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After the botched coup, Turkey fired pilots and to counter the insufficiency it asked Pakistan to provide three pilots Pakistan welcomed the request but US, using the clauses of F-16 purchase agreement, barred Turkey from hiring Pakistani pilots for training ANKARA- The US government has reportedly turned down a proposal put forth by Turkey to use Pakistani pilots for F-16 training, hinting at the fraught relations between Washington and Islamabad. The refusal was quoted by a pro-government columnist Mehmet Acet, who in Yeni Åžafak daily claimed that Turkish Air Forces had asked Pakistan to send three F-16 pilots to train...

Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest defence vendor, which is pitching strongly to sell the Indian Air Force (IAF) its new F-16 Block 70 fighter, told Business Standard on Tuesday that, if India chose its fighter, an Indian production line would churn out three-to-four F-16s every month. “We want to create the capacity to build three or more aircraft per month; we could do four. It depends upon how many aircraft India needs and when it will buy those”, said Randy Howard, who markets the F-16 globally for Lockheed Martin. For the IAF, which is making do with just 32-33 fighter...

(Captured from the internet) TAIPEI, Taiwan — The F-16 is one of the world's most recognizable and widely used fighter jets. It has a frameless bubble canopy, an an internal M61 Vulcan cannon and 11 locations for other weapons to be mounted. It is also quite spacious, with two seats. And even when you've got someone in the back, there is still quite a lot of room — so why not take advantage of it? At least that was the logic of one Taiwanese pilot who recently flew to Hualien as part of his training, according to an Apple Daily...

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...

Russian military aviation firm MiG said on Friday it was ready to deepen its cooperation with India, just days after U.S. arms maker Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) agreed with Tata Advanced Systems to build F-16 fighters there. India's air force needs hundreds of aircraft to replace its Soviet-era fleet, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has said foreign suppliers must build the planes in India to boost the domestic industrial base and cut outright imports. MiG General Director Ilia Tarasenko told Reuters in a written interview that his company had been cooperating with India for more than 50 years, providing...

Here's why Rajeev Srinivasan believes there will be nothing particularly positive about the prime minister's US visit. IMAGE: The fact that it has taken this long for the US to extend an invitation to Narendra Modi suggests that India is not on Donald Trump's event horizon. Photographs: Peter Nicholls/Getty Images and Carlos Barria/Reuters Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not naive, so he is surely approaching his fifth visit to the United States, and his first meeting with US President Donald Trump with careful preparation. He is also deliberately creating low expectations. Unlike the hoopla of his previous Madison Square Gardens...

DAYTON, Ohio -- A military plane that was practicing for an air show in heavy fog has crashed at an airport in Ohio, officials said Friday. CBS affiliate WHIO-TV reports an F-16 Thunderbird crashed and overturned shortly before 1 p.m. at the end of a runway at Dayton International Airport. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds confirmed crew members were "conducting a familiarization flight" and "there was a mishap upon landing."

A NATO F-16 fighter jet has tried to approach the Russian defense minister’s plane above the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea. The plane was warded off by a Russian Su-27 escorting the minister’s aircraft.   https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=361_1498043536    

LOCKHEED MARTIN HANDOUT Tata and Lockheed Martin bosses signed an agreement in Paris Lockheed Martin and India's Tata Group have formalised an agreement to relocate the manufacturing of the most advanced F-16 fighter jets to India. The effort is aimed at securing a multi-billion dollar deal from Delhi. The announcement comes days ahead of Indian PM Narendra Modi's visit to Washington for a meeting with President Trump. But some defence experts are accusing Lockheed of offloading obsolete aircraft on India. What's in the deal? India will be able to "produce, operate and export the multi fighter F-16 Block 70 aircraft",...

The U.S. Air Force is looking to extend the life of hundreds of F-16C/D Vipers, even more than we previously reported. At the same time, the U.S. Navy seems to have come to a similar conclusion with plans to buy more and better F/A-18E/F Super Hornet derivatives. Suffice it to say that the 4th generation fighter will be alive and well within the Pentagon's inventory for a long, long time to come. On June 12, 2017, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) posted a presolictation notice on the U.S. government’s main contracting website, FedBizOpps regarding production of upgrade...

The U.S. Air Force is still mulling over whether to retire its fleet of F-15C/D Eagle fighter jets and re-equip those units with F-16C/D Vipers. At the same time, the service is looking to move ahead with an extensive F-16 overhaul, which could help tip the scales in favor of those aircraft. On April 12, 2017, Lockheed Martin, the company that makes the Vipers, announced the Air Force had decided to move ahead with a Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) for a portion of its existing fleet. The project would give each of the modified jets approximately 4,000 extra flight...

