Free Republic

Korea's first airborne early warning and control system aircraft, the so-called "flying command post," arrived at an air base in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, from Boeing in Seattle on Monday afternoon. The E-737, nicknamed "Peace Eye," will drastically improve the military's surveillance capabilities over North Korea by flying near the demilitarized zone...

IAF wants access to AWACS RAJAT PANDIT TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, JULY 09, 2005 12:20:52 AM ] NEW DELHI: After successfully inducting IL-78 mid-air refuelling aircraft, IAF has now trained its sights firmly on another set of potent force-multipliers, the AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control Systems), to bolster its war-waging capabilities. With India slated to get its first AWACS aircraft from Israel in November 2007, IAF wants to get more and more "access" to the AWACS being flown by countries which it exercises with. "Our pilots will, of course, go for training overseas before we get our own AWACS," assistant...

Illinois Air National Guard F-16 pilot Maj. Harry Schmidt has chosen to face a court-martial--and six months in prison if convicted of dereliction of duty--to clear his name in the wake of an Apr. 17, 2002, friendly fire incident in Afghanistan that killed four Canadian soldiers. Although military pilots have been disciplined in the past for such events, this is the first time a U.S. pilot has ever faced a court-martial for a wartime friendly fire incident. Schmidt would not speak for this article. His wife, Lisa, however, said her husband could not accept the non-judicial punishment the Air Force...

BERLIN -- Acting on intelligence gathered by American and allied agencies, the United States is tracking ships that have left ports in Africa and are in the Mediterranean that may be involved in smuggling goods to finance terrorist groups, according to a senior U.S. military officer in Europe. Authorities are now working through technical and legal issues to decide if the ships, which are also suspected of carrying supplies to make weapons of mass destruction, should be boarded at sea or inspected when they try to dock, said the officer, who has been taking part in high-level daily intelligence briefings ...

In March, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea fired its second missile in two weeks from Sinsang-ri over the East Sea. The first test launch in February failed due to faulty parts, according to the Japanese Defense Ministry. The tests were believed timed to coincide with the large-scale South Korea-U.S. joint military drill being held in March, and they coincided with increased tensions along the peninsula and the recent interception of a US E-3 aircraft by DPRK aircraft. In February, another North Korean jet violated the West Sea border with the South. Nonetheless, E-3 ISR flights are scheduled to continue...