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LONDON (AP) — A blimp-shaped, helium-filled airship considered the world's largest aircraft flew for the first time Wednesday with a short but historic jaunt over an airfield in central England. Engines roaring, the 302-foot (92-meter) Airlander 10 rose slowly into the air from Cardington airfield, 45 miles (73 kilometers) north of London. A hybrid of blimp, helicopter and airplane, it can stay aloft for days at a time and has been nicknamed the "flying bum" because of its bulbous front end.

At the end of 2016, the Russian Defense Ministry will receive the first delivery of the renewed NK-32 engines for the Tu-160M2 strategic missile-carrying bombers. According to the developers, the new engine will help the plane fly up to the stratosphere at an altitude of 60,000 feet. "The new NK-32 version can work not only as a reactive plane engine but also as a rocket engine. Thanks to this, the Tu-160M2 will be able to cruise at a height where no enemy anti-aircraft system can strike it," a source in the Russian defense industry said. The modernized plane's first flight...

A group of Russian Tu-22M3 Backfire bombers have supposedly arrived at Hamedan Air Base in western Iran. Photos (below) show them accompanied by at least one IL-76 tanker-transport. The Backfires have supposedly been deployed there for air strikes again ISIS. If these reports prove true, the deployment would be an unprecedented sign of Iranian-Russian military cooperation, and another indicator that Russia is far from finished with its use of fixed-wing air power in the region. Tu-22M3s have been suddenly active once again over Syria, flying long-range missions originating from within Russia’s borders and accompanied by forward-deployed Flanker derivatives once entering...

In Len Deighton’s book Fighter, he describes the tactics used by the outnumbered English fighter pilots defending against German Luftwaffe bombers in the Battle of Britain: The professional fighter pilot gained height as quickly as he was permitted, and treasured possession of that benefit. He hoped always to spot the enemy before they spotted him and hurried to the sun side of them to keep himself invisible. He needed superior speed, so he positioned himself for a diving attack, and he would choose a victim at the very rear of the enemy formation so that he did not have to...

Singapore is reportedly holding off a decision to buy the Lockheed Martin F-35 jet, a multi-role stealthy warplane that is touted as the world's most advanced fighter. A Bloomberg article published on Tuesday said the Republic's Permanent Secretary of Defence Development - who was not named in the story - informed the United States in mid-June that Singapore would be delaying the final steps of the purchasing process. The report added that Singapore had intended to acquire four F-35s by around 2022, with the option to purchase another eight more, citing information from the Pentagon's programme office.

MOSCOW --- The Moroccan Armed Services may receive the export version of the Sukhoi Su-34 (NATO reporting name: Fullback) tactical bomber and Amur-1650 diesel-electric submarine, according to the Izvestia daily citing a source in Russia’s shipbuilding industry. According to experts, Morocco has good reasons for acquiring Russian combat gear, but the export of Amur-1650 submarines is unlikely to commence before 2020. Rabat and Moscow are discussing the feasibility of the Moroccan Navy’s Amur-1650 submarine acquisition in the format of consultations so far. The ship Morocco has taken interest in is an export version of the Russian-built Project 677 Lada-class (Petersburg-class)...

When the first Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker took to the sky on August 31,1956, no one at the time could have expected it would still be flying 60 years later. But for the past six decades, this modified Boeing 707 has established itself as one of the workhorses of the Air Force’s inventory, providing air-to-air refueling, personnel and cargo transport, and aeromedical evacuation capabilities throughout the world. In the mid-fifties Strategic Air Command, under the direction of General Curtis Lemay, needed an air refueler that could keep up with the fighter and bomber aircraft of the day. At the time, B-52...

A MiG-29K operating from INS Vikramaditya during trials in the Barents Sea in 2013. (Photo: Vladimir Karnozov) The Russian navy’s only carrier, the 59,000-metric ton Admiral Kuznetsov, is being modified to enable operations of MiG-29K/KUB strike fighters against targets in Syria. The work is due to be completed within the next few months. During its first combat deployment, the carrier is likely to carry 15 fighters and a dozen Kamov helicopters. The latter may include a few Ka-52K Katran attack prototypes as well as Ka-31 airborne early warning & control rotorcraft. The deployment will last for up to three months,...

When you first see Israel Aircraft Industries' Harop drone, the "Star Trek" association is unmistakable. Like the Klingon Bird of Prey it resembles, the Harop is small, maneuverable, nearly impossible to detect, relatively inexpensive, and is downright deadly. And when it comes to accomplishing its mission, it even operates on the belief that “today is a great day to die.” The diminutive drone doesn’t carry any munitions; it doesn’t need to, because it is the munition. A 50-pound high explosive charge is part of the Harop itself, and if it finds an enemy radar or another target of opportunity in...

Maj. Yohannes Woldemariam proudly posing in front of the first Northrop F-5A delivered to Ethiopia, in 1966. Photo via S.N. Which is better? The Northrop F-5E Tiger II or the Mikoyan i Gurevich MiG-21? There have been countless discussions of this question and, probably, at least as many answers. Over 15,000 of these two cheap, lightweight, simple-to-maintain and -operate fighters were produced and, over the time, they’ve served in more than 60 different air forces — some of which operated both of them. The usual story is that they never met in combat and thus the ultimate question about their mutual superiority...

