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Fixed-wing aircraft carrier aviation is not cheap, and short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft have a limited ability to bring back unspent fuel and ordnance to the ship after a mission is completed. This means good gas gets dumped, and even worse, weapons that cost thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars get jettisoned into the sea. The Royal Navy wants their F-35Bs to be able to the return to the ship with more gas and weapons than they normally could by landing vertically on the decks of their two new Queen Elizabeth classaircraft carriers. The aim is to...

On Wednesday afternoon, a Boeing 787-800 Dreamliner took off from Seattle on a test flight. Flight tracking apps show the Dreamliner followed a flight path over the United States that draws an outline of the Dreamliner. It set the internet abuzz, likely one of the goals. But the Dreamliner was actually conducting a flight test of its new Rolls Royce engine "to prove to regulators that the airplane can safely operate on one engine for an extended period of time," according to Flightradar24, a flight-tracking app.

During the last year, the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Indian Navy (IN) confirmed what must have been the worst kept secret in New Delhi: that the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, for all its achievements, was unsuitable as a strike-fighter for their near-term modernisation requirements. Where the IAF was concerned, the request for information (RFI) for a new single-engine fighter issued in the United States, Russia, and Sweden in October 2016 marked a further twist in its long-running saga to complete the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) acquisition that first began in 2001. After the aborted competition led to...

Light-attack aircraft come in many forms: purpose-built turboprops such as the Embraer A-29, converted turboprop trainers like the Beechcraft AT-6 and Korea Aerospace Industries KT-1, and even jet-powered trainers modified to carry weapons and surveillance equipment. Then there is the most unlikely story of them all: the AirTractor AT-802 and Thrush 710. These almost identical, tail-sitting cropdusters are now operating as light combat aircraft in several countries in the Middle East and Africa. They are American-built aircraft sold exclusively to foreign countries without – so far – a US military customer or sponsor. And they have even spawned a fierce...

Japan's Acquisition Technology and Logistics Agency (ATLA) released for the first time footage showing the XASM-3 supersonic anti-ship missile during a test launch. ATLA is a branch of Japan's MoD created in 2015 to "ensure technological superiority and respond to operational needs smoothly and quickly". Screen capture from the ATLA video showing the XASM-3 launch. It was recently reported that the missile will enter mass production in 2018 and be officially introduced with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF), it will then be called ASM-3. According to the Japanese MoD, aerodynamic and captive carry tests on F-2 fighters had been...

Life for British Phantom pilots was seldom boring. Whether it was training for near suicidal night attacks against the Soviet Navy, intercepting ‘Bear’s or performing low-level attacks. During the Cold War Chris Bolton flew the mighty F-4 for both the RAF and the Royal Navy. Hush-Kit met him to find out more. (Note: As some readers were super keen to read this now I have blatted it out warts and all. I will be correcting typos etc over the next few days) Hush-Kit: It seems the F-4 wasn’t particularly agile for its generation – is that fair? “It could roll...

A Ukrainian Flanker crashed during a display at Sknyliv airfield, in Ukraine. The accident killed 77 people and injured 543. The deadliest air show accident in history occurred on Jul. 27, 2002, at Sknyliv airfield near Lviv, Ukraine, when a Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 Flanker crashed during its display routine. The two pilots, Volodymyr Toponar and Yuriy Yegorov, ejected safely but as a consequence of the crash 77 people died and 545 were injured, 100 of whom were hospitalised. Several videos show the incident from different viewpoints. The Flanker can be seen performing a sort of split-S at low altitude,...

The arrival of the USS George HW Bush in British waters to participate in exercise Saxon Warrior with the Royal Navy provided a useful opportunity to meet US naval aviators who have recently completed combat missions against ISIS in the Middle East. Although they are very different, inevitable comparisons will also be made between the Nimitz class CVN and the Queen Elizabeth class CVF, which deserve to be put in perspective. The US Navy’s Carrier Strike Group 2 have been in action in the Middle East for almost 7 months and there was a high tempo of operations with 99...

PRAGUE (Reuters) - During the last days of the Cold War in 1988, Czechoslovakia's Aero Vodochody's factory outside Prague produced a record 250 of its Albatros L-39 training jets for Soviet bloc air forces. Those customers disappeared with the collapse of Communism as successive governments focused on building a market economy and steered away from arms exports, sending the industry into a tailspin. Numerous comeback attempts sputtered for Aero, which halted jet production between 2003 and 2015. Now a growing number of conflicts around the world is helping to fuel demand for arms, providing Czech firms an opportunity to sell...

A U.S. Air Force F-15 Eagle fighter jet takes off and does various in-flight maneuvers, filmed from the back seat cockpit.

MiG-35 is Russia’s most advanced 4++ generation fighter jet – and it wants to sell it to India! Not only that, Russia has even claimed that India has expressed interest in the MiG-35. MiG Aircraft Corporation’s chief executive Ilya Tarasenko has said that the company is “actively promoting” the new aircraft in India. When asked if India has shown any interest in the new fighter jet, PTI quoted Tarasenko as saying, “Of course they have.” But, will the Indian Air Force (IAF) go for it? And, more importantly, would it make sense for the IAF to acquire the MiG-35? But,...

