October, 2015 Military Aviation News
10/31/2015
When Buzz Aldrin arrived in Australia in October 1969 on a world tour with fellow Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins, the three intrepid space explorers agreed on one thing: the girls in Perth had the shortest miniskirts they had seen.
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10/31/2015
The J-31 "Falcon Hawk" stealth fighter being developed by the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation could eventually be paired with the J-15 on the Liaoning, China's first and so far only aircraft carrier, reports Duowei News, a US-based Chinese political news outlet. The J-31 with its new vertical tail design recently went on display at the 16th China Aviation Expo in Beijing.
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10/31/2015
OTTAWA - Incoming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will consult with President Barack Obama before restarting a process to replace Canada's aging fleet of combat jets, in a bid to head off damage to relations between the two countries, according to an official familiar with the plans.
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10/31/2015
On Wednesday, many watched in amazement as a "blimp" broke loose from its mooring outside Aberdeen, Maryland. Dragging a 6,000-foot steel mooring cable -- which caused local power outages as it made contact with power lines -- and escorted by circling F-16s aircraft that cleared civilian aircraft flight paths, the balloon finally deflated and came to rest 100 miles north in a wooded area near Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.
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10/31/2015
The 50 or so U.S. Special Operations Forces being sent to northeast Syria will not be advising Syrian rebels on the front lines engaging in combat or conducting special operations raids, a Defense Department official said today. Instead they will work at a rebel headquarters far from enemy lines to see what more help the U.S. can provide them in the fight against ISIS.
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10/31/2015
Indonesia is currently in the process of updating a part of its eclectic mix of military aircraft. The three platforms which represent Jakarta’s most formidable airborne capability are the U.S. General Dynamics (GD) F-16, Russian Sukhoi-27, and Sukhoi-30MK. The Indonesian Air Force (TNI-AU) reflects the country’s recent history international relations, operating a mixed bag of Russian, U.S., Brazilian, and European aircraft.
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10/31/2015
Coming shifts in the U.S. military's footprint in Europe will include sending warplanes and support troops into Turkey to help fight Islamic State militants and moving more heavy Army equipment into Eastern Europe to deter Russian aggression, the top U.S. commander in the region said Friday.
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10/31/2015
The 4th Air Force and Air Defense Forces Command of Russia's Southern Military District has received more than 10 new aircraft and helicopters, the Defense Ministry said in a statement issued on Friday.
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10/31/2015
Russia's Baltic Sea Fleet Naval Aviation carried out air combat exercises during night flights, the Defense Ministry said in a statement released on Friday. "Within the unannounced combat readiness inspection of the air defense and naval aviation formations of the Baltic Fleet in the Kaliningrad Region, crews of Su-27 fighters and Su-24M bombers performed night training flights," the statement reads.
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10/31/2015
Last month, Maduro announced that Venezuela would purchase at least 12 Sukhoi fighter jets from Russia. "The president [Nicolas Maduro] just authorized [the payment] of $480 million so that the service life of our Sukhoi planes… so they could continue to fulfill or give protection to the Venezuelan airspace," the minister said on Thursday.
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10/30/2015
Several military commanders from Libya’s self-styled government in Tripoli have been killed after their helicopter was shot down by another of the country’s armed factions, triggering clashes west of the capital. Libya is caught up in a conflict between that government and a second, internationally recognised one in the east, and the shooting comes as the UN pursues fragile negotiations between them to form a unity administration.
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10/30/2015
China on Thursday called on Japan to stop "hampering" flights by Chinese military aircraft, after Japan said its scrambled fighter jets to prevent possible incursions by Chinese planes a record high number of times in the summer. Japan jets scrambled 117 times from July to September, up from 103 in the same period of last year, although it was lower than the all-time high of 164 times recorded in the final quarter of 2014.
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10/30/2015
The Republic of China Army is currently investigating the grounding of the majority of its AH-64E Apache “Guardian” attack helicopters purchased from the United States, Taipei Times reports. The aircraft’s manufacturer Boeing has also dispatched a special task force to help identify the cause of the technical difficulties, which could be due to Taiwan’s “wet and high humidity climate.
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10/30/2015
No sooner did Tyndall’s F-22 Raptors return from a successful mission in Europe, they took off again for an exercise in the Mardi Gras City. Over the past two weeks, 220 Tyndall Airmen participated in exercise Southern Strike at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base, Belle Chasse, La., just outside of New Orleans. The mock deployment gave F-22 pilots the chance to fly with F-15 Eagles, F-16 Fighting Falcons, F-18 Hornets, T-38 Talons, F-35 Lightning II’s and B-1 Lancer’s.
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10/30/2015
Ahead of the visit of Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar to Russia tomorrow, the decks have been cleared for the acquisition of what is widely considered the world's most advanced anti-ballistic missile system - the S-400.
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10/30/2015
Defence giant BAE Systems is unlikely to sell more Typhoon jets to Saudia Arabia because of political tensions with the UK, according to Credit Suisse. The impact of not landing a deal to sell more to the supersonic fighters has resulted in the broker downgrading the FTSE 100 business from “outperform” to “neutral” and cutting its target price from 590p to 460p.
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10/30/2015
AN Australian air force tanker jet has come to the rescue of a US F/A-18 Hornet experiencing difficulties over northern Iraq. The RAAF KC-30A tanker was diverted to refuel the United States Marine Corps fighter after it experienced engine troubles during a combat mission against the Islamic State.
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10/30/2015
While the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker series was originally developed in the Soviet Union to counter the American F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter, the design has evolved beyond what its designers might have imagined. Variations of the Flanker are not just built in Russia; China has its own knock-offs.
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10/30/2015
Cubic Global Defense (CGD), a business unit of Cubic Corporation (NYSE: CUB), today announced the completion of its first live flight demonstration of the Cubic Miniature Encryptor (CME) in Lakeland, Florida with partner Draken International, operator of the largest privately-owned fleet of ex-military aircraft.
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10/30/2015
Russian bombers came within one nautical mile of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan earlier this week off Korea, prompting the nuclear-powered vessel to scramble fighter jets, a 7th Fleet spokeswoman told Stars and Stripes Thursday. The giant Tupolev bomber aircraft, also known as the Bear, flew as low as 500 feet as it approached the Reagan, which had been conducting scheduled maneuvers with the South Korean navy.
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10/29/2015
China appears to have started testing a new “indigenous” combat aircraft derived from the Russian Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker family. The aircraft would be the latest in a series of Chinese fighters that are unlicensed copies of Russian jets. If a photo—posted on the Chinese internet site Weibo yesterday—is genuine, the new Chinese aircraft appears to be similar in concept to the Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback.
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10/29/2015
Canadian military aircraft continue to fly missions in Iraq and Syria and have bombed Islamic State forces on at least three separate occasions since the federal election, despite the fact prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau wants to end the combat mission.
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10/29/2015
Iraq’s government has told the United States that it will not permit Russian military forces to conduct air and missile strikes inside the country. But Baghdad is allowing Russian military aircraft to overfly its territory to resupply its forces, despite a request from the United States to deny the flights.
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10/29/2015
Modernising its airforce at a rapid pace, China has introduced a third-generation supersonic trainer aircraft to its military flight schools to shorten pilots' training time and prepare them for advanced fighter jets. People's Liberation Army Air Force Aviation University deployed an undisclosed number of JL-9 Mountain Eagle two-seater trainer jets this month and has started to use them to train students, PLA Air Force's Daily, the official organ of the Chinese military, reported.
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10/29/2015
Northrop Grumman won the U.S. Air Force’s Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) contract, beating out a joint bid by Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Under the contract, which may exceed $55 billion over its lifetime, Northrop will build the Air Forces’ next-generation stealth bomber, greatly bolstering the company’s position as a defense aircraft manufacturer, while throwing doubt over Boeing’s position.
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10/29/2015
Turkey will provide 34 T-37 aircraft and their spare parts to Pakistan free of cost under a landmark defence cooperation agreement signed between the two countries in Ankara on Wednesday. Turkish defence ministry spokesman Narita Farhan told media that the T-37 is a jet trainer light combat aircraft and Turkey, on Pakistan’s desire, extended a fleet of 34 aircraft along with spare parts to Pakistan.
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10/29/2015
Lockheed Martin received a $76 million contract from the U.S. Air Force for follow-on production of PavewayTM II Plus Laser Guided Bomb (LGB) kits. The contract represents the majority share of fiscal year 2015 funding, as well as 100 percent of available funding for Foreign Military Sales. Deliveries will begin in the second quarter of 2016 and include the guidance and tail assemblies for GBU-10 and GBU-12 LGBs.
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10/29/2015
The United States is inviting its European partners to relocate military forces to the Incirlik air base in Turkey to bolster anti-Islamic State operations in Syria, US head of the Global Anti-ISIL Coalition Gen. John Allen said on Wednesday.
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10/29/2015
A French warship docked in a Chinese port Tuesday to start an extended visit to China's naval fleet in the South China Sea, where disputed territorial claims have ignited a row between Beijing and Washington.