Bell Helicopter is pitching its AH-1Z Viper attack and UH-1Y Venom utility helicopters to meet ADF requirements outlined in the recent Defence White Paper. February’s Defence White Paper and its accompanying Integrated Investment Program (IIP) detailed the planned early retirement and replacement of Army’s Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) from the mid-2020s plus plans to acquire “deployable light helicopters” to support Special Forces operations. “The White Paper calls for Australia to have an outward-facing, strategically engaged capability of being forward deployed,” Bell’s regional director for military business development, John Woodbery, told Australian Aviation in Canberra in late July. “We are...

Air Force Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command, this week declared the F-35A fighter jet ready for combat. While many pundits and politicians have questioned the worth of this jet, the only people who know the ground truth are the pilots themselves. A total of 174 U.S. pilots currently have been trained to fly Lockheed Martin’s F-35A Lightning II. The Heritage Foundation recently interviewed 31 of these former F-15C, F-15E, F-16C, and A-10 pilots. Each expressed a high degree of confidence in the F-35A, their new fifth-generation platform. Here are nine insights gleaned from those conversations: 1....

An interesting concept for America's nuclear deterrent recently emerged on the Internet. A former employee for a US defense contractor describes an idea to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles from midair…using a civilian jetliner. The idea was ultimately shelved, but is reminiscent of a current DoD program for conventional weapons. According to the post on The Unwanted Blog the author, was an employee for Orbital ATK, a San Jose-based defense contractor specializing in rockets and missiles. The author came across some Powerpoint presentations of a concept developed with another defense contractor, BAE, for turning a 747 into a nuclear missile carrier....

Roll the clock back six years to 2010. The US Air Force had just shelved a proposal to stand up a new wing of fighters based on the OA-X, a concept for a propeller-driven, light-attack fighter – reviving the role played by the Vietnam-era Douglas A-1 Skyraider. Instead, the USAF would acquire OA-X aircraft on behalf of cash-poor partners, and let them operate the type. If the concept proved useful to those nations, service officials said they would reconsider the merits of standing up a light-attack wing. Six years later, the Sierra Nevada/Embraer A-29 Super Tucano has made its combat...

The U.S. Marine Corps, tired of waiting for the continuously-delayed F-35B, has gone to the Arizona boneyard to retrieve some of its preserved, first-edition F-18 Hornets to fulfill its close air support obligation to protect Marines on the ground. Mindful of the aphorism “willful waste makes woeful want,” the Marine Corps preserved its F-18s in the boneyard just in case it ever needed them again. The U.S. Air Force, not feeling a similar obligation to protect U.S. Army soldiers on the ground and arguing that the F-35A can perform close air support as well as the A-10 Warthog can do,...

Iraqi air force pilot photo via Arnaud Delalande On July 17, 2016, the first photo appeared on social media depicting an Iraqi air force An-32B Cline transport aircraft carrying a bomb on an external pylon. ItÂ’s not the first time that transport aircraft have pulled double duty as bombers. Following Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, Iraq began to rebuild its air force, which had been decimated during the invasion. Most Iraqi combat aircraft were discovered by coalition forces in poor condition on various air bases, while others were found buried outside their bases or in nearby towns and villages where...

For years now there has been a ton of hype about MBDA’s Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile, but now that it has reached operational status, blanket claims are being tossed around in the media as to its capabilities: headlines like “the best in the world“ and “the most deadly” are commonplace. But is it really that simple? Is the Meteor the dream missile every western fighter needs under its wings or in its weapons bays or is it a niche capability? Rising Meteor The truth is that the Meteor isn’t that new at all as it has been in development for...

AF declares the F-35A ‘combat ready’ By Air Combat Command Public Affairs, / Published August 02, 2016 JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. (AFNS) -- The F-35A Lightning II fifth-generation fighter aircraft was declared ‘combat ready’ by Gen. Hawk Carlisle, the commander of Air Combat Command, Aug 2. Carlisle lauded the aircraft’s performance, noting that the aircraft had met all key criteria for reaching initial operational capability: Airmen trained, manned and equipped to conduct basic close air support, interdiction and limited suppression/destruction of enemy air defenses in a contested environment with an operational squadron of 12-24 aircraft; the ability to deploy and...

With the F-22 Raptor, the Air Force acquired un equaled power to project air dominance. Lockheed Martin’s single-seat, twin-engined, all-weather fighter blended stealth, supercruise, great agility, and all-sensing avionics. Those features, plus high reliability and low maintenance, marked a huge leap in capability over USAF’s own F-15 Eagle, long the class of air combat. Indeed, the F-22 could not be matched by any known or projected fighter.

...And better serve the country's security interests in the process. Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. On Monday, acting head of the National Security Council Yaakov Nagel will sit down with his US counterpart, Susan Rice, and try to conclude negotiations about a new, multi-year defense assistance package. We must all hope that he fails. . No clear Israeli interest will be advanced by concluding the aid deal presently on the table. Indeed, the deal now being discussed will cause Israel massive, long-term economic and strategic damage. This is true for a number of reasons. First, there is the issue...