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Keyword: navair

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  • Viral video: 'Royal Maces' Navy fighter pilots

    04/22/2014 2:55:39 AM PDT · by Timber Rattler · 8 replies
    Stars & Stripes ^ | April 21, 2014 | Erik Slavin
    A high-definition video of U.S. Navy fighter pilots swooping between snowy mountains and skimming the western Pacific Ocean has gained more than 135,000 hits since being posted four days ago. The VFA-27 Royal Maces, based at Naval Air Facility Atsugi in Japan, shot the footage from their cockpits while flying F/A18-E aircraft at various locations in the Pacific theater. Much of the footage comes from recent patrols while deployed with the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, pilot Lt. Kyle Matson said. Footage includes trips along the Australian coast and various parts of Japan. Some of the most dramatic footage shows...
  • 2013 F/A-18 crash: Out of fuel, out of time and one chance to land

    04/12/2014 5:47:40 AM PDT · by Timber Rattler · 57 replies
    Stars & Stripes ^ | April 12, 2014 | Mike Hixenbaugh
    The aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower was finally in sight. The pilot of the F/A-18 Super Hornet hurriedly flipped switches and pushed levers. The aviator in the backseat leaned forward, straining to see the flight deck floating in the distance. The jet’s right engine had locked up, its landing gear jammed, the main fuel tank almost empty.(snip) The pilot made some quick calculations. He had 15,500 pounds of fuel in his tanks, enough to return to the Eisenhower and make six passes at the ship. Landing in nearby Kandahar was a more prudent option, but that would likely have meant...
  • Turkey’s new carrier alters eastern Mediterranean energy and security calculus

    02/09/2014 6:35:33 AM PST · by sukhoi-30mki · 35 replies
    The Jerusalem Post ^ | 02/04/2014 | MICHA’EL TANCHUM
    Turkey took a major step in altering the naval balance in the eastern Mediterranean by contracting the construction of a multi-purpose amphibious assault ship. In late December 2013, Turkey took a major step in altering the naval balance in the eastern Mediterranean by contracting the construction of a multi-purpose amphibious assault ship that can function as an aircraft carrier, potentially providing Turkey an unprecedented measure of sea control in the region. The heightened threat perception for Israel, Cyprus and Greece will impact the imminent decision regarding whether Israel will export its natural gas to a planned Cypriot LNG terminal with...
  • Boeing Surveillance Plane Found Not Effective for Mission

    01/24/2014 10:03:13 AM PST · by maddog55 · 23 replies
    Seattle Times ^ | Jan 23, 2014 3:16 PM ET | Tony Capaccio
    A new Boeing Co. (BA) surveillance aircraft deployed to Japan last month isn’t yet effective at hunting submarines or performing reconnaissance over large areas -- two of its main missions, the Pentagon’s weapons tester found. Flaws in the $35 billion program included the plane’s radar performance, sensor integration and data transfer, Michael Gilmore, chief of the Pentagon testing office, wrote in his annual report on major weapons, which has yet to be released. He said the new P-8A Poseidon exhibited “all of the major deficiencies” identified in earlier exercises when subjected to more stressful realistic combat testing from September 2012...
  • [Photo] U.S. F/A-18E Hornet operates from French Aircraft Carrier

    01/20/2014 3:18:58 PM PST · by sukhoi-30mki · 17 replies
    The Aviationist ^ | Jan 20 2014 | David Cenciotti
    Do you remember the image of the French Rafale combat planes aboard USS Truman in the Arabian Sea? Well, the Americans returned the visit with an F/A-18E Super Hornet landing on the French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle proving an interesting (and maybe useful?) interoperability between allied navies. Actually, the image above, released by the U.S. DoD does not show the VFA-37 Hornet landing on the French carrier, since no hook can be seen; the photo was probably shot as the aircraft performed a touch and go on the flattop before attempting an actual arrested landing.
  • Vultures hover over HMS Illustrious

    01/18/2014 2:03:54 PM PST · by sukhoi-30mki · 17 replies
    naval-technology.com ^ | 17 January 2014 | Berenice Baker
    The Royal Navy’s sole remaining aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious is due to be withdrawn from service in 2014. Image courtesy of LA (Phot) Nicky Wilson/MOD. The Royal Navy’s sole remaining aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious is due to be withdrawn from service in 2014 after 32 action-packed years, but her future may be somewhat less glorious. While for the time being Illustrious is still conspicuously active, by the end of the year she could be headed for a new career as a conference centre, hotel, tourist attraction or even promotional yacht. Illustrious was undergoing fitting out when the Falkands War broke...
  • Navy’s new carrier so large the crew need an app to find their way about (Royal Navy)

    01/17/2014 9:27:24 PM PST · by sukhoi-30mki · 50 replies
    London Evening Standard ^ | 14 January 2014
    Making waves: a CGI of how the 65,000-tonne HMS Queen Elizabeth will look. They have been joining up the dots —almost literally — on HMS Queen Elizabeth, the new aircraft carrier, the largest warship built in Britain, which is now towering above the rooftops in Rosyth dockyard. The five huge sections from different yards for the 65,000-tonne ship have been assembled. In the coming year it will be floated out of the dock, and named by the Queen — the first naval ship to bear her name. Crew members are shortly to be given a special app for their mobile...
  • RSK-MiG 'working on lightweight fighter'

