March 22, 2014 Military Aviation News
03/22/2014
France will offer to send four fighter jets to the Baltic states and Poland to boost NATO air patrols over the region, a source close to the French defence minister said Friday. Besides the Rafale and Mirage 2000 aircraft, Paris will also offer to ensure "AWACS patrols from France around twice a week" if asked by NATO, the source said during the minister's visit to the Estonian capital Tallinn amid the Ukraine turmoil.
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03/22/2014
MacDill Air Force Base is hosting its annual AirFest show this Saturday and Sunday. As a preview for the event, members of the media were invited to a ride-along flight on a KC-135 Stratotanker as it completed a training refueling mission. I boarded the massive plane as both a reporter and Air Force wife whose husband is training to become an aviator. I hoped the Airfest "preview flight" would give me a hint as to what my husband will be doing one day.
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03/22/2014
Delays in testing critical software for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 jet are threatening to delay the Pentagon’s most expensive weapon program and boost development costs, according to congressional investigators. “Persistent software problems” have slowed testing to demonstrate the aircraft’s war-fighting, navigation, targeting and reconnaissance systems, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said.
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03/22/2014
The United States is puzzling over how to block cruise missiles that theoretically could be launched from the Gulf of Mexico, even after throwing some of its most advanced technologies at the problem. Russia and Iran have been cited as possible threats that might, at some point, lurk in the waters just off U.S. shores.
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03/22/2014
Western weapons manufacturers waging an uphill battle to drive up revenues are finding their market share eroded by a potent new competitor – Russia. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its latest report “Trends in International Arms Transfers – 2013” says Russia’s exports of major weapons increased by 28 per cent between 2004-2008 and 2009-13.
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03/22/2014
Back in the late 1960s the aircraft chosen as the nation’s key strike weapon into the new millennium — the F-111 swing-wing fighter/bomber — was derided as the “flying Opera House’’ or the “widow maker” due to cost blowouts, delivery delays and serious technical problems that caused several fatal crashes.
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03/22/2014
Iraq is negotiating about the purchase of redundant Czech L-159 combat planes with their maker, Aero Vodochody, the website of weekly Hospodárské noviny writes today. Iraq showed interest in new Czech combat aircraft in 2012, but it eventually bought planes from South Korea.
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03/22/2014
The Philippines said on Friday it will buy $524.7-million worth of aircraft from South Korea and Canada as part of a military upgrade amid territorial disputes with superpower neighbour China. The contracts to be signed on March 28 will include the purchase of 12 FA-50 fighter jets from state-run Korea Aerospace Industries for 18.9 billion pesos (US$417.95 million), Defence Undersecretary Fernando Manalo told reporters.
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03/22/2014
A total of 72 military units in Crimea have hoisted Russian flags instead of Ukrainian and applied to join the Russian armed forces, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday. "Yesterday, 72 military units almost in full strength decided to join the Russian armed forces. We are now dealing with service and citizenship issues of officers and soldiers from these units,” he said.
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