Turkish military aircraft dropped bombs that killed all but four of the men. Instead it killed civilians smuggling gasoline, a tragic blunder in Turkey's nearly three-decade campaign against the guerrillas. The strike in late December was meant to knock out Kurdish separatist fighters.
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05/16/2012
EADS North America has delivered the fourth and final Airbus Military CN235-300 Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) to be supplied to the Mexican Navy under a U.S. Coast Guard managed foreign military sales agreement. The Coast Guard employs the CN235-300 in the HC-144A Ocean Sentry configuration for a range of missions, including search and rescue, disaster relief and drug interdiction.
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05/16/2012
A European naval force operating off east Africa bombarded Somalia for the first time today.
European Union Naval Force (EUNF) said maritime aircraft and helicopters took part in attacks along the coastline of the Galmudug region. No casualties were reported in the raid but pirate commander Bile Hussein said Handulle village was hit and speed boats, fuel depots and an arms store were destroyed.
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05/16/2012
America's Third War is escalating quickly in the skies over Yemen. Despite previous rebuffs from the White House, last month the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and the CIA--which both run parallel drone campaigns in Yemen--were granted broad authority to conduct "signature strikes" against anonymous suspected militants, who are determined to support al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) based on the observed "patterns of suspicious behavior" from multiple intelligence sources.
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05/16/2012
Military exercise conducted by Malaysia and Thailand will be expanded to include other enforcement agencies and Asean members. Armed Forces chief Tan Sri Zulkifeli Mohd Zin said the move would enhance the cooperation on resolving common border issues. "Besides matters of common border security, one of the main theme of the joint exercise would be on coordination of humanitarian and disaster management," he told reporters at the 28th High Level Committee Thailand-Malaysia meeting here.
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05/16/2012
India has received $4.2 billion in offset contracts from defence aerospace programmes since the introduction of its 30% defence offset programme in 2005. Boeing was the largest contributor with $1.7 billion, defence minister AK Antony said in response to a question in Parliament. New Delhi received offsets worth $4.3 billion from 17 contracts in total and the aerospace sector was the biggest contributor with 15 contracts.
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05/16/2012
Unmanned aircraft have become an integral part of modern armies. Almost every day we receive information about drone attacks. Not only Al-Qaeda gunmen, but also civilians end up as their victims. The wide use of drones by the US military in the «war against terror» gave birth to the term «Obama’s drone policy». However, the combat capabilities of unmanned aircraft are costly. NATO’s plan of creating a united group of reconnaissance drones could cost three billion Euros within 20 years.
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05/16/2012
The House panel that controls military expenditures proposed a net increase of $874 million for weapons over the Pentagon’s budget plans for the year starting Oct. 1. The largest amounts that the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee added in producing a $102.4 billion procurement request were $562.4 million to buy 11 additional Boeing Co. (BA) (BA) F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter jets and $447 million to buy seven more Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) (LMT) C-130J transport planes.
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05/16/2012
The twelfth Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] F-35 Lightning II destined for the training fleet at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., was ferried today. U.S. Marine Corps pilot Lt. Col. Fred Schenk piloted the aircraft, known as BF-11, which departed Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base, Texas at 10:02 a.m. CDT for an approximate 90-minute flight to Florida’s Emerald Coast.
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