Free Republic

90th Fighter Squadron is the first F-22 Raptor combat unit equipped with the AIM-9X dogfight missile. On Mar. 1, 2016 the 90th Fighter Squadron (FS) belonging to the 3rd Wing stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska officially became the first combat-operational Raptor unit to equip an F-22 with the AIM-9X Sidewinder. According to Chief Master Sgt. Chuck Jenkins, 3rd Wing Weapons Manager, the AIM-9X will increase the already outstanding Raptor’s combat capabilities. “This has been in the inventory for the Air Force and Navy for some years; it’s nothing new to the military, but to put it on the Ferrari...

The much maligned F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has yet another problem with its software: the radar stops working requiring the pilot to turn it off and on again. The Lockheed Martin plane, which has been in development since 2001 and is the most software-driven warplane ever built, has experienced several failures and setbacks that have seen its cost balloon and its delivery delayed. Each jet is now expected to cost about £100m. From structural problems that made it vulnerable to lightning strikes – ironic given it’s called the Lightning II – to weight issues, bugs within its software and its...

RINASI AIR BASE, Albania — If you want to buy a secondhand fighter jet, Albania's the place to go right now. The 40 obsolete Soviet and Chinese-made aircraft up for sale once roared over what was Europe's most exclusive airspace. The Albanian pilots were members of an exalted military elite that had its own food-tasters and was tasked by Communist Albania's paranoid regime with deterring countless enemies who never did come to this country on the Adriatic Sea. Now a NATO member, Albania is auctioning off the rusting jets to pay for modernizing its military and to save space in...

AFS's concept would employ the same 4,000 HP engine used by the V-22 to generate 3 MW of electrical power that will drive the 24 ductless fans spread across its rear wings and front canards. These fans will rotate, as you can see in the image above, enabling the X-Plane to seamlessly transition from a hover to forward flight. "This VTOL X-plane won't be in volume production in the next few years but is important for the future capabilities it could enable," DARPA program manager, Ashish Bagai, said. "Imagine electric aircraft that are more quiet, fuel-efficient and adaptable and are...

Russia’s upgraded Tupolev Tu-160M2 Blackjack supersonic bomber is expected to make its first flight in 2019. Moscow currently has sixteen of the original version of the Mach 2.0-capable bomber, which are the last surviving examples of the thirty-five aircraft built by the Soviet Union before its demise. Moscow hopes to build fifty new Tu-160M2 aircraft to upgrade its aging strategic bomber force. “I believe that in 2019 this plane, upgraded and manufactured, will make its maiden flight,” Col. Gen. Viktor Bondarev, commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces told the Moscow-based TASS News Agency on March 2. Russia made the decision...

Thinkstock Eighty years ago the first Spitfire prototype flew from Eastleigh aerodrome in Hampshire. One man reveals the impact piloting this aircraft had on his life. It was always an exclusive club, and now there are only a handful of people left who can claim membership. To fly a Spitfire, especially in combat, is as close to holding a place in mythology as modern times allow. But Sqn Ldr Geoffrey Wellum DFC, still passionate and engaging at 94, cautions against hyperbole. "I didn't think of myself as glamorous but certainly I was aware it was a privilege," he says. "Everybody...

The Navy will soon deploy a new air-launched, precision-guided weapon able to use a two-way data-link to identify and destroy moving targets at sea, a technology, giving fighters such as the F/A-18 Super Hornet a vastly increased attack envelope against a wider range of threats. Called the AMG-154 Joint Standoff Weapon, or JSOW, the Raytheon-built attack bomb uses GPS technology, inertial measurement unit guidance technology and an imaging infrared seeker in the final phase of flight to find and attack enemy targets. While historically used as a land-attack weapon launched from air-platforms such as fighter jets, new technology allows the...

Long before hitching a ride to the moon aboard Apollo 11, then US Air Force test pilot Neil Armstrong was zipping around in a rocket-powered North American X-15, which to this day remains the fastest manned, winged aircraft ever built. That flight record of Mach 6.72 or 7,274km/h was set by pilot William “Pete” Knight in 1967. Now, some 59 years later, America still hasn’t fully realised the promise that experimental flight vehicle held for military operations. Despite many breakthroughs in fields of hypersonic propulsion and high-temperature materials, the air force doesn’t imagine an affordable and operationally relevant surveillance and...

On Monday, NASA revealed a project as part of its newly-introduced New Aviation Horizons initiative that awarded Lockheed Martin a $20 million contract over the next 17 months to create a jet that uses quiet supersonic technology (QueSST). It is the first in a series of ‘X-planes’ for the initiative. NASA said it conducted studies across the country to learn more about acceptable sound levels. The finished product will fly at supersonic speeds, and create a "heartbeat" in place of the disruptive "boom" that is currently associated with supersonic flight.

A Norwegian fighter pilot has published a soft rebuttal to a damaging critique leaked last summer about the Lockheed Martin F-35A’s dogfighting prowess, contradicting many of the critical points made in the scathing review written by a Lockheed test pilot. Royal Norwegian Air Force Maj Morten “Dolby” Hanche, a US Navy test pilot school graduate with 2,200 flight hours in Lockheed F-16s, has flown several mock dogfights from Luke AFB in Arizona since becoming the nation’s first F-35 pilot last November. These have yet to advance to performing "dissimilar" training against other aircraft types. In a blog post on Norway’s...

