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The U.S. Air Force has backed away from developing a new electronic warfare aircraft. Now it will rely on UAVs equipped with jammers, and electronic jamming pods on non-specialized (as jamming aircraft) warplanes. This was not the preferred approach. Last year, the air force revived a program to convert some of its B-52 heavy bombers into radar jamming aircraft. This would be done by equipping the bombers with jamming pods (that are similar in appearance to large bombs). The air force planned to buy 24 sets of pods, for a force of 34 B-52s. Each pair of pods would cost...

Pakistan rolls out jet fighter produced with Chinese assistance Islamabad - Pakistan on Monday celebrated the rollout of a multi-purpose jet fighter manufactured in the country under a joint venture with China. The first locally produced JF-17 Thunder made its debut at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex in Kamra, a small garrison town some 65 kilometres north-west of Islamabad. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani described the launch as "a milestone" that placed Pakistan among an elite club of nations that manufacture fighter aircraft. Pakistan had signed a development contract with China's Chengdu Aircraft Industries Corporation in June 1999, and the co-produced...

Indian Navy keen to buy newer generation aircraft By Gulshan R. Luthra New Delhi, Nov 22 (IANS) The Indian Navy has floated a Request for Information (RFI) for a newer generation of aircraft which can operate from the two indigenous aircraft carriers it will commission over the next 10 years. The Ministry of Defence and industry sources indicate that the RFI, issued recently, is of a “generic” nature, looking for newer platforms and airborne technologies and what is on offer from some of the well-known manufacturers. The US Boeing and French Dassault have confirmed receipt of the RFI for their...

RESCUE: Snowmachiners come to aid of passengers, including infant twins. Without a word, with the plane at 4,500 feet, pilot Bradley Amos tapped something on the instrument panel. Seven passengers -- including twin 8-month-old girls -- were in the cabin. Soon came a loud popping sound. The plane's single propeller suddenly stopped turning and the smell of engine smoke filtered past the seats. The Cessna 207 glided without power above the tundra in Southwest Alaska. That was the low point of the Wednesday night flight. Here's the highlight: Within what felt like two minutes, the plane was on the ground....

One of the few concrete signs of cooperation to emerge from this week's U.S.-China summit could boost Beijing's drive to become a global aircraft maker. President Barack Obama pledged Tuesday to push for closer technical collaboration and eventual U.S. safety approval for China's ARJ21 commuter jet. That amounts to both a symbolic and practical step to counter Beijing's growing frustration with U.S. aviation policy and U.S. restrictions on the purchase of certain technologies. The high-profile U.S. initiative is especially significant because China's own safety regulators are still a year or more away from approving the 70-to-100-passenger aircraft being developed by...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., Nov. 18, 2009 -- The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] in May demonstrated the ability of mobile laser weapon systems to perform a unique mission: track and destroy small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). During the U.S. Air Force-sponsored tests at the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, Calif., the Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments (MATRIX), which was developed by Boeing under contract to the Air Force Research Laboratory, used a single, high-brightness laser beam to shoot down five UAVs at various ranges. Laser Avenger, a Boeing-funded initiative, also shot down a UAV. Representatives of the...

Now that the V-22s have landed in Afghanistan, it’s time to take a look at how they will be used. Robbin Laird, a defense consultant who works for the Marines — among other clients — got a chance to interview the flight crews of VMM-261, headed by Lt. Col. A. J. Bianca, about the concepts of operations they expected to follow. We’ve got links to the interviews, an interview with Laird and links to video of the V-22 teams undergoing deployment to Afghanistan and some of their training. The top benefit of the V-22 in Afghanistan is a simple one,...

Dubai 09: Lockheed adds probe to F-16 to attract India By Stephen Trimble Lockheed Martin is to add an all-new capability for the F-16 specifically to entice a massive order by the Indian air force. Lockheed has designed and demonstrated a probe refuelling system that extends from the right conformal fuel tank of the F-16IN, a proposed variant of the Block 60 tailored for India's 126-aircraft medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) requirement. The new probe-and-drogue refuelling capability was demonstrated to Indian pilots during flight trials performed in September in India, said Rick Groesch, Lockheed's regional vice-president for Middle East international...

