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A once-empty parking lot at Northrop Grumman Corp.’s top secret aircraft plant in Palmdale, Calif., is now jammed with cars that pour in during the predawn hours. More than a thousand new employees are working for the time being in rows of temporary trailers, a dozen tan tents and a huge assembly hangar at the desert site near the edge of urban Los Angeles County. It is here that Northrop is building the Air Force’s new B-21 bomber, a stealthy bat-winged jet that is being designed to slip behind any adversary’s air defense system and deliver devastating airstrikes for decades...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Long-haul carrier Emirates purchased 40 American-made Boeing 787-10 Dreamliners on Sunday at the start of the biennial Dubai Air Show, a $15.1 billion deal certain to please U.S. President Donald Trump who has touted the plane's sales as a job creator in America. The deal appeared to surprise Boeing's archrival Airbus, whose staff had attended a long-delayed news conference and left the room just moments before the announcement. Airbus has pinned hopes of continuing production of its double-decker jumbo jet on Emirates, the world's largest operator of the aircraft which took delivery of its...

The suspected crash of yet another of Taiwan’s French fighter jets has again focused attention on the rising maintenance costs of the ageing aircraft and Taipei’s shrinking defence budget. Taiwan’s air force grounded all of its Mirage jets after a single-seat Mirage 2000 disappeared from the radar 34 minutes after take-off on Tuesday night from a base in Hsinchu across the Taiwan Strait from Fujian province during a routine training exercise, air force deputy commander Lieutenant General Chang Che-ping said on Wednesday. “The military will continue searching day and night until the pilot is safely rescued. There is no so-called...

Despite a plan to jointly develop its own fifth generation fighter jet with France, Germany is still very interested in joining the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. The German Air Force, or Luftwaffe, is looking hard at the American jet as it presses for purchases of an already in production or development design to replace its aging Panavia Tornado swing-wing combat aircraft. The F-35 is the “preferred choice” on a shortlist of aircraft the Luftwaffe is looking at to replace its approximately 85 Tornados, a “senior service official” speaking anonymously under the Chatham House Rule, told Jane’s 360, according to...

It is known as the Queen of the Skies - the world's first jumbo jet that forever changed the face of plane travel. And on Tuesday United Airlines' last Boeing 747 was given a send-off befitting royalty as the last aircraft in the company's service completed its final flight. United Flight 747 took off from San Francisco airport around midday bound for Hawaii, the same route the company's first version of the aircraft flew back in 1970. Tickets for the specially chartered voyage sold out within hours of being released, according to USA Today, despite selling for upwards of $550...

Canada's wish to buy the latest version of the Advanced Medium Range Air-To-Air Missile (AMRAAM), the AIM-120D, has been granted by the US State Department. The only problem is that their current fleet of aging CF-18 Hornets would realize little from the missile's most preeminent feature, its greatly enhanced range. The cost of Canada's AIM-120D buy is no chump change. Set at $140M, it buys just 32 AIM-120Ds plus support equipment, captive training rounds, spares, training and so on. The DoD's press release reads: "The Government of Canada has requested a Letter of Offer and Acceptance for the procurement of...

The NATO Sea Sparrow Consortium is decades old and still going very strong. The highly maneuverable RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) has been protecting allied surface combatants and their escorts for nearly 15 years now around the globe and is seen as a huge success. Before that, the RIM-7 Sea Sparrow, itself an adaptation of the AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile, had served since the mid 1970s, protecting everything from American supercarriers to allied frigates from airborne threats and short to medium-ranges. Now the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile Block II is on the way, with its first test firings having...

As Saudi Arabia continues its multi-billion dollar international arms shopping spree, it appears to have begun evaluating Textron AirLand’s Scorpion light attack jet. The firm has previously said that the Kingdom is interested in the aircraft, but growing American political opposition to its brutal and protracted intervention in Yemen might slow or scuttle actual purchases. Online flight tracking websites caught one of the Scorpion demonstrators, which presently carries the U.S. civil registration code N532TX, flying from the Royal Saudi Air Force’s King Faisal Air Base (KFAB), which is co-located with the Tabuk Regional Airport, earlier in November 2017. Though the...

(Posted in Italian; unofficial translation by Defense-Aerospace.com) Although it shares the same general aspect as its predecessor, the Italian army’s future AH-249 scout and escort helicopter is about 50% bigger, and will be powered by the same powerpack as the AW149 battlefield utility helicopter. (IT Army image) The Italian army’s future scout and escort helicopter was unveiled during the Combat Helicopters 2017 conference in Krakow, Poland. Last year, the mysterious AgustaWestland AW249 was unveiled almost by accident last year by Leonardo's then-CEO, Mauro Moretti. Since then, months of silence, with no official or unofficial news. Well, the AW249 is no...

The Kongsberg NASAMS adapts the Raytheon AMRAAM as a ground-based air defense system. (Photo: Kongsberg) Indonesia has become the first country in Asia to acquire the Kongsberg Norwegian advanced surface-to-air missile system (NASAMS) , a medium-range surface-to-air missile system based on the Raytheon advanced medium-range, air-to-air missile (AMRAAM). Announced on October 31 by the Norwegian arms maker, the $77 million contract will be for one complete unit of the NASAMS, including “command posts, radars, launchers, radios and integration, and training and logistics support.” Although it is unclear how many launchers were requested, Kongsberg literature suggests that a standard network consists...

