Free Republic

In 1965, the Keelor brothers and their Gnats wrote war history. The pilots are the only siblings to be awarded Vir Chakras for the same feat Officers at Ambala Air Force Station were heading to the mess for a dining out—a formal farewell dinner for an officer who is getting posted out—when they got news that Pakistan had started shooting across the border. They would learn later that these were the opening shots of Operation Gland Slam, a bid to take over Akhnoor and the road to Kashmir. “Our squadrons were told to move to the front immediately,” said Air...

Looking to cut costs and prune military imports, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has halved its demand for Russian-built fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA). It now wants just three squadrons of the fighter jets which are to be inducted into the Russian Air Force in 2016. Sources say the IAF has scaled down its needs and now indicated that just three squadrons (around 18 planes in each), besides a few more for training of the pilots, will be enough for now. This works out to be 65 planes, almost half from the earlier projection of 127 FGFAs to be jointly...

When the F-15 was created, it was created to be a pure air-to-air fighter, with the philosophy of “not a pound for air-to-ground” guiding designers. So how did Israel end up turning their F-15s into deadly long-range multi-role strike aircraft well before the F-15E Strike Eagle became a reality? Here’s how. In Need Of A Game Changing Fighter Israel’s love affair with the F-15 began out of the need to procure a fighter that could trump the increasingly complex fighters that surrounding Arab states were amassing from Russian and French sources. Both the F-14 Tomcat and the F-15 Eagle were...

An article in Sina's Chinese-language military news web portal compared the abilities of India's HAL Tejas Light Combat Aircraft and the FC-1 Xiaolong/JF-17 Thunder developed jointly by China and Pakistan. Overview of the Aircraft The HAL Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) was named by former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The development plan was approved by the Indian government in 1983. The government's requirements for the Tejas were to develop an all-weather supersonic LCA which could replace the MiG-21. Its main mission is to fight for control of airspace and to offer short-range support. The development of the Tejas...

The IDF said in an official statement that it will not "tolerate any attempt to harm or violate Israeli sovereignty." The Israeli Air Force struck and killed four terrorists who crossed into Israel from Syria and planted explosives near an abandoned IDF post on Sunday night said, a senior IDF source. The source declined to say which organization the terror cell belonged to, saying it was too soon for such details. The incident, which occurred at 21:30 in the northern Golan Heights near Majdal Shams, began when Combat Intelligence Collection Units identified four suspects planting the explosives on the eastern...

Lebanon's senior-most Shiite Muslim cleric, a harsh critic of U.S. policies in the region, called for an international trial of U.S. President Bush, saying his administration posed a threat to world peace. Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah issued the call over a document allegedly leaked to London's Daily Mirror tabloid. The newspaper claimed the document was a transcript of a meeting in April 2004 between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in which the U.S. leader spoke of attacking Al-Jazeera television headquarters in Doha, Qatar. The newspaper, which cited unidentified sources, said Blair argued against an attack. The...

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit says that the Israeli Air Force was striking multiple artillery positions belonging to the Syrian army, and that direct hits were identified. The air strikes came minutes after residents in the northern Golan Heights reported hearing air raid sirens around 12:30AM (Wednesday). No casualties or damages have been reported in Northern Israel. On Tuesday morning two rockets exploded in the northern Golan Heights.

Are India's ageing air force planes falling out of the sky? All air forces have accidents, but accounts of Indian warplanes crashing on training flights have become almost routine news. The latest incident came earlier this week, when a Russian-made Sukhoi-30 crashed in eastern India - both pilots surviving after ejecting for unspecified reasons. All five crew died in March this year on a training flight in their US-made Hercules transport aircraft. 'Flying coffin' But it is the Russian-made aircraft that form the backbone of the Indian fleet which have been the most accident-prone. The MiG jet in particular has...

Previously unpublished correspondence between Hillary Clinton and the late left-wing organizer Saul Alinsky reveal new details about her relationship with the controversial Chicago activist and shed light on her early ideological development. Clinton met with Alinsky several times in 1968 while writing a Wellesley college thesis about his theory of community organizing. Clinton’s relationship with Alinsky, and her support for his philosophy, continued for several years after she entered Yale law school in 1969, two letters obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show. The letters obtained by the Free Beacon are part of the archives for the Industrial Areas Foundation,...

Former IAF Chief Maj. Gen. (res.) David Ivry says, in a new article, that Israel needs to rethink the concepts of ‘deterrence’ and ‘decisive victory’, which are less relevant in today's assymetrical battlefields. “Limited-scale, asymmetrical conflicts have become the norm. All-out wars between states where both parties invest all of their national resources in an attempt to achieve a decisive victory have become less relevant,” writes Ivry, who is now President of Boeing Israel, in a paper for the BESA Center. “David Ben-Gurion’s conceptual trinity of ‘deterrence’, ‘early warning’ and ‘decisive victory’ is no longer fully valid,” he explains. “These...

