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“The US Navy awarded Boeing on Thursday an $850 million contract to design and build the MQ-25A Stingray, the Navy's first carrier-based unmanned refueling aircraft.”

Photos by Petty Officer 2nd Class Timothy SchumakerBoeing has received a $17 million contract for convert nine F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft for Blue Angels flight demonstration team, said in the statement of the U.S. Department of Defense on 13 August. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has contracted Boeing for the retrofit documentation and kits to convert nine F/A-18E (single-seat) and two F/A-18F (tandem-seat) aircraft into a Blue Angel configuration in accordance with engineering change proposal 6480. According to the DoD, work will be performed in St. Louis, Missouri, and is expected to be completed in December 2021. The Blue...

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea’s military has picked Boeing Co (BA.N) to supply the country’s maritime patrol aircraft in a contract worth around 1.9 trillion won ($1.71 billion), a senior company executive said on Monday. The South Korean procurement agency Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said separately that it had decided to buy the P-8 Poseidon aircraft through the U.S. government foreign military sales program. Kang Hwan-seok, a DAPA spokesman, told a media briefing the decision was made after a comprehensive review of legal aspects, cost, schedule and performance. Saab (SAABb.ST) and Airbus (AIR.PA) had also shown interest in meeting...

U.S. and French fighter pilots have spent nearly two months training alongside each other, exchanging tactics and comparing notes on what their Dassault Rafale and Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet jets can accomplish. During training at Naval Air Station Oceana and aboard USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77), the most note-worthing finding is how similar the two navies’ flight operations procedures aboard the carrier are, said both French and U.S. pilots. Still, each airframe comes with unique attributes, which made for some interesting mission training exercises. USNI News Graphic “The Rafale is a rocket,” Lt. Brandon Rodgers from the Golden Warriors of...

Eight months after the most deadly crash for the USMC in nearly a decade and half, the Navy and Marine Corps' fleet of KC-130T tanker-transport aircraft remain grounded. As a result the Blue Angels have been without their beloved 'Fat Albert' airlift support plane, leaving a gaping hole in the team's on-demand logistical needs and a favorite part of their air show act. Now it seems the Pentagon has sourced a replacement—from the Royal Air Force. The federal government's contracting site FBO.gov posted a single-source contract announcement on March 23rd, 2018 for an urgent replacement transport aircraft for the...

Petty Officer 2nd Class Jon Dasb—U.S. Navy A number of Marine Nationale Rafale-M multi-role fighter jets and E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft, along with 350 support personnel and aircrew, will deploy aboard the USS George H.W. Bush this Spring. Not only will the multi-national operation work to give Rafale-M aircrews much needed carrier qualifications—France's only carrier has been undergoing a mid-life refit—but it also aims to expand the two countries' abilities to operate fighter aircraft cooperatively from the sea for prolonged periods of time. Captain Jean-Emmanuel Roux de Luze, the French Naval Attaché to the U.S. Navy,...

OKANOGAN COUNTY, Wash. – Officials with the Naval Air Station Whidbey Island said one of their aircraft was involved in the obscene skywritings spotted in Okanogan County. Photos sent to KREM 2 by multiple sources show skydrawings of what some people are saying is male genitalia. Some sources have even tweeted pictures of what they saw. A mother who lives in Okanogan who took pictures of the drawings reached out to KREM 2 to complain about the images, saying she was upset she might have to explain to her young children what the drawings were. In a statement to KREM...

NORFOLK Congress told the Navy to develop concepts for less expensive aircraft carriers than those being built at Newport News Shipbuilding after the USS Gerald R. Ford, which was commissioned in July as the first of a new class of warships, suffered repeated cost overruns and delays. The federally funded Rand Corp. came up with four alternatives , released this week in an unclassified report. Two designs call for nuclear-powered carriers, while two call for much smaller, conventionally powered ships that could only launch aircraft capable of taking off and landing vertically. The Navy sent copies of Rand’s report to...

This proud RAF pilot is hoping to be the first to fly an F-35 fighter jet off HMS Queen Elizabeth, Britain's brand new aircraft carrier. Squadron Leader Andy Edgell, one of Britain's top airmen, is currently testing our 11 new F-35s in the United States ahead of their sea trials on the warship next year. In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, the 37-year-old father of three said he is 'exhilarated by every flight' in the 1,200mph attack planes equipped with bombs and heat-seeking missiles. 'She's marvellous,' Edgell said of the F-35 from the air base in Maryland where the testing...

Global defence equipment major Boeing on Monday said that its F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter aircraft is compatible with India's current naval carrier platforms and that they can be produced in the country under the government's "Make in India" initiative. "Analytical and (computer) simulations have shown that the F/A-18 is compatible with the current carrier fleet of the Indian Navy. The results of the test have been submitted in response to a global RFI issued by the Navy," said Pratyush Kumar, President, Boeing India. Presently, the Indian Navy's aircraft carriers' utilise "ski-jump ramps" for fighter aircraft to take-off. Kumar spoke to...