In conjunction with the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), U.S. Pacific Fleet ships and crews successfully completed a series of exercises to test the second generation Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) weapon system, Aegis BMD 4.0.1. This set of four exercises, designated FTX-06 Events 1-4, involved the tracking and simulated engagements of a variety of ballistic missile targets launched over the past several months from the Kauai Test Facility, co-located on the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF), Barking Sands, Kauai. The Aegis BMD system is a critical component of the nation’s overall Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). FTX-06 Event 1, conducted...

MoD may sell aircraft carrier to India to limit cuts Sale would leave Royal Navy with just one replacement Tim Webb The Observer, Sunday 15 November 2009 Article historyOne of Britain's new £2bn aircraft carriers could be sold off under cost-cutting plans being considered by the Ministry of Defence. India has lodged a firm expression of interest, the Observer has learned. The sale of one of the two 65,000-tonne vessels would leave the Royal Navy with a single carrier and could force Britain to borrow from the French fleet, which itself has only one carrier and is reluctant to build...

China Close To Testing Next-Gen Fighter Bradley Perrett/Beijing A Chinese fighter of nominally the same technology generation as the Lockheed Martin F-22 will soon enter flight testing, while a jet airlifter larger than the Airbus A400M should be unveiled by year-end. Beijing’s fighter announcement suggests a serious failing in U.S. intelligence assessments, mocking a July 16 statement of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates that China would have no fifth-generation fighters by 2020. Industrial competition looks more remote than strategic competition, however, since China will want to fill domestic requirements before offering the aircraft abroad, even if it judges export sales...

While Israel is interested in purchasing the fifth-generation stealth Joint Strike Fighter from Lockheed Martin, it will likely hinge its order on US acceptance of its demand that Israeli defense industries be allowed to participate in the aircraft's production, senior defense officials said Thursday. On Monday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and discussed potential Israeli involvement in the production of the JSF, also known as the F-35. In the past, Israeli aerospace companies have been integrated into the production of aircraft purchased by the IAF. During their meeting, as well as a meeting...

A former engineer for defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. claims in a federal whistleblower lawsuit that the company knowingly used "defective" stealth coatings when building its F-22 Raptor stealth jets. Darrol Olsen, a stealth engineer who was fired by Lockheed in 1999, claims Lockheed "falsely certified" the coatings between September 1995 and June 1999, saying they had passed stealth tests and concealing results that showed otherwise. Olsen said in the lawsuit he was told to "stay out of it" when he complained to his superiors. The whistleblower suit was originally filed in October 2007 in California and was unsealed earlier...

FLIGHT TEST: Dassault Rafale - Rampant Rafale By Peter Collins Most advanced Allied air forces now have operational fleets of fourth-generation fighters (defined by attributes such as being fly-by-wire, highly unstable, highly agile, net-centric, multi-weapon and multi-role assets). These Western types include the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon and Saab Gripen NG. The Boeing F-15E and Lockheed Martin F-16 have an older heritage, but their latest upgrades give them similar multi-role mission capabilities. Of the above group, only the Super Hornet and Rafale M are capable of aircraft-carrier operations. As these fourth-generation fighters' weapons, sensor systems and...

Taiwan shelves 9 Mirage jets due to lack of spare parts Asia-Pacific News Taipei The Taiwan Air Force has shelved nine Mirage 2000-5 jets due to a lack of spare parts supplied by France, a newspaper report said Sunday. The China Times quoted an unnamed Air Force official as saying that the jets had been mothballed with assistance from France. The planes had undergone tests so that they could be reactivated, even for combat missions, he said. The delivery of pare parts could resume by the year-end, the official said. The China Times report comes one month after lawmaker Lin...