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10/28/2015
Historically, China has been a great innovator contributing inventions such as gunpowder, paper and the compass to human advancement. However, China has earned an international reputation in recent decades as being the home of a prolific copycat culture.
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10/28/2015
In New Delhi on September 23, decades of friction came to an end when key stakeholders in the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) finally agreed on the specifications of a fighter that would join the Indian Air Force (IAF) in large numbers, starting in 2018-19.
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10/28/2015
Ten Air National Guard A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft and hundreds of airmen supporting them are back in Michigan after a six-month deployment flying missions against Islamic State group targets in Iraq and Syria. The pilots and their combat jets were part of the largest and longest mass deployment from Selfridge Air National Guard Base since the Korean War, guard officials said in a statement.
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10/28/2015
Signaling a possible escalation of U.S. military action in the Middle East, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Tuesday that the United States is retooling its strategy in Iraq and Syria and would conduct unilateral ground raids if needed to target Islamic State militants.
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10/28/2015
Four times a week, a fighter jet from California lifts off from Joint Base Lewis-McChord for a rendezvous in the Northwest skies with one of the military’s newest machines. It’s a noticeable new routine at JBLM that’s meant to help the Air Force test its KC-46 tanker, a jet built by Boeing in King County to replace a third of the military’s aging fleet of Cold War-era refueling aircraft.
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10/28/2015
Northrop Grumman has won the contract to build the US Air Force’s next-generation Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B), an industry-shaping deal that breathes new life into the world's sixth-largest defense company. After US financial markets closed Tuesday evening, Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Air Force leadership announced that Northrop beat out the team of Boeing and Lockheed Martin for the contract,
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10/28/2015
The Boeing and Lockheed Martin team is disappointed by today’s announcement. We will have further discussions with our customer before determining our next steps. We are interested in knowing how the competition was scored in terms of price and risk, as we believe that the combination of Boeing and Lockheed Martin offers unparalleled experience, capability and resources for this critically important recapitalization program.
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10/28/2015
According to US State Department Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (EAP) spokesperson Katrina Adams comments on the US-China contacts after China summoned the US Ambassador over the South China Sea patrol.
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10/28/2015
The US Navy did send its destroyer within the 12-mile limit of a disputed island in the South China Sea and it will carry out more operations of the same kind in coming months, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday.
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10/28/2015
Beijing will take measures to strengthen its national security after a US destroyer sailed through disputed territorial waters in the South China Sea, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said in a statement Tuesday.
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10/27/2015
The first batch of women officers will start piloting fighter jets by mid-2017. Even though women officers have been flying transport aircraft and helicopters for many years, this goes a step further.
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10/27/2015
The United States on Monday sent a guided-missile destroyer to challenge 12-nautical-mile territorial limits that China claims around artificial islands it built in the South China Sea. A U.S. defense official said the USS Lassen was nearing Subi and Mischief reefs in the Spratly archipelago, features that were submerged at high tide before China began a massive dredging project to turn them into islands in 2014.
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10/27/2015
Russia conducted firing drills in the Barents Sea near Norway Monday, testing a missile amid speculation that the country's only aircraft carrier could be preparing to travel to Syria to fight the Islamic State group. The spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry’s Northern Fleet told the Russian News Agency TASS that the drill on carrier Admiral Kuznetsov was part of a combat readiness check that also included an examination of its radio equipment.
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10/27/2015
The Russian air force has carried air strikes against Islamic State extremist forces in Syria for nearly a month. The air combat situation in the Middle East is growing more complex, since the United States and Russia have not reached a consensus on intelligence-sharing. Both sides have expressed concerns over the risk of US and Russian military aircraft colliding or fighting against each other. They are exploring how to evade such incidents.
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10/27/2015
In the courtyard of an apartment building in the town of Gori in ex-Soviet Georgia is a clue to whether Russia's air strikes on targets in Syria are as accurate as the Kremlin would like the rest of the world to believe.
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10/27/2015
They’re huge. They’re mighty. They’re mega-expensive. Aircraft carriers represent the height of military might. But the argument that they have had their day is gaining strength.
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10/27/2015
Beating out its main European competitor Airbus, Boeing has secured the first oversea sale of its new KC-46 Pegasus tanker aircraft Kyodo News reports. Japan’s Defense Minister, Gen Nakatani, confirmed the deal at a news conference last Friday noting that “with more aerial tankers, our aerial defense capability will be reinforced.”
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10/27/2015
Lockheed Martin delivered the 31st C-5M Super Galaxy to the U. S. Air Force on Oct. 23. A crew from the 22nd Airlift Squadron at Travis Air Force Base, Travis Air Force Base, California, ferried the aircraft from the Lockheed Martin facility here to Stewart Air National Guard Base, New York, where it will undergo internal paint restoration.
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10/27/2015
The Russian Air Force in Syria left many Western military experts surprised, as they didn’t expect that Russia had the capacity to carry out military operations with such efficiency, the Washington-based Brookings Institution said.
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10/27/2015
During the upcoming annual Indo-Russian summit, an agreement is expected to be inked on the delivery of Sukhoi T-50 (PAK FA) fighter jets to India under the joint FGFA initiative, The Financial Express reported citing a senior military official.
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10/26/2015
Are we heading for a new Cold War in the Mediterranean and Black seas? Russia's military intervention in Syria has suggested this scenario, along with its growing display of warships and submarines around the Mediterranean, in the Black Sea and at the Syrian port of Latakia (28 miles from Turkish border) — a main "homeport" of the Russian Navy.
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10/26/2015
Once the dust settles on Justin Trudeau’s historic election victory, it will be time for the Liberal party to roll up its sleeves and set to work bringing about all that “real change” they have promised Canadians. Focusing purely on defence issues, Trudeau vowed during the campaign that one of his first priorities would be to end the Royal Canadian Air Force commitment in the allied air campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
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10/26/2015
India has offered to Sri Lanka its Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) to counter Pakistan’s earlier bid to sell to the island nation its JF-17 fighters developed in collaboration with China, the Colombo-based Sunday Observer says. Independent sources confirmed to Express that both Pakistan and India have made their respective offers in the light of the Sri Lanka Air Force’s bid to replace its ageing Israeli Kfirs and MIG 27s.
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10/26/2015
The United States and its allies have been bombing ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria for more than a year now and all we've seen of it is a handful of videos released by the Pentagon. So 60 Minutes asked for permission to witness the air campaign first hand. And we were allowed into the war's $60 million command center located in the Persian Gulf country of Qatar.
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10/26/2015
The Indian Air Force (IAF), after years of opposing the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft (LCA), now accepts it is on track to be a world-class light fighter. The specifications of the new Tejas - termed Standard of Preparation-2018 (SoP-18) - were agreed in New Delhi on September 23, between the air force and the Tejas' designers and manufacturers. One hundred SoP-18 Tejas fighters will join the IAF, starting 2018-19.
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10/26/2015
Russian warplanes sent to Syria to back the regime of Bashar Assad are breaking down at a rapid rate that appears to be affecting their ability to strike targets, according to a senior Defense official. Nearly one-third of Russian attack planes and half of its transport aircraft are grounded at any time as the harsh, desert conditions take a toll on equipment and crews, said the official who was not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive intelligence matters.
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10/26/2015
The US government has opposed South Korea’s plans to export T-50 Golden Eagle supersonic training jets to Uzbekistan as it fears a possible leakage of technology to Russia, the Korea Times newspaper reported citing a military source on Sunday.
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10/26/2015
Russian soldiers in Syria live in neat housing units, eat in a clean canteen and wear crisp new uniforms, AP journalists reported after visiting the Hemeimeem Airbase in Latakia.
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10/26/2015
China began testing on a new type of helium stratospheric airship. The Yuanmeng aircraft can reach a height of 100 kilometers and conduct reconnaissance without being seen by other aircraft or rockets.
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10/25/2015
Dassault Aviation Chairman Eric Trappier said Thursday he had written a letter of congratulations to Justin Trudeau, the newly elected Canadian prime minister, and pitched an offer of the Rafale fighter if Ottawa pulled out of the US F-35 program. “We have to wait and see what he decides now he is in office,” Trappier told the association of aerospace journalists. “I wrote a letter to congratulate him and to remind him that if the F-35 were canceled, the Rafale would be potentially proposed."
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10/25/2015
About 500 airmen from Selfridge Air National Guard Base now are home. The majority returned Saturday. Airmen from the 127th Wing have been returning home over the past several weeks, with the largest contingency returning to Michigan this weekend, with ten jets and pilots returning on October 22. Most of the airmen and aircraft spent 6 months in Southwest Asia, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve and other missions.
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10/25/2015
Sleek combat jets loaded with precision bunker-buster bombs roar into the skies as soldiers in desert-style uniforms march past rows of neat housing at this Russian military base at one of Syria's largest airports. The air campaign in Syria, Russia's first military action outside the former Soviet Union since the war in Afghanistan, shows a revamped Russian military, which sharply differs in both capability and mindset from the old, Soviet-style force.
