U.S. Naval Air Systems Command has awarded Lockheed Martin $2.44 billion to begin buying advance materials needed to build 12 F-35 Lightning II aircraft in 2008.br /This second F-35 low-rate initial production (LRIP II) contract will buy a half-dozen each of the conventional and vertical-takeoff variants.br /“This is the first mixed lot,” said Lockheed Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) spokesman John …
British and Norwegian fighter jets scrambled over the North Sea after Russian bombers were spotted flying at “unusual” latitudes overnight, the Norwegian military said July 20.The repeated sightings of Russian jets — the most numerous off Norway’s coast since the end of the Cold War, according to Norwegian public radio NRK — came amid an escalating diplomatic crisis between Russia …
Saab is playing down reports from Bangkok that Thailand’s military government has reached a decision in principle to purchase six JAS 39 Gripen fighters at a cost of $450 million.br /Thailand’s interest in the Gripen dates to 2004, when the government of then-Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra came close to ordering 20 Gripens, according to a Ministry of Defense (MoD) …
A U.S. Marine Corps V-22 Osprey landed July 10 on the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, the first time the vertical-takeoff-and-landing tiltrotor had operated from the deck of a foreign warship, a Royal Navy spokeswoman said.The touchdown was the first of several expected over the several weeks of a Joint Task Force Exercise involving U.S. and Britain warships off …
Taiwan’s army will acquire 30 Boeing AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters for $2.6 billion instead of buying more Cobras, service project planning director Col. Dai Kuang-chao said July 10 at a Ministry of National Defense press conference.The program, already five years late, still awaits U.S. government approval, while the Taiwanese legislature is expected to approve the budget only in 2008 …
Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA) has revealed details of a previously top-secret Stealth aircraft research programme conducted in Germany during the 1980s. The programme, known as Lampyridae (Firefly), or Medium Range Missile Fighter (MRMF), was run from 1981 to 1987 by what was then Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB), under a contract from the German air force.The work led …
India’s $11 billion program to buy 126 Multi-role Medium Range Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) won approval June 29 from a key acquisition body, clearing the way for a request for proposals to go to six global firms within two weeks, Defence Ministry sources said.Expected to run at least five years, the country’s largest-ever arms purchase will come with several new twists. …
Moscow’s respected business daily Kommersant reported that Russia’s arms-trading monopoly Rosoboronexport has begun to fulfill an arms deal it secretly signed with Syria this year to sell five MiG-31E jet fighters, considered among the best in the world, and an additional unspecified number of the newest MiG-29M/M2 fighter-bombers.br /The paper reported the total price to be about US$1 billion. MiG-31s …
Germany’s highest court July 3 rejected a legal complaint against the deployment of Tornado jets in Afghanistan in support of NATO’s offensive against Taliban extremists.The federal constitutional court said it found no evidence that the use of six German reconnaissance planes since April represented a break with NATO’s “focus on peacekeeping” in the war-ravaged country.It also approved the controversial cooperation …
ORONO — A celebration of the town’s 175th anniversary turned into a nightmare for one Orono horse farm owner when a flypast by Canadian Forces CF-18 fighter jets on Saturday afternoon caused havoc with her horses, killing one and injuring four others.br /“I had just finished a lesson with a student, another student was driving her horse when the first …
