AVIATION FANS

The Finnish Defence Forces are preparing to spend more than a billion euros in the upgrading of its fleet of F-18 Hornet jet fighters. The US-built planes are at about the halfway point of their effective lifespans. The upgrade is set to extend their usefulness so that new fighters would not be...

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ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam: Airmen performed the first accelerated packaged maintenance plan on an F-22 Raptor in a deployed environment here Aug. 4. Members of the 27th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Unit completed what has never been done with a fifth-generation aircraft before. A PMP is a...

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SAN ANTONIO: The day retired Gen. Charles A. Horner received the call 20 years ago that eventually launched Operation Desert Shield he was flying his F-16 Fighting Falcon, engaged in an air-to-air training mission near the North Carolina coast with two F-15 Eagles from Langley Air Force Base,...

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NATO AWACS cooperation with Boeing is coming to fruition: Control of the ScanEagle unmanned airborne system (UAS) by a NATO Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft will be demonstrated during Empire Challenge 2010. The event, hosted by the U.S. Joint Forces Command, will take place...

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WASHINGTON: The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress today of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Colombia of 9 UH-60L Black Hawk Helicopters and associated equipment, parts, training and logistical support for an estimated cost of $162 million. The Government of Colombia has...

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VVD leader and likely new prime minister Mark Rutte is opposed to the purchase of a number of JSF fighter jets in the next cabinet period, the Volkskrant reports on Friday, quoting sources in The Hague. The sources say Rutte is in favour of buying a second test aircraft in order to guarantee the...

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Belgrade: Serbia has delivered the first three of 20 military training aircraft to Iraq as part of a 100-million-dollar weapons deal between two former allies, the defence ministry said Friday. Iraq was the largest economic partner of Serbia's defence industry in 2009, the ministry said in a...

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ROYAL AIR FORCE MILDENHALL, England: From a spectator's point of view, a Coronet mission may seem simple; a group of tankers flies with a group of fighters across the ocean, ensuring the smaller aircraft have enough fuel to get home. Beyond that first glance, however, the "air bridge" is a...

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STRATFORD, Conn.: Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation announced today the successful completion of the CH-53K Heavy Lift Helicopter Program Critical Design Review (CDR) event, signaling the program is ready to proceed to assembly, test and evaluation. Sikorsky Aircraft is a subsidiary of United...

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WASHINGTON: The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress today of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Oman of 18 F-16 Block 50/52 aircraft and associated equipment, parts, training and logistical support for an estimated cost of $3.5 Billion. The Government of Oman has requested a...

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ST. LOUIS: Boeing received the first APG-82(V)1 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar test set for the U.S. Air Force F-15E Radar Modernization Program (RMP) from Raytheon in St. Louis on June 10. The radar test set, which has successfully completed Acceptance Test Procedures, will...

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Washington DC: The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the Russian Air Force will hold their first-ever joint air defense exercise on August 8-11, NORAD said. The exercise, dubbed VIGILANT EAGLE, involves Russian, Canadian and U.S. Air Force personnel operating from command centers...

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SEATTLE: Boeing P-8A Poseidon aircraft T3 successfully completed its first flight test in Seattle on July 29. T3 is the P-8A program's mission-system and weapon-certification aircraft. During the two-hour and 48-minute flight from Boeing Field, Boeing and U.S. Navy test pilots performed airborne...

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NORFOLK, Va.: The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, the Navy's newest airborne early warning and control aircraft, was delivered to the fleet July 29 at Naval Station Norfolk. Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, accepted the Hawkeye on behalf of the Navy during a ceremony held on Chambers...

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DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz.: Maintainers are towing F-16 Fighting Falcons out of retirement from the "boneyard" here July 29 and preparing them to become the Air Force's newest platform for target training. Specialists with the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group are...

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TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla.: Today the Air Force announced actions to consolidate the F-22 fleet. The Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force determined the most effective basing for the F-22. This requires redistributing aircraft from one F-22 squadron to units at four...

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WASHINGTON: The House Appropriations defense subcommittee this week voted 11-5 to provide $450 million to keep the General Electric/Rolls-Royce F-35 alternate engine alive, despite veto threats from the White House. The funding was contained in the panel's $681.8 million markup of the FY11 defense...

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WASHINGTON: Air Force officials released several announcements regarding five different aircraft July 29. Michael Donley, the Secretary of the Air Force and Gen. Norton Schwartz, the chief of staff of the Air Force, approved C-27J operations and training candidate bases and announced the transition...

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ORLANDO, Fla.: Lockheed Martin recently delivered the first AN/AAQ-39 targeting system full production unit to the U.S. Air Force. Q-39 is the electro-optical/infrared fire control system for the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command AC-130U Gunship. "Q-39 gives us a tremendous increase in...

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More than 35 years ago, Cubic Corporation (NYSE: CUB) installed the world's first instrumented air combat training system at the Navy Fighter Weapons School, better known as TOPGUN. The system tracked and recorded the performance of pilots during simulated dogfights. It took all of the guesswork...

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