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10/25/2015
The induction of women as fighter pilots in the Indian Air Force was cleared on Saturday by the government in a landmark move for the armed forces, which have so far dithered over combat role for women. As per the plan, the first women pilots would be selected from the batch, which is presently undergoing flying training at the Air Force Academy.
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10/25/2015
The Russian Aerospace Forces' precise airstrikes on the Islamic State (ISIL) positions in Syria are conducted simultaneously in various regions in order to contain terrorists, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Maj. Igor Konashenkov told RT TV channel Saturday.
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10/25/2015
According to the federal budget draft for 2016, Russian defense spending will grow 0.8 percent in comparison with 2015, and will total some 3.1 trillion rubles ($50.1 billion at the current exchange rate).
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10/24/2015
For the first time in 25 years, the U.S. Air Force is starting up five squadrons to increase its nuclear monitoring capabilities, and the units are likely to survey North Korea and Iran. The Air Force Technical Applications Center, or AFTAC, which operates under the U.S. Air Combat Command, is the "sole organization in the federal government whose mission is to detect and report technical data from foreign nuclear explosions," the Military Times reported on Thursday.
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10/24/2015
Five Apache helicopters have been removed from Johnstown National Guard hangars and reassigned to active duty Army units. The remaining 11 Apaches stationed at the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport facility are scheduled for reassignment by May 31. President Barack Obama vetoed a bill Thursday that included an amendment to delay the May action for at least a month.
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10/24/2015
Presiding over a ceremony mourning the loss of his country’s top commander in Syria, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Deqhan vowed the total extermination of the Sunni Muslim rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad. “We are witnessing the start of new developments in Syria (that) will pave the way for the full annihilation of the Takfiri groups,” Deqhan declared at the Oct. 14 memorial for the late Brig. Gen. Hossein Hamadani, according to the semi-official FARS news agency.
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10/24/2015
In a significant breakthrough, India and France reached an understanding on the offsets segment of the $4.5 billion (Rs 30,000-crore) Rafale deal on 21 October under which the French agreed to invest 50 per cent of the 36-aircraft Rafale fighter deal's worth in related sectors. But the development, being cited as oxygen for the Indian Air Force, seems to have overlooked one point.
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10/24/2015
The 4th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron hosted members of the 16th Electronic Warfare Squadron from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, during Combat Shield, Oct. 19-23. Combat Shield is an annual program aimed to provide operational combat Air Force units in Air Combat Command, a system-specific capability assessment for their aircraft’s radar warning receivers, electronic attack pods and integrated EW systems.
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10/24/2015
The first death in four years of an American service member under enemy fire in Iraq is raising questions about the nature of the U.S. commitment there and whether the administration is correct to claim that it's not engaged in a combat role.
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10/24/2015
An F18 fighter jet pilot has died after ejecting moments before the aircraft crashed near the RAF Lakenheath base in Suffolk. The crash is believed to have happened five miles north west of the airfield at around 10.30am. Cambridgeshire Constabulary confirmed officers at the scene are dealing with one fatality. The US jet was one of six returning from combat operations in the Middle East.
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10/24/2015
Technology creates new capabilities and that affect the role of some forces including that of the Israeli Air Force (IAF). While the IAF has and will have a crucial role in the task of protecting Israel’s security with some missions that it has performed solely, there is a quiet fight in the Israeli defence establishment to re-define some of the combat missions.
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10/24/2015
A recent study release by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) claims that the United States has made a huge strategic mistake in how the Navy has composed its air wings. But what the study does not mention is probably more important than what they say.
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10/23/2015
Pentagon said a number of A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack planes are arriving in Incirlik to replace F-16 jets as part of a "regular rotation that was planned." The AFP news agency put the number of newly arriving aircraft at 12 while Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said he does not have the exact number.
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10/23/2015
The Obama Administration is gearing up to sell eight new Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon jets to Pakistan, the New York Times reports. Those jets will add to Pakistan’s fleet of seventy-six existing “Vipers” as the type is colloquially known. Meanwhile, its arch-nemesis India’s air force shrinks by the day as planes age out and squadron are disbanded.
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10/23/2015
The Abbott government last year said it would spend an additional $12 billion to secure a fleet of 72 of the ultra-advanced ‘flying supercomputers’ — even as doubts continued to grow over its ability to meet already significantly delayed performance deadlines.
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10/23/2015
The United States is preparing to sell eight new F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, a media report has said ahead of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's meeting with President Barack Obama today. According to a report in The New York Times, the Congress was notified just days ago about the proposed sale of the additional fighter jets, although it is not clear if the White House plans to announce the sale of the aircraft during Mr Sharif's trip.
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10/23/2015
Poland has signed a contract with Bulgaria for repairing Russian-made Mikoyan MiG-29 aircraft in service with the Bulgarian Air Force. The contract envisages the repair of six engines and temporary use of two Polish-made engines for two years. The repair of each of the engines will cost 1.023 million [$1.13 million], transport expenses will be paid by the Polish side, Tass Defense reported today.
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10/23/2015
China’s government-owned aviation industry has an expansion plan in Africa to promote sales of Chinese-made aircraft that includes an aviation training center, regional marketing offices, maintenance centers, and spare-parts warehouses, TheDiplomat reports. China says at least 80 percent of training aircraft operated by African air forces are Chinese-made and it wants to increase exports of combat aircraft, according to the report.
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10/23/2015
One member of a U.S. special operations force was killed during an overnight mission to rescue hostages held by Islamic State militants in northern Iraq, the first American to die in ground combat with the militant group, U.S. officials said on Thursday. Sixty-nine hostages were rescued in the action, which targeted an Islamic State prison around 7 kilometers north of the town of Hawija, according to the security council of the Kurdistan region, whose counterterrorism forces took part.
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10/23/2015
The U.S. Navy accepted the first MH-60R helicopter slated for Denmark from Lockheed Martin in a ceremony today at the Lockheed Martin facility in Owego, New York. "We are excited to accept this aircraft bound for Denmark," said Rear Adm. CJ Jaynes, program executive officer for air anti-submarine warfare, assault and special mission programs, which oversees the U.S. Navy's H-60 program office.
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10/23/2015
Lockheed Martin received $176.1 million in contracts from the U.S. Air Force for Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod-Sensor Enhancement (ATP-SE) production and upgrade kits that will convert Sniper ATPs to the ATP-SE configuration. Sniper ATP-SE has improved sensors, a two-way datalink and algorithms that increase air-to-ground, air-to-air and maritime targeting capability. Upgrade kits consist of line replaceable units that will be installed in fielded ATPs. Deliveries of pods and upgrade kits will b
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10/23/2015
Lockheed Martin successfully completed the maiden flight of the F-16V, the latest and most advanced F-16 on the market today. The October 16 flight marks the first time an F-16 has flown with Northrop Grumman’s advanced APG-83 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR), which will deliver a quantum leap in capability for the venerable F-16.
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10/21/2015
Behind the provocative rhetoric by American and Chinese officials over the plan of the United States to test freedom of navigation in the South China Sea after China reclaimed some 2,900 acres of land in the disputed waters, there are efforts by both countries to avoid war. Especially hostilities breaking out over unintentional incidents as tension increase in the area claimed by China, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
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10/21/2015
In 1996, when China tried to intimidate voters on Taiwan by firing missiles close to the island, U.S. President Bill Clinton swiftly sent in two aircraft-carrier battle groups. His blunt message to Beijing: back off. America was at the zenith of its power, while China was virtually defenseless at sea and in the air, so the Pentagon could afford to act with swagger. A conflict, had China been foolish enough to provoke one, would have exposed its chronic military backwardness.
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10/21/2015
The state-owned Chinese company International Aero Development Corporation (IADC) recently launched an ambitious new expansion plan in Africa, according to Defense News. This includes an aviation training center, two regional marketing offices, two maintenance and support centers, and three spare-parts warehouses to promote sales and maintenance for Chinese-made aircraft.
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10/21/2015
U.S. adversaries including China, Russia, and Iran are developing military capabilities that will allow them to compete with shrinking and aging American forces in the coming years, according to a new report. The report, authored by the American Enterprise Institute and the Foreign Policy Initiative, warns that U.S. adversaries have been bolstering their militaries and purchasing cheaper weapon systems as the United States cuts its defense budget and delays acquisition of new equipment.
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10/21/2015
US defense contractor Lockheed Martin’s prospects for selling its F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter-bomber to Canada took a serious blow when Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party won Canada’s general election, according to media reports.
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10/21/2015
Mere hours after defeating Stephen Harper, Canadian Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau has told US President Obama that he will withdraw Canadian jets from Syria and Iraq.
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10/21/2015
US Department of Defense spokesperson Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza said that members of the US-led coalition against ISIL will receive the text of the Memorandum of Understanding on deconfliction of operations in Syrian airspace.
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10/21/2015
The US military is deploying A-10 ground attack aircraft to the Incirlik airbase in Turkey, Department of Defense spokesperson Peter Cook told reporters on Tuesday. About a dozen of the planes arrived to Turkey over the weekend and are expected to fly missions against ISIL terrorists in Iraq and Syria, according to media reports.