MOSCOW, November 1. /TASS/. A Russian multipurpose fighter bomber may get a one-seat variant as an attack aircraft, Russia’s Aerospace Force ex-commander and Chairman of the Federation Council Defense and Security Committee Viktor Bondarev told TASS on Wednesday. "My opinion is that a new attack aircraft should be made on the basis of the Su-34 after all. This is a splendid plane. It is maneuverable and has eight tonnes of the bomb load against four tonnes carried by the Su-25. It has excellent characteristics… I believe that it is simpler and easier to make a cockpit for one pilot and...

A technological breakthrough in naval propulsion will enable China’s second home-grown aircraft carrier to use the world’s most advanced jet launch system without having to resort to nuclear power, overcoming a huge hurdle in the vessel’s development, military sources said. The development of the integrated propulsion system (IPS) would allow the vessel to be more efficient, allowing more power for an electromagnetic catapult, rather than a less technologically advanced steam-driven catapult launch system, the sources said. China’s first two carriers, the Liaoning and its sister ship, the Type 001A, are conventionally powered vessels equipped with Soviet-designed ski-jump launch systems. But...

In an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya on the sidelines of the Future Investment Initiative, Boeing President Bertrand-Marc (Marc) Allen said the manufacturing of F15 aircraft wings and other military aircraft parts would take place inside Saudi Arabia. “We need to get you out to our al-Salam subsidiary here in the Kingdom. We’re building wings for F-15s, we’re building fuselage parts. We are doing massive conversions where we’re taking older F-15s and converting them to brand new F-15SAs,” Allen told Al Arabiya’s Maya Jureidini during an exclusive interview from Riyadh. “All of this (are) pretty advanced manufacturing, a lot of...

If confirmed by the Senate, Griffin could become a key voice in advancing U.S. technology in areas where the United States has long dominated — such as aviation and space — and is now being challenged. WASHINGTON — President Trump tapped former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin for a top Pentagon job, giving him a key role in shaping investments in defense and aerospace technologies at a time when other nations are gaining ground on the United States. Griffin’s nomination to be principal deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics had been anticipated for weeks, and the White House...

Around noon on Oct. 4, 2017, a team of 12 U.S. Army Special Forces operators and 30 soldiers from the Nigerien Security and Intelligence Battalion were departing the village of Tongo Tongo, near the Nigerien-Malian border, when they were ambushed by roughly 50 insurgents from an “ISIS-affiliated group” riding in a dozen technicals—pickup trucks armed with heavy machine guns, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms. According to an Oct. 23 briefing by the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, the U.S. military didn’t record the Green Berets requesting air support until an hour after the...

Nearly 61 years to the day since its first flight, the legendary UH-1 is still being exported to militaries abroad. Of course the newest variant of the UH-1, the UH-1Y "Venom," is very much a different helicopter than its grandfather, having far more in common with the more modern but still dated Twin Huey Super Cobra. Nonetheless, with the news that the US Government approved the sale of UH-1Ys to the Czech Republic, it's safe to say that Hueys are still in demand in an age when the field of light to medium militarized utility helicopters is crowded to say...

Some Bulgarian air force pilots have refused to fly their Soviet-built MiG-29 jets in planned training exercises, citing safety concerns with the outdated aircraft. "Some of the pilots from Graf Ignatievo air base will not perform training flights because of insecurity," Bulgarian Deputy Defense Minister Atanas Zapryanov said on October 24. The pilots have also cited concerns about poor preparedness due to a lack of flying hours, Zapryanov said, but he insisted that the jets are fully airworthy. Bulgaria joined NATO in 2004, but much of its military equipment is still Russian-made. Out of a fleet of 16, Bulgaria's air...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says Singapore’s purchase of nearly $14 billion worth of Boeing aircraft will create 70,000 jobs in the U.S. Kevin McAllister, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, and Singapore Airlines CEO Goh Choon Phong signed paperwork at the White House on Monday as the country’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, and Trump looked on. Lee is at the White House for talks with Trump. The agreement includes 39 airplanes: 20 777-9s and 19 787-10s. Singapore Airlines also has options for 12 more planes. The order was previously reported to an unidentified customer.

SEOUL, Oct. 22 (Yonhap) -- U.S. aerospace giant Boeing Co. and Saab of Sweden are vying to win South Korea's next maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) contract, military sources here said Sunday. Military officials at this year's Seoul International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition (ADEX) being held in Seongnam, just south of the capital city, said the two companies have respectively proposed the P-8A Poseidon and Swordfish as candidates for the contract. The planes can allow South Korea to better counter North Korea's growing underwater threat that may include submarines with the capability to launch ballistic missile. South Korea's Navy said that...

A new report by Defense News states that India is extremely unhappy with Russia's supposed 5th generation fighter—better known as the T-50, or by its new production name the Su-57—that will act as the base for the sputtering FGFA cooperative fighter program between the two countries. The news comes after years of squabbling over the program, usually characterized by credible reports of the Indian Air Force's dismay with the qualities of the Russian aircraft. Now it seems as if the Indians want out of the program—which aimed for at least a 108 airframe production run—once and for all. Such a...