China's militarization of its man-made islands in the South China Sea and the resulting anti-access/area-denial bubbles that will cover massive swaths of that body of water in the not-so-distant future, has Vietnam shopping for weaponry that can counter Beijing's grand plans. Hanoi has already forward-deployed Israeli-built GPS-guided Extra multiple launch rocket systems to their own islands in the South China Sea—a weapon system that could rain down rockets on China's outposts with little warning. Now, Vietnam is looking towards Israel once again for its weapons needs, this time to provide an standoff multi-role cruise missile that can strike targets over...

This startling news came during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the current state of the U.S. Air Force. Chairman Joe Wilson asked right out of the gate about a previously unknown USAF plan to retire the F-15C/D Eagle fleet and replace them with F-16s. The subject of the question itself seemed to be big news to the committee with Congresswoman Vikki Hartzler later asking about what upgrades the F-15C/D was going to get so it could meet modern threats. Obviously the answer is not many if the Air Force is going to retire the jets in the relatively...

American defence major Lockheed Martin today said discussions are currently taking place between the US and Indian governments on the company's plans to set up manufacturing base for F-16 fighter jets in India. "The conversation has progressed to the point that we are deferring at this point to the government-to-government conversation. And that conversation is ongoing," a top company official told reporters at Aero India 2017 air show here. The comments from Randy Howard, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Integrated Fighter, Director, Business Development, came when asked about its move to push ahead with its plan to move production of its F-16...

Lockheed Martin is confident of securing new sales for the F-16, and claims that the type’s economies of scale and broad user base give the Block 70 variant an edge in New Delhi’s requirement for a single-engined fighter. The US firm had a large presence at this year’s Aero India show, which included an F-16 cockpit demonstrator. Abhay Paranjape, executive director of international business development at Lockheed, says that there has been significant engagement between the US and Indian governments on the requirement, which calls for an unspecified number of single-engined fighters to replace legacy types such as the Mikoyan...

A pair of F-16 jets struck two members of a ground-control party -- killing one -- after a training exercise went awry on Tuesday night, officials said in a Wednesday statement. The F-16s were using unspecified munitions when the incident occurred at a range that's part of the White Sands Missile Range complex near Holloman Air Force Base in southern New Mexico. Members of a ground-control party are controllers who provide guidance to military aircraft, including fighters attacking ground targets. The person who was injured was released from a hospital after being treated for unspecified injuries, the statement said. Neither...

These are the amazing scenes which show a Russian-built fighter jet taking on a US Air Force F-16 in a mock dogfight - in what could be a sign that America is preparing for the possibility of war with Moscow. The images were captured by air traffic controller Phil Drake in the skies above Area 51 in Nevada, one of the world's most secret military bases, on the day Donald Trump was elected President. According to Drake, the aircraft in the photographs are a single seater Sukhoi Su-27P and America's veteran F-16. He was visiting the desert surrounding Area 51...

Filmed from aboard a KC-135 Stratotanker with the 340th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron, the video below shows United Arab Emirates F-16 Block 60+ Desert Falcons refueling during a mission in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led coalition’s air war on ISIS in Syria and Iraq, on Dec. 16, 2016. The clip includes some rare close-up footage that provides interesting details about the payload of the world’s most advanced F-16s flown by the UAE Air Force in the anti-Daesh campaign. There appear to be two configurations (both featuring CFTs, Sniper targeting pod and two drops tanks): the first one, includes...

It is only a matter of time before Pakistan can launch short-range missiles to counter conventional attacksNew Delhi - A study of Google satellite images and information from other intelligence sources by US nuclear scientists Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris released earlier this week contains startling revelations: contrary to the conditions laid down by the US when it sold Pakistan F-16 fighters, the US jets, along with the Pak air force's French Mirages, are now nuclear-enabled.Speaking exclusively to DNA, Hans Kristensen, co-author of the 'Nuclear Notebook on Pakistani Nuclear Forces' released November 16 acknowledged that despite the study, US strategic...

The Israeli air force (IAF) is integrating the Rafael Spice 1000 precision bomb onto its Lockheed Martin F-16C/D aircraft. Spice 1000 is a 453kg (1,000lb) bomb equipped with a guidance kit, with pop-out wings that extend its range to more than 100km (54nm). The IAF's F-16C/D fleet belongs to the "First Squadron" that operates from Ramat David air base in the north of Israel, which is currently performing the acceptance tests of the weapon system. This follows assessments carried out by the IAF’s test squadron. The IAF expects to reach full operational capability with the Spice 1000 in the coming...