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10/21/2015
Moscow hopes that the memorandum will concern all countries taking part in the US-led coalition's air campaign against ISIL. The US vowed to share the safety rules with all parties operating in Syria, Konashenkov added. "We believe that the signing of such a document is an important step that has practical importance."
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10/20/2015
The actions of the Russian Air Force in Syria are very effective, making it possible that soon ISIL will be capitulated and the Syrian refugees will be able to return home, according to a political analyst at George Washington University.
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10/20/2015
Foreign buyers of Russian-made military equipment will now be able to take a good look at the Sukhoi Su-34 strike fighters which have been actively engaged in the Russian-led aerial campaign targeting extremists in Syria and hailed as the best hardware Moscow can offer, military expert Igor Korotchenko told RIA Novosti.
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10/20/2015
Cairo and Paris signed a contract earlier this month for the purchase of two French-made Mistral-class helicopter carriers originally built for Russia. "Russia will be, if you want, a sub-contractor, who will supply the missing equipment without which the Mistral warships are just a tin can. And of course, all the helicopters,” Sergei Ivanov said.
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10/19/2015
Anne crawled out of bed in her North Las Vegas house around 10 p.m. and started to get ready for her shift. She pulled her chestnut hair into a bun and slipped on her olive green flight suit. In the kitchen, she packed fruit to snack on during her shift and stuffed her schoolwork into her backpack-sized lunchbox just in case it’s a boring night. Most nights she doesn’t have a chance to open a book.
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10/19/2015
After a week of heavy operations over Syria, Russia's Air Force is scaling back its efforts so it can analyze its progress and identify new targets after the Ministry of Defense last week claimed to have helped the Syrian regime push back opposition forces. Moving into the third week of Russia's surprise aerial intervention in Syria's four-and-a-half-year-old civil war, Moscow has not only claimed early successes.
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10/19/2015
While China’s unilateral declaration of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over disputed waters in the East China Sea (ECS) caught many by surprise, today’s debate circles around the likelihood that Beijing might take the same action over the South China Sea (SCS). In its pursuit of maritime primacy in Northeast Asia, China has strayed far from the international norms that dictate the implementation and use of an ADIZ.
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10/19/2015
At the special training facility, the classroom is the sky and the learning tool is the plane. At 4:30 am one day, the camp of Air Regiment 910 at the academy was busy. Trainers, trainees, technicians and staff of the army ordnance were leaving for the nearby airport. Trainees were queuing for health checks, including blood pressure readings, to ensure that they were eligible for flight.
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10/19/2015
Russia has invented a new type of diplomacy that defies easy categorization. It might be called "post hoc diplomacy" because Moscow begins negotiations with partners and adversaries not before taking action, as is customary, but only afterward, and with the goal of either consolidating the results of that action or using it as leverage in subsequent negotiations.
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10/19/2015
A number of congressional leaders, former officials, and presidential candidates have advocated the establishment of a no-fly zone or safe zone in Syria to protect Syrian civilians against attack from both the Islamic State and the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
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10/19/2015
The impression created by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meetings with western leaders is that India will buy any de-rated military goods offered. His announcement about purchasing 36 1980s-vintage French Rafale planes to meet the Indian Air Force’s requirement for ‘medium multi-role combat aircraft’ (MMRCA) wrong-footed defence minister Manohar Parrikar, who favoured the bigger, more versatile and economical Su-30 — superior to the Rafale in all roles, including nuclear delivery.
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10/19/2015
Warships and aircraft from the U.S., India and Japan practiced hunting enemy submarines during wide-ranging exercises in the Bay of Bengal over the weekend, signaling the three powers’ deepening ties as they contend with a more assertive China. Worries about Beijing’s rapidly increasing military strength and its growing ability to deploy forces far from Chinese shores have helped drive a convergence of strategic thinking in Washington.
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10/19/2015
More than 120 members of the 180th Fighter Wing, Ohio Air National Guard, deployed 38 short tons of cargo and eight F-16 fighter jets to Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, in September to participate in Combat Archer. The two-week exercise is part of the Air Combat Command Air-to-Air Weapons Systems Evaluation Program, which assesses a units overall operational effectiveness, weapons systems performance and reliability.
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10/19/2015
Syrian military officials reported army and popular forces, backed by Russian air support, took control of southeastern territories of the northern province of Aleppo after killing and wounding dozens of terrorists in the liberation operation.
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10/18/2015
Japan's Air Self-Defense Force will run more refueling missions once it introduces a new Boeing KC-46A aerial tanker to its fleet in fiscal 2016. The plan is to expand the number of joint operations between Japan's Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. military as well as to better protect remote islands and respond to major disasters.
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10/18/2015
The imminent deployment of 300 US soldiers in Cameroon is intended to provide nations around Lake Chad with what they most lack in the battle against Boko Haram: reliable intelligence.
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10/18/2015
The relationship between Russia and the West is becoming increasingly dangerous with potential flashpoints developing in both eastern Europe and Syria. After repeated incursions into Turkish airspace by Russian warplanes on bombing raids over Syria, NATO’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg warned Moscow that it stands ready to “defend all allies”.
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10/18/2015
Across the board success was how the test pilots scored the second carrier testing run for the Navy's F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, which wrapped up Oct. 9 aboard the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower. The multifaceted two-week flight test was used to develop launch and recovery bulletins. The former focused on 55,000 and 60,000-pound catapult shots at military, the catapult shot with standard jet thrust, and maximum power.
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10/18/2015
'We downed a drone yesterday. If it was a plane we'd do the same,' Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu tells a party rally; Turkey is still investigating where the drone came from, but U.S believes it was Russians'.
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10/18/2015
The skies over Syria are dangerously crowded these days with the US, Russia, and the Assad regime all bombing various actors on vaguely opposite sides of the country's multidimensional conflict. In both Iraq and Syria, the reality of overlapping aerial operations among countries with little geopolitical fondness toward one another has already led to claims that British aircraft have been authorized to engage Russian aircraft over Iraq if threatened.
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10/18/2015
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is responsible for developing emerging technologies for military use, is coming up with a technology that will keep squadrons connected even when during jamming attacks.
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10/18/2015
The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has revealed its long-range precision strike capabilities. Beijing’s H-6K bomber can strike distant targets with precise ammunition, according to Chinese media.
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10/18/2015
Russia will hold talks with Egypt on the possible purchase by Cairo of the Russian equipment for the Mistral helicopter carriers on October 21-23, a source in the military-technical cooperation sphere said Saturday.
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10/17/2015
In the latest hurdle for the Pentagon's F-35 joint strike fighter, testers this summer discovered an increased risk of neck damage when a lightweight pilot is ejecting from the plane. The Joint Program Office blamed the phenomenon on the jet's ejection seat, Martin-Baker's US16E. But interviews conducted by Defense News in recent weeks indicate the added weight and bulk of the new F-35 helmet complicates the problem.
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10/17/2015
Boko Haram has spilled out of the forests and villages of northern Nigeria and into the cross hairs of the U.S. military. Nearly 100 American military personnel are headed to the Central African nation of Cameroon, with another 200 expected to follow in the near future. Using drones to gather intelligence, they will help their counterparts in Cameroon monitor the growing threat from the Islamic terrorist group as it expands its bloody reign out of its stronghold in Nigeria.
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10/17/2015
The Air Force Security Assistance and Cooperation Directorate, headquartered at Wright-Patterson, had the second highest sales to foreign militaries in a decade reaching $19 billion, more than doubling sales from the year prior, figures show. Sales of the fifth generation F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter to South Korea at $6.3 billion, to Israel at $2.8 billion and to Japan at $1 billion were the biggest driver of higher spending, according to figures released to this newspaper Friday.
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10/17/2015
Air Force leaders recently made a decision to restrict pilots weighing less than 136 pounds from flying the F-35A Lightning II due to safety concerns about the ejection seat in a portion of the flight envelope. The manufacturer of the seat has been conducting tests to ensure the escape system works reliably and safely in all planned conditions.
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10/17/2015
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Thursday denied South Korea’s request for transfer of key American technologies for its project to develop KF-X indigenous fighter jet, Yonhap News Agency reported. South Korea is represented by the Defense Acquisition Program Administration and Korea Aerospace Industries for the KF-X program, for which America's Lockheed Martin Corporation was selected in March.
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10/17/2015
The Iraqi military has released a video displaying the combat deployment of a CH-4B drone which the country recently bought from China. Baghdad has been diversifying its arms supply to decrease its reliance on American producers. The Caihong (Rainbow) 4B drone flew from the al-Kut Air Base southeast of Baghdad and shot an AR-1 laser-guided anti-tank missile at an Islamic State target, according to the Iraqi Defense Ministry.
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10/17/2015
“Sweeter than the sweetest honey in this world, deeper than the deepest sea in the world . . . ,” the suitor crooned, “higher than the highest peak . . .” Soul singer Barry White? No, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, remarking on Pakistan's relationship with China in 2014, using words that had been repeated many times before over the past 40 years.
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10/17/2015
In what may come as a boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India campaign, American aviation manufacturer Boeing on Friday said that it will assemble its Chinook heavy-lift helicopters or Apache attack helicopters in India.