A QANTAS plane was just 400 feet off the runway at Melbourne Airport when the pilot was forced to abort a landing this morning, because of congestion. The 747 jumbo from Los Angeles was carrying 300 passengers when it had to pull out of the landing at the last minute. The pilot was forced to circle the airport until the runway was cleared.

One of the last regular users of JATO (Jet Assisted Take Off) rockets is dropping the practice. The U.S. Navy Blue Angels acrobatic team will no longer feature their C-130 (called "Fat Albert", and used to haul around the maintenance personnel and their equipment) doing a quick and fiery takeoff using JATO rockets. This was always a crowd pleaser, partly because you hardly see it anymore. JATO was first developed in the 1920s, to get gliders into the air. Later, especially during World War II, and a few decades after, JATO was used for getting aircraft off the ground quickly,...

The U.S. Marine Corps today released video of its V-22 Ospreys arriving in Afghanistan. Ten MV-22s flew from the USS Bataan and are now operating in southern Afghanistan. The video is of MV-22Bs with the Marine Medium tiltrotor Squadron 263, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit taking off in three waves from the flight deck of the Bataan. And here is video of the arrival and flight of the first Osprey to be use in Afghanistan.

PICTURE: Saab's Gripen Demo makes first flight with AESA radar By Craig Hoyle Saab's Gripen Demo aircraft has made its first test flight since receiving a key technology on offer to potential export customers including Brazil, India and Switzerland. Now equipped with the antenna and other elements of Selex Sensors and Airborne Systems' Vixen 1000E/ES05 Raven active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, the two-seat demonstrator resumed its flight activities on 27 October, when it performed a sortie from Saab's Linköping site in Sweden. The heavily modified B-model aircraft had been on the ground in refit for the last several months,...

S.Africa cancels deal for Airbus military planes (AFP) – 3 hours ago JOHANNESBURG — South Africa has cancelled a deal to buy eight Airbus A400M military transport planes due to hefty cost overruns and delivery delays, the government spokesman said Thursday. "The cost escalation would have placed an unaffordable burden on the taxpayer at a time when the national fiscus (Treasury) is under pressure due to the economic downturn," government spokesman Themba Maseko said in a statement. "Cabinet believes that the interests of the South African taxpayer will be best served by not proceeding with the contract," Maseko added. The...

The South Carolina Air National Guard's 169th Fighter Wing was named the overall winner of Falcon Air Meet 2009, a three-nation F-16 Fighting Falcon competition, held here through to November 3rd. The South Carolina team, which represented the U. S. Air Force's Central Command and the U.S., won three of the four main events as well as the Top Overall Maintenance Award and the Top Overall Competition Award. Other nations competing in the annual event were Jordan and Belgium. "I could not be prouder of what the South Carolina Air National Guard accomplished here at this year's Falcon Air Meet,"...

The U.S. Air Force has a morale problem with its combat pilots. The issue is lack of action for the pilots. That, plus the increased use of unmanned aircraft, and the very real prospect that the age of the manned combat aircraft may be coming to an end. This is made worse with hundreds of fighter pilots being assigned to operating Predator and Reaper UAVs. This was not popular duty, even though the pilots still draw flight pay. It is tedious work, although the UAV operators often saw more combat action than they did when piloting F-16s or F-15s. The...

Russian defense officials announced that the failed Bulava ballistic missile test last July, was due to a defect in the first stage steering system. This was fixed, and another test will take place before the end of the month. So far, the Bulava has been test fired eleven times. Only one of those tests was an unqualified success, and six were absolute failures. But the Russian government insists that development will continue, and succeed. The inept development of the new Bulava SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) for the new Boeri class SSBN (nuclear submarine carrying SLBMs) has become a growing...

Malaysia admitted that it is getting rid of its MiG-29 fighters because the aircraft are too expensive to maintain. It costs about $5 million a year, per aircraft, to keep them in flying condition. Three years ago, Malaysia bought two more MiG-29s, in addition to the 18 it got in the 1990s. Two of those were lost due to accidents. Malaysia has since ordered 18 Su-30 fighters, and will apparently order more to replace the MiG-29s. Malaysia also bought eight F-18Ds in the 1990s, and is getting rid of those as well. Russia has offered better prices on maintenance contracts...

