May 13, 2013 Military Aviation News
05/13/2013
China has formed its first aircraft carrier-borne aviation strike force, significantly enhancing the navy's blue-water capability, amid maritime territorial disputes with neighbours including Japan and Vietnam. "A carrier-borne aviation force has been formally established as part of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy," the state-media reported.
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05/13/2013
Israel’s military grounded a fleet of high-altitude surveillance drones on Sunday after one was downed over the Mediterranean Sea. The military said it intentionally crashed the unmanned aircraft late Saturday because of a malfunction. The IAF Heron-1 UAV was downed by the air force after its controllers discovered an engine failure. The failure was discovered during a routine flight over the Mediterranean, off the coast of Netanya.
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05/13/2013
Almost four years after the MV-22 Osprey arrived in Afghanistan, trailing a reputation as dangerous and hard to maintain, the U.S. Marines Corps finally has had an opportunity to test the controversial hybrid aircraft in real war conditions. The reviews are startlingly positive. The unusual aircraft, which takes off and lands like a helicopter but turns its rotors to fly like an airplane, are being used for everything from freight to hundreds of assaults.
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05/13/2013
After deliberating for nearly a decade South Korea has finally agreed to purchase 36 U.S. AH-64E Apache helicopter gunships. A lot of the opposition was because of price. So five years ago the U.S. offered South Korea 36 refurbished AH-64s, rebuilt to like-new condition, for about $23 million each. That was a nearly 60 percent discount off the then current price of new ones. These helicopters would have a useful life of about 10,000 hours in the air.
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05/13/2013
This week the Navy will launch an entirely autonomous combat drone — without a pilot on a joystick anywhere — off the deck of an aircraft carrier, the George H. W. Bush. The drone will then try to land aboard the same ship, a feat only a relatively few human pilots in the world can accomplish. This exercise is the beginning of a new chapter in military history: autonomous drone warfare.
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05/13/2013
Even as the western and eastern fronts with Pakistan and China are bolstered with additional Sukhoi-30MKI squadrons, India has also kick-started plans to base its most lethal "air dominance'' fighter in south India to keep a "strategic eye'' over Indian Ocean.
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05/13/2013
North Korea has decried “blackmail” and “provocation” in the arrival of the US aircraft carrier group Nimitz to its southern neighbor. The warships will take part in joint exercises with South Korea, as tensions in the peninsula run high.
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05/13/2013
Dassault Aviation, the French maker of Rafale fighter jet which is in exclusive negotiations with the Indian ministry of defence for the $12 billion Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) tender is facing rough weather at home. In the latest strategic defence review carried out under the insistence of the French government, last month, France has capped the purchase of Rafale fighter jets to 225.
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05/13/2013
Russian military inspectors will make a surveillance flight over the territory of Bulgaria under the international Open Skies Treaty within a period starting Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry has reported. Russian experts will conduct the inspection flight on board an Antonov An-30B (Clank) aircraft between May 13 and 17, a ministry spokesman told journalists.
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05/13/2013
A new Russian carrier-deck pilot training site will be ready for operation by next year, Navy Commander Admiral Viktor Chirkov said on Sunday, replacing a Soviet-era base in Ukraine which Kiev has said it may lease to other countries. The work on the training facility in the city of Yeisk, on Russia's Black Sea coast, “is proceeding according to plan,” he said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
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