Free Republic

Aseismic shift has occurred in the Trump administration’s new defense spending plan that is just emerging when it comes to the USAF’s airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) predicament. The service’s E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft are dwindling in number and rapidly aging into unsupportability. The proven and in-production E-7 Wedgetail, based on the Boeing 737 and serving with multiple allies, was supposed to bridge the gap between the E-3’s retirement and pushing the sending part of the mission to space-based distributed satellite constellations. You can read all about this here. Now, if the administration gets...

Satellite imagery shows clear indications that Russia’s increasingly anticipated withdrawal of forces from its Tartus naval base in Syria has finally started. Complete loss of access to the facility, where Russian vehicles and materiel have been massing there for weeks already, would be a major blow to the Kremlin. The Russian military has already been steadily drawing down its posture at Khmeimim Air Base in Syria amid persistent questions about the future of its presence in the country as a whole since the sudden fall of dictator Bashar Al Assad last year. Satellite imagery taken on January 25 that TWZ...

The U.S. Air Force’s Plant 42 in California, America’s premier hub for advanced aerospace development work, especially highly classified military programs, has seen a wave of mysterious drone incursions in recent months. The incidents have now become serious enough to prompt the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to impose new, if temporary flight restrictions around the sprawling high-security facility. The Air Force acknowledged these incidents in response to our questions about purported sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the area which became viral on social media over the weekend and that local law enforcement appears to have received no reports...

U.S. Africa Command says that at least two MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter jets, possibly piloted by shadowy Russian mercenaries, have crashed in Libya. Jared Szuba, the Pentagon correspondent for AI-Monitor, Tweeted out that one of the jets was apparently lost on June 28, while the other went down on September 7, 2020. This information had come in a statement from Rear Admiral Heidi Berg, U.S. Africa Command's (AFRICOM) director of intelligence. Another tweet indicates that Berg believes that "Russian fighter aircraft," presumably MiG-29s too, but potentially also Su-24 Fencer strike aircraft, have conducted airstrikes in Libya. AI-Monitor's Szuba follows that up...

On June 27, 2013, an F/A-18F Super Hornet from Strike Fighter Squadron 11 (VFA-11), flying out of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia had an encounter with an "aircraft [that] was white in color and approximately the size and shape of a drone or missile" in the W-72 warning area. The jet's crew "visually acquired" it as they saw it "pass down the right side of their aircraft with approximately 200 feet of lateral separation" while flying at an altitude of 17,000 feet. It was climbing and had a visible exhaust trail. Neither the Super Hornet nor NAS Oceana recorded...

Following the revelations that a series of bizarre encounters between Navy pilots and UFOs had occurred off the east coast of the United States from 2014 to early 2015, The War Zone set out in search of any possible explanation for at least some of these incidents that don't involve fantastic origins or extremely advanced technology. Over the last month, we have identified one possibility, in particular, that is worth mentioning. Instead of anti-gravitational propulsion or flying machines from space, this possibility—and that is all it is, a possibility—has to do with specially designed radar reflector balloons and submarines, as...

The United States will soon surround the Islamic State on three sides with rocket artillery batteries. The plans follow months of aerial bombardment, but the ground-launched rockets represent an expanding and less-publicized element to the war. On April 26, the Pentagon announced it will send U.S. Army troops and the rocket launchers to southern Turkey. The ground combat branch already has similar units in Iraq and Jordan — and the use of the launchers are by no means exclusive to these three countries.

The B-52 has only been able to carry smart weapons on its external pylons, with its internal weapons bay being relegated to nuclear and dumb bombs, as well as some older cruise missiles. Now, the iconic 60 year old Stratofortress is finally getting a new 'smart' rotary weapons rack and other upgrades that will more than double its smart weapons punch. You could say that the B-52's empty weapons bay has been the most under-utilized real estate in the entire USAF. Even as the B-52's utility morphed over the decades (from a nuclear interdiction option, to a carpet bomber,...

The U.S. Air Force has a complicated relationship with its low- and slow-flying A-10 Warthog attack jet. And that's putting it mildly. The flying branch has tried more than once to retire the ungainly A-10 in favor of speedier planes, only for ...

The U.S. Air Force has a complicated relationship with its low- and slow-flying A-10 Warthog attack jet. And that’s putting it mildly. The flying branch has tried more than once to retire the ungainly A-10 in favor of speedier planes, only for lawmakers to block the move. But on at least one occasion, the Air Force actually defended the heavily-armored, gun-armed Warthog from an unlikely challenger—a modern version of the World War II P-51 Mustang that Congress for some reason really loved. In 1979, Congress demanded the Air Force test out the tiny Piper PA-48 Enforcer light attack plane—a derivative...