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10/17/2015
Turkey has shot down an aircraft that US officials have suggested was a Russian drone in its air space near the Syrian border. The Turkish general staff said it shot the aircraft in accordance with its rules of engagement, giving three warnings, and would continue to follow its duties in line with its rules, in a statement posted on the military's website.
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10/16/2015
On Oct. 10, a Russian Su-30SM belonging to the contingent deployed to Latakia, in Syria, had a close encounter with a unspecified U.S. combat plane supporting Operation Inherent Resolve. According to Russia’s Ministry of Defense, the Flanker-derivative 4++ Gen aircraft was providing air escort for a package of attack planes in Syria when it approached the American plane, to perform a VID (Visual Identification).
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10/16/2015
Base officials and the Top of Utah community officially welcomed the F-35 Lightning II at a ceremony here Oct. 14, an event that formally marked the beginning of F-35 operations for the 388th and 419th Fighter Wings. Members of the Utah congressional delegation, Lockheed Martin and the Air Force addressed a crowd of more than 500 people, which included Airmen and their families, local civic leaders and the media.
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10/16/2015
Burning OilfieldsDARPA issued a Broad Agency Announcement solicitation for a new program called Dynamic Network Adaptation for Mission Optimization (DyNAMO) which aims to keep America's manned (and unmanned) combat aircraft connected even if enemy forces attempt to jam their communications. But that's not as straightforward as it sounds. US aircraft are additionally hindered by the fact that many of the platforms operate on incompatible radio networks using different encryption schemes.
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10/16/2015
The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and the Boeing F/A-18E/F are both aging platforms and will need to be replaced in the mid-2030s. Moreover, for the U.S. Air Force, it needs to replace the venerable F-15C Eagle—which was supposed to have been replaced by the Raptor until that program was prematurely terminated.
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10/16/2015
‘India doubles down on crappy homemade jets‘, proclaims one analyst. ‘Modi pushes ‘obsolete’ made-in-India plane on reluctant military‘, a newspaper headline asserts. A third suggests that the jet ‘could hurt [the] Indian Air Force‘. With the Indian government deciding this September to limit the purchase of French Rafale multi-role fighters to just 36 airframes and acquire 120 Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) instead, criticisms of the Tejas seem to have surfaced with renewed vigour.
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10/16/2015
President Obama's long dream of concluding the war in Afghanistan before he departs the White House officially ended Thursday with the announcement that the U.S. will leave up to 5,500 troops there into 2017. The announcement came after months of bad news from Afghanistan: The Taliban has scored a series of battlefield victories, the Afghan army's casualties are soaring and there are mounting worries that the Islamic State is gaining a foothold in rural areas.
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10/16/2015
Lockheed Martin has received a $305.4 million contract from the U.S. Air Force for continued production of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) and its Extended Range (ER) version. The Lot 13 contract includes 140 baseline JASSMs for U.S. and international partners, 140 JASSM-ER missiles, data, tooling and test equipment. The Lot 13 award represents the largest JASSM-ER order to date and brings total missiles under contract to more than 2,300.
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10/16/2015
Airstrikes of the US-led international coalition destroyed on Thursday an Islamic State (ISIL) coordination headquarters, killing one of the group's northern Iraq military commanders, local media reported, citing a military source.
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10/16/2015
Over the past 24 hours, Russian warplanes completed 33 sorties in Syria, striking ISIL facilities in the provinces of Idlib, Hama, Damascus, Aleppo, and Deir az-Zor, the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday.
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10/15/2015
Russian military officials denied Wednesday that its sole aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, was on its way to Syria to help the Russian military in the conflict against Syrian rebels and the Islamic State militant group, also known as ISIS, according to Russian news site Sputnik.
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10/15/2015
The United States is sending 300 troops, along with surveillance drones, to Cameroon to bolster a West African effort to counter the Nigerian militant Islamist group Boko Haram, US officials said on Wednesday. In a notification to Congress, US President Barack Obama said an advance force of about 90 military personnel began deploying to Cameroon on Monday, with the consent of the Yaounde government.
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10/15/2015
The US State Department has approved a possible Foreign Military Sale to Saudi Arabia for nine UH-60M Black Hawk utility helicopters at an estimated cost of US $495 million. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) on Tuesday delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale, the agency stated on its website.
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10/15/2015
The Swiss air force has no immediate explanation as to how an F/A-18 fighter jet suddenly lost altitude and crashed in France on Wednesday, injuring the pilot. Air force commander Aldo Schellenberg said that there was no mid-air collision.
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10/15/2015
The Goverment of Germany has reportedly halted the delivery of Eurofighter combat aircraft following the discovery of a manufacturing defect. Citing a German lawmaker from the Defence Ministry, Reuters reported that the manufacturing issue found in the fuselage of the aircraft was caused by rivet holes in the rear part of the fuselage being incorrectly filed off.
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10/15/2015
Russian Aerospace Forces have completed 41 sorties against 40 Islamic State infrastructure facilities in Syria’s governorates of Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia, Hama, and Deir ez-Zor.
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10/15/2015
Improvements to the system used to process veteran benefits will soon ensure that recently transitioned veterans and eligible spouses will have access to money for continuing education. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has awarded a contract that will advance the reliability of their Chapter 33 (CH33) system to Systems Made Simple, a Lockheed Martin company.
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10/15/2015
The Iraqi army liberated on Wednesday the country's largest oil refinery in the central city of Baiji, Salah al-Din province, from Islamic State militants, an officer in counter-terrorist forces said.
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10/15/2015
"America is rejoicing over the killing of Abu Mutaz al-Qurashi and considers this a great victory," IS spokesman Abu Mohamed al-Adnani said in an audio recording posted on jihadist websites. He didn't comment on the details of the circumstances surrounding the second-in-command's death.
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10/15/2015
Russian and US military experts held a professional and constructive discussion of the flight safety in air missions over Syria during a conference call on Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
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10/14/2015
The US Air Force's (USAF) Boeing-built KC-46A Pegasus tanker (EMD-2) has marked another millstone with the deployment of both drogue systems and the boom to support aerial refueling. As part of this development, EMD-2 extended the drogue refuelling baskets from both the Centerline Drogue System (CDS) and the wing aerial refuelling pods (WARP) for probe receiver aircraft.
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10/14/2015
While China’s unilateral declaration of an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over disputed waters in the East China Sea (ECS) caught many by surprise, today’s debate circles around the likelihood that Beijing might take the same action over the South China Sea (SCS). In its pursuit of maritime primacy in Northeast Asia, China has strayed far from the international norms that dictate the implementation and use of an ADIZ.
(Read More...)
10/14/2015
A fighter jet was called to intercept a holiday flight into the UK after the plane lost contact with air traffic control. Stunned passengers on the Monarch Airlines flight ZB983 from Madeira to Birmingham said the military plane was so close they could see the pilot in the other cockpit.
Grandma Caroline Regan, who was on board with her husband Tony, said passengers were offered no firm explanation of why the jet was so close to their plane.
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10/14/2015
The Danish Safety Board has determined that a Buk surface-to-air missile was used to take down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in July 2014. All 298 passengers were killed. At the time of the crash, analysts suggested that this particular missile system was likely used, but both Ukrainian and Russian officials accused the other of responsibility.
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10/14/2015
In the 25 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Pentagon has more or less taken air superiority for granted; but that complacency is coming back to haunt the Department of Defense. Neither Donald Rumsfeld nor Robert Gates took air power seriously, and as such, the U.S. Air Force is left with a tiny fleet of 186 Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors instead of the minimum 381 it needs.
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10/14/2015
While the requirement for a carrier-based long-range strike capability is a frequent subject of discussion around Washington, the U.S. Navy’s need for improved air superiority capabilities is often neglected. The service has not had a dedicated air-to-air combat aircraft since it retired the Grumman F-14 Tomcat in 2006. But even the Tomcat was adapted into a strike aircraft during its last years in service after the Soviet threat evaporated.
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10/14/2015
With Russian airstrikes dealing heavy losses to the self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group, reports have surfaced that Iranian troops will soon launch a ground offensive alongside the Syrian army to retake Aleppo.
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10/14/2015
The United States and Russia have made progress in discussing deconfliction mechanisms in Syria and the issue is expected to be settled soon, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said on Tuesday.
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10/13/2015
In Monday’s crashes, two pilots were killed and five passengers were injured when a small Afghan military transport plane struck a mountain ridge while delivering the body of a deceased soldier in central Bamian province, officials said. And in the eastern province of Logar, a transport helicopter carrying Afghan troops between districts made an emergency landing that left two crew members injured.
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10/13/2015
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls is due in Saudi Arabia Monday on the third leg of a Middle East tour, hoping to secure large sales of French military equipment despite the kingdom’s questionable human rights record.
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10/13/2015
America has dropped more than 50 tons of ammunition on Syria to arm rebel groups. Military cargo planes released batches of small arms and hand grenades over Ras Al-Ayn, near the Turkish border, over Sunday night. They all successfully reached a group of fighters vetted by the U.S. government, sources told CNN.