At that precise time, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan Army chief General Pervez Musharraf were present at the base, shows an official document accessed by The Indian Express. Around 8.45 am on Thursday, June 24, 1999, at the height of the Kargil War, an Indian Air Force Jaguar flying close to the Line of Control “lased over” — that is, acquired for bombing using its laser-guided system — a forward base of the Pakistan army. Ultimately, however, the pilot of a second Jaguar that was following close behind — who was supposed to fire the bomb — targeted...

The China-Vietnam relationship might be less complicated than Washington would wish, despite BeijingÂ’s recent threat to use force against Hanoi to stop drilling in the South China Sea. Interestingly, there was nothing in the 31 May joint statement issued by President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc that would commit the US to assisting Hanoi in its current dealings with Chinese threats. Those in Washington who see Vietnam as a potential ally against China have quite possibly ignored the powerful and corrupting influence of cross-border trade between China and Vietnam. While attending IMDEX in Singapore in May, a...

“STICK me in this jet, and I’ll take her anywhere,” said a Royal Malaysian Air Force F/A-18D Hornet ‘driver’.” The pilot’s confidence in the much-vaunted strike fighter’s ability to handle modern threats is due to the fact that the RMAF’s 20-year-old fleet recently underwent a comprehensive upgrade that gives it an even more lethal “sting”. The best just got better. The programme, carried out in phases, was to enhance the Hornet’s combat effectiveness in its primary tasking in the air-to-air and air-to-ground roles. This included the integration of four primary elements — Boeing’s Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS), the super-agile,...

The photographs in this post were taken by The Aviationist’s contributor Tony Lovelock at Cambridge airport on Jul. 5 and 7, 2017. They show one of the two Bombardier Global Express 6000 aircraft reportedly destined to UAE and being modified by Marshall Group into an ELINT/SIGINT platform, during flight trials flown as “UAE 1326.” As first unveiled by Aviation Week’s Tony Osbourne back in May, the aircraft is probably an advanced electronics and signals intelligence-gathering (elint/sigint) derivative of Bombardier’s Global 6000 business jet: it sports. “A large canoe fairing extends back to the center of the wingbox,” noted Osbourne. “Behind...

Russia's biannual marquee air show and weapons expo (referred to a MAKS) is about to kick off outside of Moscow and it never disappoints when it comes to aerial acts. In recent years, the star of the show has been the Su-35, Russia top-of-the-line Flanker derivative that features a digital fly-by-wire flight control system, three dimensional thrust vectoring nozzles and uprated AL-41F1S engines pumping out roughly 32,000 pounds of thrust each. All this adds up to an aircraft capable of astonishing aerial feats, regardless of their relevancy in most modern air combat scenarios. In 2015, the Su-35S did some awesome...

On this J-10C fighter, PL-10 air-to-air missiles hang from the outboard wing pylons and long-range PL-15s from the inboards. (Image Credit: Chinese Internet) An operational People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) Chengdu J-10C fighter has been seen carrying pairs of PL-10 and PL-15 air-to-air missiles (AAMs) for the first time. They are the PLAAF’s next-generation short-range and long-range AAMs, respectively. According to Chinese reports, their performance is equivalent or superior to that of their Western counterparts. Developed by the 607 Institute, the PL-15 (Pi Li or Thunderbolt), is China’s latest beyond-visual-range air-to air missile (BVRAAM). It achieved a first firing...

Russia has announced it is looking to start work on two all new combat jet designs, a fifth-generation successor to the supersonic MiG-31 Foxhound interceptor called the PAK DP and an as yet unnamed short or vertical takeoff and landing carrier fighter jet to go along with the country’s equally ambitious naval modernization plans. Though these would be significant additions to the country’s arsenal, other such aircraft programs have repeatedly proven to be complex and costly and it could be years before the Russian military actually gets these planes into service, if it ever does. On July 14, 2017, Russian...

The Soviet MiG-21 is one of the most widely-produced and -exported fighter jets of all time. In the United States, the MiG-21 is perhaps best known for hunting American warplanes over Vietnam. The single-engine fighter is equally famous for its participation in various wars in the Middle East over the last half-century. You might therefore expect that the MiG-21’s first air-to-air kill occurred over Vietnam or the Middle East. In fact, the MiG’s first victim was a star-crossed oil-company plane blundering across Egypt. Egypt was the second Arab nation the USSR allowed to import MiG-21s. Cairo and Moscow signed a...

Bell Helicopter’s prototype for the AH-1G Cobra flies in front of two UH-1 Hueys, the aircraft it was designed to protect. (Bell Helicopter Historical Archives via Ray Wilhite) What was on Mike Folse’s drawing board at Bell Helicopter that day in March 1965 was supposed to be a hovercraft. It wasn’t. “I had an idea instead,” he explains. “My boss would be on vacation for two weeks.” Gloom pervaded Bell’s Preliminary Design Group. In a Pentagon competition to develop an ambitious concept for an attack helicopter, Bell’s proposal had just lost out to Lockheed’s—a demoralizing beat-down from an airplane company...