    01/14/2014 12:19:57 PM PST · by sukhoi-30mki · 2 replies
    IHS Jane's Defence Weekly ^ | 12 January 2014 | Reuben F Johnson
    Russian aircraft manufacturer RSK-MiG seems to be quietly at work developing a new, lightweight fighter concept that could be a single-engine, lower-tier complement to the Sukhoi T-50/PAK-FA fighter currently in developmental flight testing. Discussions about this MiG project have been around for some time, but speculation about the programme's status was raised by an announcement at the end of December that the single, flying prototype of the MiG 1.44 fifth-generation Multirole Fighter (MFI) project will be put in "conservation storage at a hangar located at the Gromov Flight Research Institute [LII]", according to an official statement by MiG. Up to...
  • Tony Scott, Hank Kleeman, Kara Hultgreen and the F-14 Tomcat:...

    01/12/2014 6:10:37 PM PST · by US Navy Vet · 31 replies
    theaviationist ^ | Sep 01 2012 | By David Cenciotti
    ...three (tragic) stories and a legendary plane Few days ago, Dario Leone, a long time reader and a huge F-14 Tomcat fan, sent me an email to point out what he had noticed about the date Tony Scott, the famous director of “Top Gun”, chose to commit suicide. He had observed that Aug. 19 was the 31th anniversary of the day when two F-14s downed two Libyan fighters in 1981 (something that Scott, most probably, didn’t even know) and provided some interesting news about the fate of the two Tomcats involved in the dogfight and their crew members. “Top Gun...
  • Navy’s new $12b aircraft carrier beset with performance problems

    01/11/2014 3:32:26 AM PST · by sukhoi-30mki · 43 replies
    The Boston Globe ^ | JANUARY 10, 2014 | Bryan Bender
    Review raises doubts about launch capacity, other vital systems in new vessel WASHINGTON — The US Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, a multibillion-dollar behemoth that is the first in a next generation of carriers, is beset with a number of performance problems, even failing tests of its ability to launch and recover combat jets, according to an internal assessment by the Pentagon. The early tests are raising worries that the USS Gerald R. Ford, christened in honor of the 38th president in November, may not meet the Navy’s goal of significantly increasing the number of warplanes it can quickly launch —...
  • INS Vikramaditya enters Indian Navy's area of operation

    01/04/2014 10:46:38 AM PST · by sukhoi-30mki · 10 replies
    The Hindu ^ | 01/04/2014 | GAURAV VIVEK BHATNAGAR
    It was a sight to behold. As India’s newest aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya entered the Indian Navy’s area of operation in north western Arabian Sea, accompanied by three other vessels, it was rendezvoused — in Naval parlance RVed — with the Western Fleet that had gone all the way from Mumbai to receive it. INS Vikramaditya, which was accompanied by INS Trikand, which is a Talwar class frigate, INS Delhi which is a Delhi class destroyer and INS Deepak, the fleet tanker, fired ceremonial guns to salute the flag of the fleet commander Rear Admiral Anand Chawla, who was leading...
  • Dogfight duke: The MiG that forced Pakistan army surrender

    12/19/2013 4:59:18 AM PST · by MBT ARJUN · 23 replies
    The MiG-21 FL was the force multiplier that allowed other IAF aircraft to go in for the kill without having to watch their back during the 1971 War, thereby hastening the fall of the Pakistani military The MiG-21 may be the only aircraft in aviation history to have forced a nation to surrender. The devastating attack on the Governor’s House in Dhaka in East Pakistan by MiG-21s proved to be a turning point in the 1971 India-Pakistan war. India’s blitzkrieg strategy against the Pakistani military had brought the Indian Army to the outskirts of Dhaka within just nine days. Holed...
  • Twilight of the Aircraft Carrier?

    12/13/2013 11:57:25 AM PST · by sukhoi-30mki · 79 replies
    The Diplomat ^ | December 13, 2013 | James R. Holmes
    Past fears that carriers were vulnerable to new technologies weren’t proven right… nor were they proven wrong. Over at The National Interest this week, former Naval Diplomat shipmate — U.S. Marines say there are no former Marines, just Marines; are there former shipmates? — Bryan McGrath wades into the debate over Tom Ricks’s Washington Post column urging the U.S. military to get smaller to get better. Let me wade in as well; the water’s fine. Ricks takes aim at the U.S. Navy’s fleet of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in particular. He cites the expense of CVNs, but Bryan zeroes in mainly...
  • ‘No-Drama Option:’ Navy Celebrates 35 Years of the F/A-18 and Derivatives

