December 06, 2012 Military Aviation News
12/06/2012
The US Air Force's current fleet of unmanned aircraft will be irrelevant in the Pacific theater, a top service official says. Over the past 10 years, the US Air Force has built up a still growing fleet of slow moving but persistent General Atomics MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft. While those aircraft provided US ground forces with unprecedented situational awareness, they are too vulnerable to be used in a high threat environment.
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12/06/2012
Iraq has shut its airspace to four Syrian flights scheduled to pick up attack helicopters that had been repaired in Russia, the spokesman to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said Tuesday. Syria has failed several times since June to retrieve the refurbished helicopters from Russia, and the regime of Bashar al-Assad appears to be growing more desperate as fighting intensifies.
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12/06/2012
When an aircraft shaped like a flying bat was lowered gently by crane onto the deck of a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the other day, it marked the latest phase in a high-stakes gamble to help sustain America's military presence in the Asia-Pacific region in the face of increasing challenges from China.
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12/06/2012
China's new fighter aircraft J-15 is not a copy of the Russian Su-33 and is in fact superior to it, a state-run Chinese daily said Thursday. On Nov 25, China's carrier-borne J-15 fighter jet successfully underwent a series of tests on the Liaoning, China's first aircraft carrier. People's Daily said the J-15 is equipped with two high-power engines and a brand-new system of high lift device, takeoff and landing device and arrester hook.
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12/06/2012
US military planners have begun to help organize a multinational proxy force to intervene next year in Mali, the famine-stricken, coup-wracked African country that has become a magnet for Islamist extremists, US officials said Wednesday.
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12/06/2012
The Syrian military is prepared to use chemical weapons against its own people and is awaiting final orders from President Bashar Assad, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday. The military has loaded the precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, into aerial bombs that could be dropped onto the Syrian people from dozens of fighter-bombers, the officials said.
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12/06/2012
U.S. aerospace and arms companies are poised for 2.8 percent overall sales growth next year to about $224 billion, which would mark their 10th straight year of growth, barring steep Pentagon budget cuts, the industry's chief trade group said on Wednesday.
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12/06/2012
Iraq has shut its airspace to four Syrian flights scheduled to pick up attack helicopters that had been repaired in Russia, the spokesman to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said Tuesday. Syria has failed several times since June to retrieve the refurbished helicopters from Russia, and the regime of Bashar al-Assad appears to be growing more desperate as fighting intensifies.
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12/06/2012
A South African military aircraft on an unknown mission to an area near former President Nelson Mandela’s village crashed in a mountain range, officials said Thursday. It was unclear whether there were any survivors. The Douglas C-47TP Dakota, a twin-propeller aircraft, had taken off from Pretoria’s Waterkloof Air Force Base on Wednesday morning, said Brig. Gen. Xolani Mabanga, a military spokesman.
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12/06/2012
India has preferred Boeing Chinook over Russian Mi-26 helicopters in a tender on the delivery of 15 heavy-lift helicopters to the Indian Air Force, the Indian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday. Both the Russian upgraded Mi-26T2 Halo and the Boeing Chinook CH-47F had qualified in the technical trials and their financial bids, covering the initial acquisition cost as well as the lifecycle costs.
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