IAI SkySniper is an air-launched, precision attack ballistic missile developed by IAI MLM. Image: IAI IAI is reviving the concept of using ground based ballistic missiles as air-launched weapons enabling precision strike from standoff range. Dubbed ‘SkySniper’, the weapon is configured as an autonomous, air to ground precision strike missile. Powered by a rocket motor the SkySniper strikes its target at supersonic speed. The high velocity impact with multi-purpose blast-fragmentation warhead and three-mode fuse enables effective penetration of hard targets. Tailored to destroy a wide range of targets, the missile can also detonate in airburst or impact action modes to...

With the U.S. Air Force revealing concept art and a designation for its shadowy Northrop Grumman B-21 Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B) last week, there are many details that we can now glean about the new warplane. First and foremost, the new B-21 looks very similar to its B-2 Spirit predecessor. In fact, the new aircraft look startlingly similar to the original Advanced Strategic Penetration Aircraft (ASPA) and the later Advanced Technology Bomber concept from the 1980s that ultimately resulted in the B-2. But the Spirit was redesigned late in the game to operate at low altitudes after Dr. Paul Kaminski's-current...

Israel Reconsidering 2008 Purchase of U.S. Jets; Cabinet Mulls Cancelling Acquisition of Flawed Fighter-Jet Rejected By Most NATO Air Forces A welcome decision made back in 2008 to purchase U.S.-made Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) jets no longer appears very attractive in 2016 – and Israel is considering backtracking on it. So say Israeli government sources quoted by Middle East Newsline (MENL). For one thing, the much-touted JSF has some inherent flaws, such as inadequate range, weapons payload and stealth capability. In addition, the Americans refuse to share the JSF source code with Israel. Israel would not be able to modify...

Australia bought its Tiger ARH attack helicopters only eight years ago, and now it wants to scrap all 22 of them. Even more embarrassing, the Tiger has still not yet achieved “final operational capability” — meaning the helicopter never fully became ready for combat. The decision to ditch the Tiger — to occur in the 2020s — landed with a thud with the release of Australia’s 2016 defense white paper, which laid out the country’s military strategy over the coming decades. The plan includes U.S. $21.5 billion in new spending, which would pay for new submarines, frigates, patrol vessels, aircraft...

The US Air Force has revealed its bomber for the 21st century, the Northrop Grumman B-21 long-range strike bomber. The official designation comes as the air force for the first time releases an artist's rendering of the still-classified bomber — a flying wing design similar to the Northrop B-2 and the company's concept for the previous Next-Generation Bomber (NGB) project. The air force hasn’t purchased a new bomber in this century and is still dependent on 54-year-old Boeing B-52H and 28-year-old B-1B. Its 21-year-old B-2 Spirit, the only in-service stealth bomber, will be in use through 2060, officials say. Revealed...

NEW DELHI: The Indian Air Force has just 32 squadrons of fighters - the lowest in a decade - to guard the Indian skies, top IAF commanders have confirmed to NDTV. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has flagged the worry with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and made a detailed presentation recently on the operational difficulties that the IAF faces because of the depletion in fighters. After the air force de-commissioned three of the aging Russian-made MiG 21 squadrons, bringing down the total number from 34 to 31 fighter squadrons, an additional squadron of the Russian-made Su-30 MKI has been raised. The...

The Marine Corps faces serious challenges with its aging CH-53E Super Stallion fleet. The huge and complex aircraft are decades old and tired from 15 years of war. A replacement is on the way, the CH-53K King Stallion, although it is behind schedule and still years away from becoming operational. Yet according to a recent report, the Suprr Stallion fleet is in shockingly poor shape. The Virginian-Pilot newspaper describes an internal report with a damning assessment of just how far the heavy-hauling CH-53E fleet has sunk into disrepair, and how little training their crews are receiving. The confidential independent study...

RIYADH: A new military transport aircraft manufactured locally will be tested next year after 18 months of development and design. This is according to Prince Turki bin Saud bin Mohammad, president of King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology. The AN-132 is the result of cooperation with Ukraine and would see 80 planes produced, partially in the former Soviet nation, he said. The AN-132 is a modern version of the military transport plane AN-32, with modern engines and electronics that would make it more fuel-efficient and able to take off and land in various environments, he was quoted as saying...

Raytheon threw its hat in the ring for the U.S. Air Force’s T-X jet trainer replacement program by announcing a partnership with Italy’s Finmeccanica group to offer a variant of the twin-engine Alenia Aermacchi M-346 Master for the requirement. Finmeccanica had previously signed a letter of intent with General Dynamics to offer the variant, designated the T-100. At a February 22 press conference in Washington, D.C., Raytheon introduced a T-X industry team that includes Finmeccanica, engine manufacturer Honeywell and training system provider CAE. They will likely compete against three other teams. Earlier this month, Lockheed Martin confirmed that it will...

BAE Systems Plc is offering new options for funding defense deals as the low oil price impacts the spending power of clients in the Middle East, clouding sales prospects for weaponry including the Eurofighter warplane. A $1.5 billion bond sale will support BAE’s cash levels over the next two years, providing it with the flexibility to broker deals requiring smaller upfront payments from customers, Chief Financial Officer Peter Lynas said Thursday. While the debt sale in December was “opportunistic” in a cheap market, BAE took the step “recognizing the financing pressures on certain export customers given the ongoing low oil...