Free Republic

A Royal Navy helicopter dubbed the "Land Rover of the skies" will make its final flypast later. The Sea King Mk4 has been flying for 36 years with the Commando Helicopter Force, based at RNAS Yeovilton, Somerset. Five of the aircraft will fly from the base, visiting Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Okehampton, Bristol and Glastonbury. The fleet will be decommissioned at the end of the month. On Sunday a 'Junglie' Sea King landed for the final time on the flight deck of HMS Bulwark, which is currently at sea off the Devon coast. Captain James Parkin said: "The 'Junglie' Sea King...

NEW DELHI: They were always a sight to behold, a force to reckon with. Fighters landing vertically, akin to helicopters, with ear-splitting roars on a moving airfield despite being fixed-wing. It left even the usually phlegmatic Manmohan Singh slightly nonplussed during the "PM's day at sea" in 2006. Similar was the case of other politicians, before and after him, like A B Vajpayee and L K Advani. But the old must give way to the new. Ahead of the 56-year-old aircraft carrier INS Viraat's retirement later this year, the Navy has bid adieu to its eyeball-grabbing Sea Harrier "jump jets"...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will deliver 40 Mi-28NE attack helicopters to Algeria in line with a bilateral contract, Interfax news agency said on Friday, quoting a source in Russia's arms exporting bodies. The Mi-28 helicopter, dubbed "Night Hunter" by the Russian military, is said by arms experts to be among the best in the world in its class. It is capable of carrying out missions day and night and in most adverse weather conditions. The Mi-28NE modification is equipped with a dual-control system, which allows to fly the helicopter both from the pilot's cockpit and from the cockpit of the...

On the 45th anniversary of the F-16 lightweight fighter’s first flight, Lockheed Martin faces the very real prospect of turning off "Fighting Falcon" production as prospective customers like Pakistan struggle to clear the US government’s regulatory and funding processes. After assembling more than 4,500 F-16s in almost 140 different configurations, the Fort Worth, Texas production line is thawing from hot to lukewarm and could go cold by “about the end of 2017” after Lockheed delivers the remaining seven of 36 Iraqi F-16IQs. Iraqi F-16IQ US Air Force Lockheed’s F-16 programme chief Susan Ouzts said this week that several countries have...

Photos via Marine Nationale France’s only aircraft carrier, the nuclear powered Charles De Gaulle, returned to its home port in Toulon, France yesterday. Before its arrival, the Dassault Super Étendard, an aircraft that has spent nearly 40 years fighting France’s wars abroad, took its final catapult launch off an aircraft carrier. By this July the humble jet will be fully retired from Marine Nationale service. The sleek yet subsonic attack jet has stayed relevant long after anyone would have imagined it could. The aircraft has always had clear limitations— speed, payload and maneuverability being just a few—but it has received...

The fate of the F-15 assembly line in St. Louis, and thousands of jobs tied to it, may hinge on the White House’s attitude toward a tiny oil-rich monarchy that sometimes riles its Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf. The Emirate of Qatar wants to buy at least 36 of the air-superiority jets, and possibly 72, but the purchase has been held up for two years as the administration of President Barack Obama ponders whether to allow it. The issue is entangled in the shifting geopolitics and strained alliances of the Middle East, along with Israel’s concern that the sale...

Paris is beginning to acknowledge the possibility that India might not buy the Rafale fighter because of sharp differences over the price, and New Delhi’s insistence on enforceable guarantees regarding the fighter’s delivery, performance and availability. A senior French official with a close view of the on-going negotiations between New Delhi and Paris for 36 Rafale fighters told Business Standard on condition of anonymity: “If some people in the MoD do not want to allow the Rafale deal to go through, so be it. We are currently building it for Egypt and Qatar, and we could have another customer in...

KA-52 via Fedor Leukhin/Wikicommons Russia says that its pullout from its air base in Syria will be complete in just two or three more days, but it is leaving behind a more potent attack helicopter force than what was ever there before. Both the Mi-28 and the KA-52 attack helicopters have been spotted around the base within the last 24 hours. Here’s why the Kremlin is upping its combat helicopter capability just as it is pulling its fixed wing fighter and attack aircraft. Mi-28s in action. Photo credit Yevgeny Volkov/wikicommons Throughout Russia’s military involvement in the Syrian conflict it has...

When the US/UK special relationship really WAS special: New £3million war museum opens telling how Britain and the U.S. worked together during the darkest days of the 20th Century American Air Museum based at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, Cambridgeshire, looks at role of US air power It has 18 aircraft on display, including B-17 bomber used in WWII and supersonic SR-71 Blackbird spy plane The museum looks at conflicts in chronological order, beginning at 1918 and continuing on to the present day Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3495651/When-special-relationship-really-special-New-3million-war-museum-opens-telling-Britain-U-S-worked-darkest-days-20th-Century.html#ixzz437ANIZjh Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Lockheed Martin revealed on Tuesday it is on the brink of a technological breakthrough that could lead to the US developing military aircraft that can fly six times the speed of sound. Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed’s chief executive, outlined the proposed hypersonic aircraft as she also disclosed the company was working on a laser weapon that could be used on the battlefield. At the company’s annual media day, Ms Hewson expressed optimism about future US military budgets following years of cutbacks. She said that lawmakers seemed set to pass an increase in the budget for 2016-17. However, her most eye-catching remarks...