The Boeing Co. announced Friday it will lay off a third of its 1,000-member workforce at Kennedy Space Center next year. The layoffs will come in January, May and August as the shuttle program heads toward retirement. Some 330 workers will be laid off from Boeing's Checkout, Assembly and Payload Processing Services program, which has about 500 workers, spokeswoman Susan Wells said Friday. "Boeing is committed to preserving as many jobs as possible for our valued, highly skilled employees, and the company has taken aggressive steps to lessen the impact of these potential reductions," a company statement said. "These steps...

Super Hornet favourite in Indian and Brazilian tenders By Reuben F Johnson The Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is well placed to fulfil both the Indian and Brazilian fighter requirements, the company and its industry partners said on 28 October. Boeing and its Team Super Hornet partners – Raytheon and General Electric (GE) – presented a broad-ranging review of the F/A-18E/F's position in both the Indian Air Force's (IAF's) Medium-Multirole Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) programme for 163 aircraft plus 63 options and the Brazilian Air Force's F-X2 tender for the first 36 of what is projected to be a total of 120...

Japan and the United States have tentatively agreed to expand co-operation in the missile defence field.. a [Japanese] spokesman said its scope is not expected to include Japan allowing the export of the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA, which is currently being jointly developed....both sides said they wanted to further co-operation in jointly developing missile defence systems..[the US asked Japan to consider permitting export of jointly-developed missiles, most likely to Europe].

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Boy Scout Frankie Slemmer may have bitten off a big chunk as he started to restore a Shaw veteran Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star. Due to lack of materials, labor and plans he hasn't embarked on the restoration part for his Eagle Scout project. Still, Slemmer hopes to give the 1954-vintage, two-seat trainer a make-over, and to earn the title of Eagle Scout. Notable Scouts who earned the rank of Eagle Scout are Medal of Honor Recipient Leo K. Thorsness, astronaut Neil Armstrong, and former President Gerald Ford, Jr. Slemmer became interested in planes when he joined the...

BreakingNews San Diego media: 9 missing after collision of Coast Guard C-130 and Marine Cobra helicopter off the SD coast. BNO News working to confirm.

A QANTAS plane landed safely in Perth this morning after calling for assistance when a pilot became incapacitated. The airline confirmed that flight QF593 from Adelaide had issued a “pan" alert and asked to be met by an ambulance after one of the pilots suffered a health issue, The Australian reports. The Qantas 737-800 from Adelaide carrying 110 passengers left Adelaide about 6.50am (local time) and touched down in Perth at 7.30am. An emergency was declared by the co-pilot and air traffic control vectored the aircraft onto the longest runway 21/03, thewest.com.au reports. After touch down the aircraft came to...

Japanese naval forces successfully shot down a medium-range missile off Hawaii in a test of Tokyo's missile defense weaponry, the US military said on Wednesday. A Japanese destroyer detected, tracked and knocked out the missile in mid-flight with an SM-3 interceptor rocket, the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said in a statement. The missile was launched on Tuesday at 6:00 pm Hawaii time (0400 GMT) at a missile range site off Kauai in Hawaii and at 6:04, an SM-3 interceptor was fired in response, the MDA said. "Approximately three minutes later, the SM-3 successfully intercepted the target approximately 100 miles...

Northrop Grumman Corp. on Wednesday suggested it could file a lawsuit or even withdraw from the U.S. Air Force tanker contest because of its concerns over the fairness of the competition. Top Northrop officials said they were working with the Pentagon to address their objections to the Air Force's draft Request for Proposals, released to potential bidders Sept. 25.