    12/13/2013 11:50:25 AM PST · by sukhoi-30mki · 15 replies
    SEAPOWER ^ | December 9, 2013 | RICHARD R. BURGESS
    ‘No-Drama Option:’ Navy Celebrates 35 Years of the F/A-18 and Derivatives By RICHARD R. BURGESS, Managing Editor PATUXENT RIVER, Md. - Navy and Boeing officials celebrated the 35th anniversary of its carrier-based strike fighter in an event held at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.,where the first F/A-18 Hornets were put through their service test program. Addressing an audience Dec. 9 in the atrium of the Moffett Building, the headquarters of Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), the Navy’s F/A-18 and EA-18G program manager, Capt. Frank Morley, and two of his predecessors praised the aircraft and the contributions it has made...
  • Navy Launches UAV from Submerged Submarine

    12/07/2013 2:04:56 PM PST · by gandalftb · 6 replies
    U.S. Naval Research Lab ^ | 12/05/2013 | Daniel Parry
    The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) with funding from SwampWorks at the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Department of Defense Rapid Reaction Technology Office (DoD/RRTO) demonstrated the launch of an all-electric, fuel cell-powered, unmanned aerial system (UAS) from a submerged submarine. "Developing disruptive technologies and quickly getting them into the hands of our sailors is what our SwampWorks program is all about," said Craig A. Hughes, Acting Director of Innovation at ONR. The successful submerged launch of a remotely deployed UAS offers a pathway to providing mission critical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities to the U.S. Navy's...
  • Navy plans nuke-powered carrier (India)

    12/05/2013 11:45:46 PM PST · by sukhoi-30mki · 8 replies
    The Telegraph, India ^ | December 4 , 2013 | SUJAN DUTTA
    New Delhi, Dec. 3: The Indian Navy is designing a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that it wants in its fleet, costs permitting. An indigenous nuclear-powered submarine, the Arihant, is now in trials in the Bay of Bengal. The Indian Navy “desires” to have three operational carriers in its fleet but the only one in use currently, the INS Viraat, is rusting away faster than it would like. “The INS Viraat is ‘long in the tooth’ (outdated and too expensive to maintain),” the chief of naval staff, Admiral D.K. Joshi, said here today. Naval headquarters is gradually beginning to take the view...
  • Gang of Two. Russia and Japan Make a Play for the Pacific

    11/27/2013 10:32:34 PM PST · by cunning_fish · 14 replies
    Foreign Affairs ^ | November 27, 2013 | Fiona Hill
    On November 2, Russia and Japan held their first-ever “two plus two” meeting, which brought together their respective foreign and defense ministers in Tokyo to discuss security cooperation. The meeting grabbed few headlines, but was far from routine: such gatherings are typically reserved for close allies, and for most of their modern history, Moscow and Tokyo have been anything but. Now, however, the two countries find themselves linked by a shared predicament in the Asia-Pacific. Both are secondary players in a region overshadowed by an increasingly assertive China, which has not hesitated to push against the boundaries of its neighbors....
  • India Pushes Russia For Greater Inclusion In Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft Development

    11/27/2013 10:07:42 PM PST · by cunning_fish · 1 replies
    The Diplomat ^ | November 27, 2013 | Ankit Panda
    India wants a greater stake in the development of a Sukhoi T-50-variant Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft. India and Russia have been long-term collaborators on defense technology. The two countries together produced the supersonic BrahMos cruise missile — the fastest cruise missile in production. The relationship hasn’t always been balanced in India’s favor, however, and this has come to light recently with India’s stake in the development of the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft, based on the Russian Sukhoi T-50 (PAK FA). According to Defense News, India has conveyed its displeasure to Russia over its “low level of participation in the joint...
  • US Navy considers extending F/A-18 procurement into fiscal year 2015

    10/29/2013 12:59:54 PM PDT · by sukhoi-30mki · 3 replies
    Flight Global Pro ^ | 10/29/2013 | Jon Hemmerdinger
    US Navy considers extending F/A-18 procurement into fiscal year 2015 The US Navy is considering ordering additional Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft in fiscal 2015, despite current plans to cease procurement in the current 2014 fiscal year, which ends on 30 September. In a pre-solicitation notice posted on FedBizOpps.gov, the Naval Air Systems Command says it “intends to solicit and negotiate a fixed-price” contract with Boeing for up to 36 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and E/A-18G Growler aircraft in FY2015. The notice comes amid concern about ending F/A-18E/F production in a time of uncertainly about the readiness of the Lockheed Martin...
  • USS Forrestal, the Navy's first supercarrier, sold for 1 cent

    10/23/2013 7:54:54 PM PDT · by cunning_fish · 35 replies
    FoxNews ^ | October 23, 2013 | Joshua Rhett Miller
    Here’s a penny for your thoughts: One red cent could’ve landed you the Navy’s first supercarrier, the decommissioned Forrestal. The U.S. Navy sold the 1,067-foot behemoth to a Texas company, All Star Metals, to be dismantled, scrapped and recycled, Navy officials announced. It's an inauspicious fate for a ship with a colorful — and tragic — history. It's perhaps best known for a 1967 incident in which stray voltage triggered an accidental explosion that struck a plane on the flight deck whose cockpit was occupied by a young John McCain. A chain reaction of blasts and fires ultimately killed 134...