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10/13/2015
Italy’s Air Force, like that of Britain, is undergoing a double transition as they bring together the F-35 and the Eurofighter. I met with Air Force Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Pasquale Preziosa and discussed Italy’s way ahead. For Preziosa, the close relationship with the British is important in learning how to accomplish both Eurofighter modernization and working with the F-35.
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10/13/2015
The indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft will be able to thrash the Pakistani JF-17 'Thunder' fighters in "reach, punch and ability to kill and survive in an engagement", top Indian defence officials asserted. But that will be possible only when the Tejas is ready with an AESA (active electronically scanned array) radar, mid-air refuelling, long-range BVR (beyond visual range) missiles and advanced electronic warfare capabilities.
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10/13/2015
A group of Russian MiG-31BM (NATO reporting name Foxhound) interceptor aircraft will practice take off, convergence with targets and destruction of said targets with air-to-air missiles on Monday, a Central Military District spokesman said.
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10/13/2015
A number of Su-30 fighter jets have been deployed in Syria as part of Russia’s ongoing aerial campaign against the Islamic State terrorist group, Russian media reported on Monday. The Su-30 Flankers provide air cover for Russian bombers pounding ISIL positions across Syrian territory, Gazeta.Ru quoted Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov as saying in Moscow.
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10/13/2015
Images of several types of new air-to-surface missiles designed to arm Russian jets have emerged recently. The missiles are planned to equip Russian aircraft, including the PAK FA. The missiles are known as X-59MK2 and X-58USHKE.
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10/13/2015
The recent events in Syria have snown that Russia is capable of building an air base in about a month; this is what the Kremlin may decide to do to strike ISIL targets in Iraq more effectively. However, in the end Moscow probably won’t do it, according to US military magazine and global intelligence company Stratfor.
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10/12/2015
While it’s difficult to estimate the financial cost of the Syria military campaign for Russia’s treasury, it might not be more expensive than the large-scale military exercises that Russia has already been conducting.
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10/12/2015
Within weeks, the Department of Defense will grant one of four competitors a $95 million contract to build an exotic new aircraft — of the sort 20th century inventors went broke and nearly mad trying to create.
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10/12/2015
The Puma Mk2 helicopter crashed as it was landing at Nato's Resolute Support mission headquarters, Kabul. Nato has not released the nationalities of the other victims or the five left injured. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said the crash was "an accident and not the result of insurgent activity".
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10/12/2015
The United States will hold joint anti-submarine exercises with Romania in the Black Sea, the US Navy’s Europe and Africa operational fleet announced. “Constantly improving and exercising our anti-submarine warfare capabilities with NATO allies such as Romania is a priority for our fleet and the Alliance,” commander of the 6th Fleet Task Force 67, Capt. Bryan Durkee, said late Sunday.
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10/12/2015
The head of the Russia's National Nuclear Risk Reduction Center said that Russian military experts will conduct an observation flight over Turkey this week to facilitate transparency of mutual military activity.
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10/12/2015
he leader of the Islamic State (ISIL) jihadist group has been injured in an airstrike in Iraq, the Baghdad Information Center confirmed. “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was injured in the bombing that targeted his motorcade,” the center said in a statement on Sunday.
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10/12/2015
The purchase of 12 S-400 systems was initiated by the Indian Air Forces and would be discussed at the next summit of the Indian Defense Acquisition Council chaired by Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar, the source said, as quoted by Times of India.
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10/12/2015
Syrian fighter jets and missile systems harassed Turkish F-16 warplanes near the Turkish-Syrian border on Saturday, the Turkish military said on Sunday, once again bringing the conflict to NATO's southeastern flank.
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10/11/2015
US Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s visit to Europe last week inevitably focused on Russian bombing in Syria, but he also stressed the growing danger of instability in North Africa after making stops in Spain and Italy. Speaking at the NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels, Carter described "the challenges facing NATO's southern flank, including the ripple effects of [the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant] and state instability in North Africa and the Middle East.”
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10/11/2015
Late last month in Shanghai, a top Chinese businessman gave me and three other visiting journalists as clear a distillation as any of Beijing’s attitude toward the United States. “The U.S. wants to dominate the world, China only wants to keep America from dominating its neighborhood,” said Eric Li, a prominent Stanford- and Berkeley-educated political scientist and venture capitalist.
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10/11/2015
We all know that over the last 18 months the relationship between Russia and the West has deteriorated considerably. There has been a fundamental breakdown of trust amid divergent and, at this point, totally incompatible accounts of what has happened in Ukraine and why.
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10/11/2015
The US Air Force and the Army are moving full speed ahead toward next-generation engines the services hope will significantly increase fuel efficiency and power. And both endeavors pit two giants in the engine-building world against each other: GE Aviation and Pratt & Whitney.
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10/11/2015
RAF Tornados bombing Isis targets in Iraq are to be armed with air-to-air missiles to protect them from attack by Russian aircraft — as a senior cabinet minister warned that Britain was prepared to shoot down Vladimir Putin’s jets. Combat aircraft involved in Operation Shader over Iraq will be fitted with Asraam heat-seeking missiles, which can destroy any military aircraft flying today.
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10/11/2015
A Chinese aviation company reported progress in its ambitious African expansion plans to set up an aviation training center, two regional marketing offices, two maintenance and support centers, and three spare-parts warehouses to promote sales and maintenance for Chinese-made aircraft.
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10/11/2015
Russia and the United States discussed their proposals on flight safety in Syria during a video conference, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday in a statement.
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10/10/2015
The new U.S.-China agreed rules for military air-to-air encounters are being hailed in some quarters as “ground-breaking” and a “milestone.” But like their 2014 agreement on safe military encounters at sea, this “annex” does not address the fundamental differences that give rise to these encounters .
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10/10/2015
Russian leaders have responded to a proposed draft of safety guidelines for military aircraft flying missions in the increasingly crowded skies over Syria, the Pentagon said Friday.Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said Friday that a second round of talks between the two countries about the plan could take place as soon as this weekend. The U.S. and Russia are trying to hash out flight procedures to ensure that there are no collisions or other incidents as both countries conduct bombing operat
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10/10/2015
The Aerospace Forces of Russia continue to strike positions of the international terrorist organization ISIS in the Syrian territory, Chief of the Russian Air Force's Main Staff Lt. Gen. Igor Makushev has said. "Sixty-seven combat flights were completed from the Hmeimim airbase in the past 24 hours. Sukhoi Su-34M, Su-25SM planes defeated 60 facilities held by terrorists," Makushev told a briefing conference on Oct. 9.
(Read More...)
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10/10/2015
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon and the Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker dominate the headlines when it comes to the combat aircraft market, but there are many places in the world where such extravagant machines are just not needed.
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10/10/2015
As Russian warships rain down cruise missiles as part of its military strike in Syria, there's now a glaring absence in the region: For the first time since 2007, the U.S. Navy has no aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. Military officials said Thursday that they've pulled the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which is home to about 5,000 service members and 65 combat planes, so that it can undergo maintenance.
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10/10/2015
China's leading aircraft manufacturer is about to start exporting its fifth-generation fighter jet, according to industry sources. In a recent report, China Aviation Industry Corporation (AVIC) revealed some tactical and technical characteristics of the J-31 Gyrfalcon fighter at the last air show in Beijing.
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10/10/2015
Greece scrambled fighter jets to intercept a pair of Turkish F16 planes over neutral waters of the Aegean Sea in a move condemned by Ankara but described by Athens as fully consistent with international procedure.
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10/10/2015
The Russian Aerospace Forces will receive 16 Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopters, 18 Su-30SM Flanker multi-role fighter jets and 11 MiG-31 Foxhound supersonic interceptor aircraft before the end of the year, the aircraft manufacturers told Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu Friday.
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10/10/2015
Russia and the United States are expected to hold military-to-military talks on Syria, where both countries have been carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State (ISIL) militants, this weekend, the Pentagon said. Pentagon spokesperson Peter Cook said on Friday that the US Department of Defense had received a formal response from Russia on the issue of ensuring safe air operations over Syria and was in the process of reviewing the response.
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10/09/2015
Today’s U.S. military is shrinking and using older equipment as troops face more deployments and emboldened adversaries abroad, according to a new report that lays out a plan to revitalize American defenses. The new report from the American Enterprise Institute said that “America’s military power has been declining ever since the first wave of cuts in the aftermath of the Cold War.”
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10/09/2015
A number of cruise missiles launched from a Russian ship and aimed at targets in Syria have crashed in Iran, two U.S. officials told CNN Thursday. Monitoring by U.S. military and intelligence assets has concluded that at least four missiles crashed as they flew over Iran. The U.S. believes, based on intelligence reports of damage assessments, that some buildings were damaged and civilians may have been hurt.
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10/09/2015
China’s military is getting its ducks in a row for what many experts see as a realistic competence at destroying US aircraft carriers during a confrontation scenario over Taiwan. In a recent issue of the Chinese-language state-run China Youth Daily newspaper, a report claims that the Gaofen-4 geostationary earth observation satellite will be launched by the end of this year with the express purpose of hunting US aircraft carriers.