'Father of Su-27' Simonov: F-15 hater Mikhail Petrovich Simonov, designer of the iconic Su-27 Flanker, realized after the 1977 first flight that the T-10 prototype was a dog, a fact he explained to the aviation minister in Moscow. "'It's a good thing, Petrovich, that today is not 1937," the minister replied. That is one of the incredible anecdotes sprinkled throughout a Simonov feature published today in the London Telegraph. The article is a must read for anyone even slightly curious about aviation history. For example, we learn the lead designer's delightfully Russian reaction to Simonov's proposed solution to the T-10's...

CHICAGO—Boeing Co. said it would build a second final assembly line for its troubled 787 Dreamliner jet in South Carolina, a move that spurns the powerful aircraft machinists' union that had been negotiating with Boeing to locate the work at the current factory near Seattle. Boeing has been laying the groundwork for a new factory in South Carolina for months and could begin construction at a facility it owns in North Charleston, S.C., as early as Nov. 2. The factory is expected to be operational by July 2011. Boeing's decision comes after a flurry of lobbying by officials in both...

Dow Jones)--Boeing Co. on Wednesday announced it would build a second final assembly line for its troubled 787 Dreamliner jet in South Carolina, a move that spurns the powerful aircraft machinists' union that had been negotiating with Boeing to locate the work at the current factory near Seattle. Boeing has been laying the groundwork for a new factory in South Carolina for months and could begin construction at a facility it owns in North Charleston, S.C., as early as Nov. 2. The factory is expected to be operational by July 2011.

Armed F-16s from the Wisconsin Air National Guard were on the runway and could have shot down the errant Northwest flight, officials said today. "As a force of last resort, NORAD is always prepared to do whatever is necessary," NORAD spokesperson Mike Kucharek told ABCNews.com. Air traffic controllers feared Northwest Flight 188, might have been hijacked after its pilots failed to respond to radio transmissions for more than an hour. Air traffic controllers reported the pilots initially failed to respond to commands as it passed from the air space controlled by the FAA Denver Center into the area controlled by...

Just announced KING5 news, waiting for link...

So Boeing is threatening to jilt us (again). To run out on our nine decades of marriage with someone smarter? Better? More reliable? Nope. With someone cheaper. Take away the heat, all the union-bashing or management second-guessing as Boeing now appears ready to move a major piece of its plane-building operations to South Carolina. At the core of this breakup drama is a cold statistic: 14. As in $14. Per hour. That's the average pay of the local line workers who are building the fuselage of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner in a Charleston, S.C., plant. Average pay of a Boeing Machinist...

Mikhail Simonov, designer of the iconic fighter jets Su-27 and Su-30, has been at the forefront of aircraft design for more than 50 years. To celebrate his 80th birthday this month, we hear from the man who gave Russia the edge in aerial combat.

Russia setting, US rising in Indian air force Josy Joseph / DNA Russia’s eclipse and the US’ rise in the Indian military will soon stand out in the air force’s transport division. Sources said the government is moving in to seal yet another government-to-government deal with the US for a military purchase. They are ordering ten C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft. The deal is worth over $2 billion (Rs10,000 crore). When inducted, C-17 Globemaster would replace the Russian-made IL-76 as the biggest transport aircraft of India. C-17, a Boeing product, can carry almost 80,000 kg, against IL-76’s 50,000 kg. Sources said...

Oct 21, 2009 — Plants are not as stationary as one might think. Parts of them, like seeds, can travel for miles. One good example is the maple seed. Its little helicopter seeds can catch an updraft and fly a long distance from the tree. Now, engineers at University of Maryland have imitated its physics and designed a radio-controlled mono-copter that can sustain stable flight for hours...

The latest in the case of the straying Northwest Airlines flight is that pilots have told the National Transportation Safety Board that they were working on their laptops, not sleeping, not arguing. The Associated Press had this: "National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement Monday that the pilots said in interviews that they were not fatigued and didn't fall asleep, as many aviation safety experts have said was likely. "The board said the pilots told investigators the first officer was instructing the captain on monthly flight crew scheduling. The pilots were out of communication with air traffic controllers and...