The whole idea behind the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was for it to be, you know, joint. That is to say, the same basic plane would work for the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps and foreign countries. Lockheed Martin is designing the F-35 to meet all the requirements of all three U.S. military branches from the outset, with — in theory — only minor differences between the Air Force’s F-35A, the Marines’ F-35B and the Navy’s F-35C. The variants were supposed to be 70-percent common. But Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, head of the JSF program office, told a...

An Emirati fighter jet suffered a "technical malfunction" and crashed Monday while taking part in the Saudi-led war against Shiite rebels in Yemen, killing the plane's two pilots, authorities said. Bystanders apparently found the remains of the Mirage fighter near Yemen's port city of Aden, while amateur video and photos posted on a local news website showed onlookers rifling through the debris and standing on a piece of the plane's distinctive triangle-shaped wing. The United Arab Emirates' state-run WAM news agency earlier announced the "loss of a fighter aircraft." It did not immediately report the pilots' deaths. The state-run Saudi...

Photo credit: US Army via Military Times The Pentagon is realizing that fighting in the frigid north may be more of a possibility than ever as Russia prepares its forces for sustained arctic operations. Now a handful of the US Army’s attack helicopters are getting optimized for this scenario, receiving skis, a pilot survival pod and being tested to see how they adapt to the extreme environment. The Apache’s permanent presence in Alaska is still a relatively new development. It came about as the result of the Army’s aviation reorganization plan that saw the sudden (and some would say boneheaded)...

It is one of the oddest plane designs ever created - a tiny propeller-driven craft with twin tails and two pilots sitting almost on top of each other. However, Boeing and a South Africa's Paramount Group firm hope the wacky design, currently used to patrol borders, could be turned into a low cost fighter plane. The two firms plan to add missiles and a slew of sensors to the advanced, high-performance, reconnaissance, light aircraft, which has been named Mwari after an all-seeing mythological being in Southern African folklore. The advanced, high-performance, reconnaissance, light aircraft (AHRLAC) is a high-wing aircraft, with...

AN RAF warplane targeting IS was badly damaged after hitting a stray dog as it landed at 200mph. The £9.4million Tornado GR4 was returning to a base in Cyprus after a night sortie. Its fearful pilot and navigator even considered ejecting from the jet — still carrying a payload of Brimstone and Paveway missiles. But a relieved source said: “No one was hurt, just shaken up.” Tuesday’s scare at RAF Akrotiri saw fire crews race on to the runway, as a refuelling tanker that had accompanied it was forced to circle for half an hour. Damage to the undercarriage was...

The US Air Force has begun studying future close air support (CAS) aircraft to succeed the Fairchild Republic A-10 as the Pentagon evaluates the weaponry it needs for “prolonged operations” of one year or more. The flying branch is looking at tactical air support platform alternatives for low-intensity “permissive conflict” like counterterrorism and regional stability operations, similar to the types of missions being conducted Iraq and Afghanistan today, where air superiority has been achieved and coalition aircraft can roam relatively freely in support of ground troops. USAF officials say a portion of a "combat air force study” is dedicated to...

War was just an experiment for two of the U.S. military’s oldest and most unusual warplanes. A pair of OV-10 Broncos—small, Vietnam War-vintage, propeller-driven attack planes—recently spent three months flying top cover for ground troops battling ISIS militants in the Middle East. The OV-10s’ deployment is one of the latest examples of a remarkable phenomenon. The United States—and, to a lesser extent, Russia—has seized the opportunity afforded it by the aerial free-for-all over Iraq and Syria and other war zones to conduct live combat trials with new and upgraded warplanes, testing out the aircraft in potentially deadly conditions before committing...

Not all F/A-18 pilots have heard of Leslie Shook, but every Hornet pilot knows her voice. The Boeing employee is the voice of the "oral alert," a series of pre-recorded commands that help a pilot avoid his or her imminent demise. Shook is now retiring from the company, which put together a nice tribute video to her. The F/A-18 can sense when corrective action is needed—right away—and the plane promptly warns the pilot what needs to be done. Bitchin' Betty will bark commands like "Pull up! Pull up!" until the pilot complies. There are numerous Bitchin' Betties across various airplanes,...

Paramount Group AHRLAC Plane This weird plane will soon get weapons. Probably normal weapons, maybe weird weapons too. South Africa’s AHRLAC is a weird bird. With a narrow, high body, and stadium seating for the pilot and sensor operator, it looks like a rough draft for an F-4 phantom. A pusher prop and slightly forward-swept wings seem like an aviation mistake from the First World War. Built as a bushwacking scout, able to operate from rough fields without runways, AHRLAC is an odd drone alternative, a peopled plane built to do a drone’s job. Now, thanks to a deal Paramount...

China and Russia have conducted the seventh round of negotiations on their joint development of heavy-lift helicopters. Both sides have reached a consensus on the core technology, said Yu Feng, President of AVIC Helicopter Co. Ltd. on Monday. The talks, held from Feb. 29 to March 4, are of great significance for further promoting strategic cooperation between China and Russia, Yu Feng, also an NPC deputy, told reporters at the ongoing Two Sessions meetings on March 7. The development of heavy-lift helicopters makes China the third country after Russia and the U.S. to boast the capability. Thus, China has become...