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10/09/2015
The test programme had gone quiet after two phases of testing in Woomera in Australia, but it will now continue for one more phase to develop technology that could be incorporated into a future combat air system. Details of what will be tested in this third phase remain unknown.
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10/09/2015
Lockheed Martin has sent an F-16 Fighting Falcon multirole fighter cockpit demonstrator to Indonesia, in a bid to demonstrate the capabilities of F-16V. Indonesia is planning to replace its old fighter aircraft. The latest version of Lockheed's Fighting Falcon, the F-16V features advanced fourth generation capabilities, including scalable agile beam radar (SABR).
(Read More...)
10/09/2015
On its 83rd anniversary, the Indian Air Force has made a surprise announcement: Women pilots will soon fly its fighter aircraft. “We have women pilots flying transport aircraft and helicopters, we are now planning to induct them into the fighter stream to meet the aspirations of young women of India,” Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha said, according to an NDTV report.
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10/09/2015
The latest version of Russia's KAB-250 precision-guided bomb will soon complete trials, according to the weapon's manufacturer, Moscow-based Region Scientific & Production Enterprise JSC.
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10/09/2015
Russia will continue providing support to Afghan government forces and plans to sign a contract on the delivery of several Mi-35 helicopters to Afghanistan in October, Russian presidential envoy to Afghanistan and head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Second Asia Department Zamir Kabulov told the Izvestia newspaper.
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10/08/2015
Bulgarian government approved on Wednesday a draft intergovernmental agreement on the repair of six engines of the country's MiG-29 aircraft in Poland, and authorized Defense Minister Nikolay Nenchev to sign it, officials said. The repair would cost 1.023 million euros (some 1.151 million U.S. dollars) per engine, the Defense Ministry said in a press release.
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10/08/2015
Australian combat aircraft have not flown over Syria since Russian aircraft began bombing operations last week but that doesn't mean missions are on hold. Chief of defence force joint operations David Johnston said the RAAF F/A-18 Hornets had so far flown over Syria nine times, dropping bombs on a Daesh armoured personnel carrier and a checkpoint on separate days.
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10/08/2015
Draken International, a provider of 4th generation tactical flight services, has been contracted to provide adversary support for the United States Air Force. Flying advanced Douglas A-4K Skyhawk and Aero Vodochody L-159E advanced light combat aircraft (ALCA) fighter jets, Draken is able to replicate numerous types of threat aircraft. Draken aircraft are equipped with modern radars, electronic attack pods, and are operated by highly skilled reserve and former-military professionals.
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10/08/2015
Russian troops in Syria used artillery and multiple rocket launchers to fire at Syrian rebel positions Wednesday, in what appears to be a further expansion of the Russian military’s role to support the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. The development came on the same day that Russia launched two dozen cruise missiles from navy ships in the Caspian Sea aimed at what it said were ISIS targets in Syria.
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10/08/2015
The U.S. military has had to divert two aircraft over Syria to ensure they could maintain a safe flying distance from a Russian fighter aircraft in the same area, according to Captain Jeff Davis, Pentagon spokesman. It was the first time the U.S. needed to do so since Russia began military operations in Syria at the end of last month.
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10/08/2015
India's government has turned down the military's request to expand the acquisition of 36 fighter planes from Dassault Aviation SA to plug vital gaps, officials said, nudging it to accept an indigenous combat plane 32 years in the making. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision, in line with his Make-in-India policy to encourage domestic industry, is a blow for not only the French manufacturer but also others circling over the Indian military aviation market worth billions of dollars.
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10/08/2015
Lockheed Martin brought its F-16 cockpit demonstrator to Indonesia this week to highlight the F-16V, the latest version of Lockheed Martin’s venerable F-16 Fighting Falcon multirole fighter. The F-16V offers the most advanced 4th Generation capability available on the market today, including Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) and enhancements to the aircraft’s mission computer, vehicle systems, aircraft structure, cockpit and electronic warfare system.
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10/08/2015
The Russian Defense Ministry’s press service said that the Russian Deputy Defense Minister explained the objectives of the Russian operation in Syria to the Uzbek foreign minister.
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10/08/2015
The assembled footage features video and animation of Russian ships launching cruise missile strikes against Islamic State targets from the Caspian Sea. The video combines computer-generated imagery showing the cruise missiles' trajectory with footage of the missiles flying over western Iran and northern Iraq before arriving at their targets in northern Syria.
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10/08/2015
The Russian Defense Ministry is willing to put into action the Pentagon proposals on cooperation on fight against the Islamic State (ISIL) extremists, a spokesman for the ministry said Wednesday.
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10/07/2015
The U.S. Senate voted to advance a $604 billion defense authorization bill Tuesday that again would bar the Pentagon from retiring the A-10 airplanes at Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Michigan and around the country.
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10/07/2015
Lockheed Martin’s new modular fiber lasers now convert fully 40 percent of input energy to output, which means that — along with advances in manufacturing, targeting, and size-weight-power minimization — the company’s now talking about putting a laser weapon on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
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10/07/2015
While “hand-made” is usually a good thing, this isn’t the case for the equipment used in modern combat aircraft. A propaganda video aired by the official Chinese broadcast mouthpiece shows key components of the J-15 fighter jet, which are made for aircraft carriers, being manually polished at Shenyang Aircraft Corp.
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10/07/2015
The head of the Indian Air Force, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, recently announced that the Indian Air Force (IAF) will in all likelihood be able to deploy 42 combat squadrons by 2027 the Business Standard reports. “We are looking forward to building up our combat fleet to 42 squadrons by the end of the 14th plan, by 2027. I think it is possible, it is viable, there are a lot of options available with us, and discussions are already on,” he told reporters last Saturday in New Delhi.
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10/07/2015
The worries of the air force on getting a capable fifth generation fighter aircraft to counter the development of two futuristic fighters by China are mounting with little clarity on the Russian program that New Delhi had signed onto in 2010.
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10/07/2015
NATO on Tuesday rejected Moscow's explanation that its warplanes had violated alliance member Turkey's air space by mistake and said Russia was sending more ground troops to Syria and building up its naval presence. With Russia extending its air strikes to include the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he was losing patience with Russian violations of his country's air space.
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10/07/2015
The US State Department has approved a potential $243 million sale of five MQ-9 Block drones and associated equipment to Spain, US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a press release on Tuesday. "The Spanish Air Force intends to use the MQ-9s for homeland security, peacekeeping, peace enforcement, counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations," the press release read. "The estimated total cost [of the sale] is $243 million."
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10/07/2015
A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry said that the Turkish Defense Ministry proposed to Russia on Tuesday setting up a joint working group to coordinate actions and prevent incidents regarding the Russian operations in Syria.
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10/07/2015
Russia has deployed its notorious Mi-24 helicopter gunships to Syria, where they are part of the operation against Islamic State terrorist targets. According to Colonel Igor Klimov of the Russian Air Force in Hmeymim Air Base in Syria, the Mi-24 helicopters are currently being used for patrolling the area around the airfield and for potential search and rescue missions. The Mi-24 is considered to be one of most deadly and versatile helicopters in the world.
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10/06/2015
As Russian warplanes fly over Syria, neighboring NATO member Turkey says its fighter jets could open fire on them if they stray into Turkish airspace. The threat is serious and highlights the danger of a direct military confrontation between Russia and its old Cold War adversaries, including not just Turkey but the United States.
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10/06/2015
Two US Navy F-35C test aircraft have begun a second round of developmental testing at sea aboard the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower, aimed at smoothing the aircraft’s entry into service in 2018.
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10/06/2015
In an interview with India Strategic and at remarks at his annual pre-Air Force Day briefing here October 3, Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha observed that the Indian Air Force (IAF) was “terribly short” of modern aircraft, and that the Government was alive to this. “The contract negotiations with the French are in process… Our intent is to conclude the agreement at the earliest,” he said.
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10/06/2015
Norway's ministry of defence is using a strategic defence review to push for significant funding increases for the country's armed forces, as well as underscore the importance of the F-35 joint strike fighter to the Norwegian Air Force.
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10/06/2015
Following its deployment of combat aircraft inside Syria, Russia may also be considering placing some of its air force assets in Iraq. Speculation has increased after Iraq's prime minister Haider al-Abadi on 1 October said that he would "welcome" air strikes by Russia in his country if Moscow made such a proposal – a scenario which he told television channel France 24 has not happened yet.
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10/06/2015
The Russian expeditionary force in Syria could generate as many as ninety-six fixed-wing combat aircraft sorties per day, assuming they have well-oiled logistics and properly trained maintenance crews. But that is a best-case scenario during a “combat surge”; more realistically, the thirty-two Russian jets at Latakia might be able to generate only twenty sorties per day.
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10/06/2015
Russian warplanes on bombing runs over Syria twice entered Turkish airspace over the weekend, causing “extreme danger” through “irresponsible behavior,” NATO said Monday. Turkish fighter planes scrambled both times and identified the intruding aircraft, which then returned to Syria.