US NTSB investigators say the two pilots on a Northwest Airlines A320 (N02374) that was out of radio communications with air traffic controllers for more than an hour the night of 21 October were immersed in a discussion of new scheduling procedures as the aircraft overflew its destination airport by more than a hundred miles at cruise altitude. According to NTSB interviews held on 25 October with the captain, age 53, and first officer, age 54, fatigue and sleep were not issues during the flight from San Diego to Minneapolis-St. Paul that day, nor had there been a "heated argument"....

Many a person has missed their stop on a bus or train at one time or another because they were engrossed in a weighty conversation or a book. But when the pilots of Northwest Airlines flight 188 became distracted it had more serious consequences as they overflew their Minneapolis destination by 150 miles. "They were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness," the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) explained. When the pilots got their "situational awareness" back they turned the Airbus A320 around and landed it safely on Wednesday evening, apparently without any of...

Navy surrenders one new aircraft carrier in budget battle Michael Smith The Royal Navy has agreed to sacrifice one of its two new aircraft carriers to save about £8.2 billion from the defence budget. The admirals, who have battled for a decade to secure the two new 65,000-ton carriers, have been forced to back down because of the soaring cost of the American-produced Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft due to fly off them. The move is a blow to the navy’s prestige and has come on the heels of Gordon Brown’s announcement last month that he was axing one of...

You would think that an unpiloted space plane built to rocket spaceward from Florida atop an Atlas booster, circle the planet for an extended time, then land on autopilot on a California runway would be big news. But for the U.S. Air Force X-37B project — seemingly, mum's the word. There is an air of vagueness regarding next year's Atlas Evolved Expendable launch of the unpiloted, reusable military space plane. The X-37B will be cocooned within the Atlas rocket's launch shroud — a ride that's far from cheap. While the launch range approval is still forthcoming, SPACE.com has learned that...

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Behind closed doors, business and local government leaders in South Carolina are working to deliver an electrifying jolt to the economy of this genteel city — at the expense of Washington state. Already the site of side-by-side factories that produce two thirds of the fuselage for Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, Charleston is in a tight race with Everett to be the location of a second final-assembly line for the new jet. "It's a huge deal," said Pat Barber, a well-connected Charleston businessman who owns a trucking company that specializes in oversize loads and could win a lot of...

Eurofighter to be boosted by new radar LONDON, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- A new radar system will make the Eurofighter Typhoon more attractive to international buyers, designers say. The companies responsible for the jet's current radar system are proposing to Eurofighter consortium partners Britain, Germany and Italy a rotating e-scan radar known as Caesar, Defensenews.com reports. While the current mechanically scanned Captor radar system is fixed, the new system will rotate to increase its efficiency. The so-called Euroradar consortium wants to put the new radar system into the Tranche 3 jets to be delivered over the next years to Britain,...

Defense ministry to consider proposal to mothball Mirage fighters Central News Agency 2009-10-22 06:34 PM Taipei, Oct. 22 (CNA) Minister of National Defense Kao Hua-chu promised Thursday to consider a proposal to mothball the Air Force's Mirage fighter jets in light of their low performance and high maintenance costs. Kao said the Ministry of National Defense (MND) will carefully evaluate issues such as how to maintain the balance of combat capabilities across the Taiwan Strait, before making a decision on the matter. In the meantime, the Air Force will work with the French manufacturer in an effort to fix the...

Boeing and the Machinists union are far apart in secret negotiations over a proposed no-strike agreement that would ensure a second 787 final assembly line goes to Everett instead of Charleston, S.C.Secret talks have been going on for weeks in Washington, D.C., and Chicago between Boeing and the Machinists union, with top leaders negotiating over a proposed no-strike agreement that would ensure a second 787 final-assembly line goes to Everett instead of Charleston, S.C. But less than a week ahead of a Boeing board meeting to discuss the choice, the labor talks are deadlocked and hindered by distrust on each...