The Israel Air Force attacked targets in Gaza on Wednesday night, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit confirmed in a statement. The attacks came after Gaza terrorists fired rockets at southern Israel, the statement said. “The IDF is prepared for this possibility and is determined to continue to maintain the security of the State of Israel,” the statement noted. .....

Dependence on Russian imports diminishing Russia is fast losing its dominance in Indian skies as the Indian Air Force is sticking to its guns on inducting 127 Rafale fighter jets from France and turning to the domestic military industry to supplement its requirements. Defence sources told The Hindu that despite an aggressive counter campaign by the British and Americans, the Indian side is firm about wrapping up the Rafale deal. The Rafale has made the grade because it is a safer twin-engine aircraft, which the IAF wants to fly for the next 40 years. Besides it has the teeth to...

South Africa’s ruling party on Thursday issued a statement in which it compared Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza to the actions of the Nazis during World War II. The statement by the African National Congress (ANC) did not mention the rocket attacks from Gaza which led Israel to launch Operation Protective Edge. “The African National Congress (ANC), condemns in the strongest terms, the barbaric attacks on the defenseless Palestinian people of Gaza,” said the statement by the party’s Deputy Secretary General, Jessie Duarte. “As we move towards the month of August and are reminded of [the] atrocities of Nazi Germany, surely...

IAF strikes 550 targets in Gaza IDF says it destroyed at least 120 concealed rocket launchers, demolished homes of Hamas regional commanders, with over 165 rockets being launched from Gaza; Palestinians say old women, children killed in attacks. Yoav Zitun Latest Update: 07.09.14, 20:26 / Israel News Israel warplanes have so far hit 550 targets in Gaza, and Hamas militants have hit back with 165 rockets, some of which struck Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and as far away as Hadera, 116 kilometers (72 miles) to the north of the coastal enclave. Palestinian fatalities include militants but also women and children....

21:14: The IAF is targeting terrorists in Gaza at this time. The aerial assaults are reported to be heavy. Sirens are sounding in Ashkelon and the Eshkol Regional Council. 20:33: At least 100 rockets fired in the last wave towards the W. Negev and many other areas including Beit Shemesh, Be’er Tuvia, Gadera, Netivot, the Lachish district, and Ashkelon. A number of fires have broken out as a result of the rockets hitting open areas.

Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip reported Tuesday that they fired a ground-to-air missile at an Israel Air Force helicopter over the coastal enclave. The shoulder-fired weapon missed its intended target, an Apache flying over the northern end of the area in the early-morning hours, the sources said, according to Israel’s Ma’ariv daily. However, the aircraft abruptly changed course and left the area in the wake of the attempted hit, according to the report. Palestinian eyewitnesses on the ground said they saw the smoke trail the missile left in the air. Hamas terror operatives later on warned that the act...

Faced by threats from Iran and her proxies, the Israelis can't even count on the standard logic of deterrence, which is built upon the assumption of self-preservation. That might work if your enemy is North Korea -who's elite are enjoying life/perks- but Israel's enemies are mostly genocidal kooks who can't wait to die for the cause, from Tehran all the way down to the ground in southern Lebanon/Gaza... But what they can do is ensure they possess the capability to smash any foolishness from Hezbollah and/or Hamas promptly, since these groups lack the infrastructure for any sort of mass attack on...

Nir is one of the leading aviation photographers in Israel and has been documenting the IAF's remarkable aircraft and operations for well over a decade. He has flown on-board F-16s, CH-53s, Bell Jet Rangers, C-130s, Fouga jet trainers and many more aircraft in his pursuit to capture the essence of this elite fighting force. Currently, he is part of the IAF Aerobatic Team's photo documentary project and was honored last year as being a guest speaker at the International Society of Aviation Photographers's convention in Seattle. Nir's creative use of lighting, contrast and perspective in relation to aerospace subjects has...

The drill is part of a series of training exercises designed to prepare pilots for the growing threat of the drones that Hezbollah and Hamas have.

According to the Times of Israel, Israel's Channel 2 has revealed that Israeli air defenses have been boosted, and approaching civilian aircraft will be asked to identify themselves far earlier. Though the flight was presumed at first to have crashed, whole or in pieces, into the ocean, passive satellite transmissions from the aircraft suggest that it made a deliberate course change and may have headed north into central Asia. Pakistan has already said that the flight never registered on its radar, but at least one expert has suggested the flight could have landed in Bangladesh, whose air defenses presumably would...