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10/06/2015
The Royal Netherlands Air Force selected Lockheed Martin’s Sniper® Advanced Targeting Pod (ATP) to equip its F-16 fleet, becoming the 21st international customer to acquire the multi-mission system. The contract was awarded through the Dutch Defence Materiel Organisation and includes 29 Sniper ATPs as well as support equipment, training and sustainment. Pod deliveries will begin in the first quarter of 2016.
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10/06/2015
Lockheed Martin is trying to convince the US Air Force to abandon its plans to replace Lockheed's U-2 spy plane with Northrop Grumman's RQ-4 Global Hawk, an unmanned, long-range surveillance platform.
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10/06/2015
In November of 2010, Chinese state-owned manufacturer Avicopter unveiled the AC-311, a single-engine helicopter capable of carrying up to six people. On September 28, the company conducted the first test-flight of its military version, the Z-11WB. Maintaining the high visibility of the AC-311, the new helicopter has modifications which allow it to "carry out ground support, attack, battlefield reconnaissance, command, counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, counter-smuggling, and other tasks,".
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10/05/2015
NATO officials issued a warning to Russia on Monday, and the United States began what officials called urgent consultations with Turkey, after Turkish fighter jets intercepted a Russian warplane that entered its airspace over the weekend.
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10/05/2015
Turkey said it intercepted a Russian jet that violated its airspace over the weekend. The country called in the Russian ambassador and lodged a strong condemnation of the violation, Turkey's foreign ministry said in a statement Monday. "The Russian Federation will be responsible for any undesired incident that may occur," the ministry warned.
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10/05/2015
Russia’s military intervention in Syria has expanded radically in two directions. DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that China sent word to Moscow Friday, Oct. 2, that J-15 fighter bombers would shortly join the Russian air campaign that was launched Wednesday, Sept. 30. Baghdad has moreover offered Moscow an air base for targeting the Islamic State.
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10/05/2015
The contract for the French-made Mistral aircraft carrier was signed while President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi was on a visit to Paris in September, and the aircraft carrier is scheduled to arrive in Egypt in March. France had originally agreed to build two Mistral class aircraft carriers for Russia. When the deal was frozen over the Ukraine crisis, Russia retained the right to ensure that the ships could only be sold to third parties acceptable to Moscow. It had no objection to Egypt purchasing one
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10/05/2015
Russia’s bombing of anti-regime rebels in Syria has been described as a disaster for the US-led coalition’s efforts to destroy Isis, the Islamist militant group, but the Kremlin’s real challenge to Washington is in the skies above the war-torn country.
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10/05/2015
The Department of National Defense (DND) has scheduled on Oct. 12 the bid opening for the P4.9-billion contract for six close-air support aircraft. The procurement is one of 30 multibillion contracts suspended earlier in May pending the go-ahead of President Benigno S. C. Aquino III. These include two navy frigates worth P18 billion, two long-range patrol aircraft worth P5.9 billion, and three air surveillance radars worth P2.68 billion.
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10/05/2015
Satellite photos analyzed by IHS Janes show China has dramatically ramped up efforts to construct a second aircraft carrier—the first to be built indigenously there. While the new ship will likely not be a match for US aircraft carriers, it is important for a number of reasons, and representative of China's ambitions to be a naval superpower.
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10/05/2015
The Kh-29L air-to-surface missile used by Russian planes against ISIL in Syria is a weapon that strikes targets with a precision less than two meters, give or take.
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10/05/2015
Early on the morning of Sept. 30, a Russian three-star general approached the American embassy in Baghdad, walked past a wall of well-armed Marines, to deliver face-to-face a diplomatic demarche to the United States. His statement was blunt: The Russia military would begin air strikes in neighboring Syria within the hour — and the American military should clear the area immediately.
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10/04/2015
Given heightened tensions over Russia’s support for Iran and the Syrian regime, the recently announced sale of ten unmanned IAI Searcher 3 drones to Russia seems unusual at face value.
However, Israel’s decision to sell weapons to the country it sees as the principal benefactor of its enemies is just the latest chapter of a long and often complicated history of military cooperation between Israel and Russia.
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10/04/2015
Making up the core of the force deployed in Syria are SU-24 fighters (known to Nato as Fencers) and SU-25 ground-attack jets (Frogfoots), two workhorse warplanes. The battle-tested models, which date back to Soviet times, were familiar sights over battlefields such as Chechnya and Ukraine.
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10/04/2015
IAF chief Arup Raha sounded optimistic about the ongoing negotiations with the French government for buying Rafales but admitted that adding up numbers to increase fighter jet strength remains a challenge.
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10/04/2015
The Russian air force’s long-range striking power in the region comes from the twelve Su-24M2 Fencer jets that Russia has sent to its base in Latakia, Syria. The Fencer is a mature design as it was launched in the 1960s. But despite the age, Russia’s remaining fleet of Su-24s has been heavily upgraded with modern systems.
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10/04/2015
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to by 20 new drones to fight Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. Britain is part of an international coalition of more than 60 countries, including the United States, Arab and European nations, working together to dismantle and destroy ISIL in Syria and Iraq.
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10/03/2015
U.S.-backed rebels in Syria appealed to the Obama administration Friday for antiaircraft missiles to defend their positions against relentless Russian airstrikes that have so far mostly targeted the moderate opposition to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
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10/03/2015
In another sign of the increasingly close relationship between the two nations, Pakistan is to use Chinese technology in its drones. Pakistan had several requests for drone technology rejected by the United States, and went on to manufacture its own indigenous drones. Those drones have seen combat action in the tribal regions, where Pakistani troops are fighting Islamic militants along the border with Afghanistan, writes Syed Fazl-e-Haider for The National.
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10/03/2015
IAF's Su-30 fighter plane pilots are focusing on beyond visual range combat and night flying capabilities even as they gear up for the installation of the 'game changer' BrahMos missiles, with a strike range of nearly 300 kms, in the aircraft.
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10/03/2015
A United States military transport plane crashed at an airfield in Afghanistan on Friday, killing all 11 people on board, the U.S. military said, adding there were no reports of enemy fire at the time. The cause of the crash at Jalalabad airfield was under investigation, a spokesman said, refusing to rule out the possibility that there may be dead or wounded on the ground. First responders were on the scene, he said.
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10/03/2015
Sea and air power were major winners in the fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act conference report released on Tuesday. In their versions of the NDAA, both the House and Senate proposed funding increases that would boost the number of fighters, increase the pace of shipbuilding and number of vessels procured. For the most part the Senate’s larger increases were adopted in the reconciled bill, resulting in a $1 billion hike for Navy shipbuilding and the procurement of additional fi
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10/03/2015
Boeing has completed its upgrade of all U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor Mission Training Centers with its high-fidelity Constant Resolution Visual System (CRVS). The system trains pilots in a more realistic visual environment than current simulators and allows them to experience extreme maneuvers that typically are only practiced in a simulator.
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10/03/2015
The nation’s entire B-52 bomber fleet will soon be equipped with technology that greatly enhances the aircraft’s combat capabilities in the digital battlespace. The U.S. Air Force on August 28 awarded Boeing a contract for B-52 bomber Combat Network Communications Technology, known as CONECT.
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10/03/2015
Since the beginning of the Russian Armed Forces operation in Syria, everyone’s attention has been captured by the top-of-the-line Sukhoi Su-30SM Flanker-H fighters and the Su-34 Fullback bombers, but the single most effective Russian aircraft deployed to Syria is the Su-25 SM, or as NATO calls it, the ‘Frogfoot.’
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10/03/2015
The Days of Innovations of the Southern, Western and Central military districts are scheduled for October 5-6 in the southwest city of Rostov-on-Don, Kubinka in Moscow Region, and Yekaterinburg respectively. "The company will introduce modifications of Ka-52K, Mi-26T2, Mi-8AMTSh-VA helicopters and a VR-Technologies UAV in the Moscow region," Russian Helicopters said.
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10/02/2015
Russian air strikes risk driving Syria’s “entire opposition” into the arms of Isil, Britain warned on Wednesday, as President Vladimir Putin's jets bombed targets in three different provinces, report Harriet Alexander in New York and Roland Oliphant in Moscow.
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10/01/2015
Russian aircraft carried out a bombing attack against Syrian opposition fighters on Wednesday, including at least one group trained by the C.I.A., eliciting angry protests from American officials and plunging the complex sectarian war there into dangerous new territory.
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10/01/2015
The India Minat will greatly enhance India’s capabilities across a range of militaristry of Defence has finalized its order with Boeing for production, training and support of Apache and Chinook helicopters thy and humanitarian missions. India will receive 22 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters and 15 CH-47F Chinook heavy-lift helicopters. Both are the newest models of those aircraft.
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10/01/2015
As Russia begins its air campaign against the self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group in Syria, the jet responsible is the Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback, Russia’s secret weapon in the skies.
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10/01/2015
Russia’s upper house of parliament on Wednesday approved the country’s armed forces to be used abroad. The decision includes only the use of the Air Force and does not foresee any ground troops operations, Kremlin Administration Aide Sergei Ivanov said Wednesday.
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