The Naval Light Combat Aircraft (N-LCA) | Photo: Angad Singh At the annual Navy Day press conference, held on December 02, 2016, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sunil Lanba told media that the Indian Navy had elected not to field the naval variant of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), and would look abroad for new fighters. For the less well informed, this was a stunning volte-face from the Service that has unstintingly backed domestic procurement programmes and has contributed considerable funding to the development of an indigenous carrier fighter. To the slightly more clued in, however, the announcement had been...

TYPE 002 CARRIER This fan-made computer-generated image of the Type 002 by artist Nishikasaizoukan shows the craft's key features like catapults, J-15B fighters, and fixed-wing airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft. Xigexi Though China launched its much-ballyhooed Type 001A aircraft carrier just a few months ago, the People's Liberation Army Navy is hardly resting on its laurels, instead making steady progress on technology for its second home-built carrier, the Type 002. The Type 002 carrier, development for which is slated to wrap in 2020 or 2021, will be a 70,000-ton aircraft carrier with catapults designed to launch heavier aircraft....

The Royal Navy’s new supercarrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and her battle group met the U.S. Navy’s carrier USS George H.W. Bush in the North Atlantic for an exercise beginning on Aug. 1, 2017. The 10-day exercise Saxon Warrior 2017 “allows both U.S. and U.K. naval forces a chance to hone our interoperability skills,” said Rear Adm. Kenneth Whitesell, commander of Bush‘s Carrier Strike Group 2. “Particularly important is the alignment of U.S. carrier strike groups and the U.K. carrier strike group.” Both navies — and one NATO ally — sent ships and crews to the exercise. But one key component...

The arrival of the USS George HW Bush in British waters to participate in exercise Saxon Warrior with the Royal Navy provided a useful opportunity to meet US naval aviators who have recently completed combat missions against ISIS in the Middle East. Although they are very different, inevitable comparisons will also be made between the Nimitz class CVN and the Queen Elizabeth class CVF, which deserve to be put in perspective. The US Navy’s Carrier Strike Group 2 have been in action in the Middle East for almost 7 months and there was a high tempo of operations with 99...

A new electromagnetic launch system for aircraft carriers that has faltered when attempting to launch heavier planes is now sound thanks to a software fix, Navy officials announced this week. However, it won’t reach the Navy’s new carrier for more than a year. The Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, or EMALS, is one of several brand-new technologies installed aboard the first-of-class supercarrier Gerald R. Ford, which was commissioned July 22. The system has drawn the ire of President Donald Trump, who said in a memorable May 11 interview with Time Magazine that he wanted the Navy to return to “goddamned steam”...

There are no words. What an amazing experience.

The people working on various aspects of the F-35 fighter program must be very frustrated. The program is still highly classified, so that much that is taking place within the program is simply not available for discussion. And yet, the F-35’s critics are baying and howling and often deliberately misrepresenting the program and its products. The F-35 program is not one program. It is several. Its products are three different aircraft and several brand-new, and highly innovative, technologies. It provides quantum leaps in aviation technology in many different areas. Simultaneously achieving all these technical breakthroughs has obviously proved difficult. But...

China's aircraft carrier, the rebuilt Kuznetsov class Liaoning, and its battle group are prowling their way towards Southeast Asia ahead of a much anticipated inaugural and very high-profile visit to Hong Kong. The carrier's port call, which will be yet another major symbol of China's rapidly increasingly military and geopolitical might in the region, is part of the 20th anniversary celebration of the country's reclaiming of the territory from the British Crown. The armada passed through the Taiwan Strait over the weekend, an operation that causes anxieties to soar in Taipei. Fighters and maritime patrol aircraft scrambled from the island...

The Senate Armed Services Committee's version of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes a sizable downstroke in what could turn into a program to finally build a smaller and less expensive aircraft carrier complement to America's increasingly expensive supercarriers. The provision includes $30M to come up with preliminary designs and cost options for such a ship, which then can be used to quantify the concept and how it would fit into the Navy's overall strategy. The newest supercarrier design, the Ford class, cost upwards of $12B per ship. Meanwhile the Trump Administration has mandated a 12 supercarrier force....

The largest warship ever built in the UK is due to set sail for the first time today. HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Royal Navy's new aircraft carrier, will leave her dock in Scotland around lunchtime to start two years of sea trials. She is named after Elizabeth the first and is the second ship to carry the name - the first was a World War One battleship. More than 700 crew are onboard, from seamen to aircraft engineers, dentists to force protection. The oldest crew member is 58 and the youngest 17 although the average age is in the early...