WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US Air Force has grounded all its F-15 fighter planes after an accident in Missouri triggered concerns about the ageing fleet, officials said Tuesday.br /br /The decision comes after Japan on Sunday grounded its F-15 fleet after it was informed by US forces that an Air National Guard F-15 fighter jet had crashed.br /br /”The cause of that accident is still under investigation,” the US Air Force said in a statement.br /br /”Preliminary findings indicate that a possible structural failure of the aircraft may have occurred. The suspension of flight operations is a precautionary measure.”br /br /The Air Force has more than 700 F-15s in its fleet. But until further notice, they will only be used for emergency missions in Iraq or Afghanistan, while F-16s will be used for all routine operations.br /br /”They have some concerns about structural issues with the F-15 that went down,” said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.br /br /”The Air Force is looking at its operational requirements and where they have the newer aircraft and are making some of those available for missions while they take a look at the F-15 and see if they have a more systemic problem throughout the fleet,” said Whitman.br /br /”They will still be flying F-15 in support of troops and when there are no other aircraft available.”br /br /The plane that crashed on Friday was a 27-year-old F-15C built in Hazelwood, Missouri.br /br /Around 500 of the total F-15 fleet are older models with an average age of around 25 years, Air Force spokesman Cristin Marposon told AFP.br /br /There are also around 223 of the later F-15E models, which are mostly the ones used in Iraq.br /br /The Air Force is trying to replace its oldest F-15s with the F-22 Raptor made by Lockheed Martin, but due to budgetary constraints it has so far only been able to purchase half of the aircraft it has asked for.br /br /The US Congress has given approval for the Air Force to purchase 183 F-22s, although military officials have said they need 381 aircraft. A total of 97 F-22s have already been integrated into the fleet.br /br /But Friday’s accident may help step up the replacement program.br /br /”The chief of staff directed the grounding for safety concerns. We will see what comes out of the investigation,” Marposon said.br /br /The US Air Force stopped buying F-15s in 2004, but Boeing has continued to produce them for clients in South Korea and Singapore, which ordered 12 new craft at the end of 2005.br /br /In Japan, Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba told reporters that Tokyo has also suspended flights of F-2 fighter jets after one crashed on takeoff and burst into flames at an airport in central Japan last week.br /br /”We will deal with the task of preventing airspace incursions with our F-4 fighter jets,” the oldest model among Japan’s fighter jets, Ishiba said.br /br /The Japanese Air Force had 203 F-15s, 68 F-2s and 91 F-4s as of March 2006, a Japanese defence ministry spokesman said.

div class=”story-para”Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Nov. 16 that the U.S. is incapable of launching a military strike against Iran but would “regret” an attack if it carried one out./div div class=”story-para” “America is today incapable of staging a military strike against Iran for several reasons,” Ahmadinejad told Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel in an interview, according to an Arabic voice-over of his remarks in Farsi./div div class=”story-para” The ground is not prepared for a strike in either economic, political or military terms, he said./div div class=”story-para” “And of course, they know full well that the Iranian people’s response [to any attack] will be harsh, and they will regret it,” Ahmadinejad said./div div class=”story-para” “In practice, then, they do not want to launch a strike against Iran. They are agitating and applying pressure on [U.N.] Security Council members in order to deceive and extricate themselves from the impasse in which they are,” he added./div div class=”story-para” U.S. Democratic lawmakers Nov. 16 warned the Bush administration was “beating the drums for war” with Iran, and vowed to wield constitutional powers to thwart any military strike./div div class=”story-para” Their comments came as U.S. President Bush fired off a fresh warning that international pressure would grow on the Islamic Republic, unless Tehran agreed to suspend enriching uranium./div div class=”story-para” Washington accuses Tehran of using its nuclear program as cover for a drive to develop an atomic bomb, a charge Iran strongly denies, saying it only wants to generate electricity./div

The Indian Air Force’s fleet now includes new-generation aircraft, with the arrival of two British-built Hawk advanced jet trainers at Bidar Air Force Station in the southern state of Karnataka.br /“The Hawk trainers will impart stage-three training to newly commissioned fighter pilots of the IAF at Bidar” beginning next June, according to the Indian Defence Ministry’s Nov. 12 statement.br /The two trainers are part of the Air Force’s 66-aircraft purchase of Hawk Mk-132s from BAE Systems, London.br /“By this year-end, four more Hawks will be ferried in, and by mid-February, six more are scheduled to arrive in a phased manner,” the ministry said in its statement.br /The two aircraft left Britain Nov. 8 and were flown to India by a mixed crew of BAE Systems and Indian Air Force pilots.br /The service had been demanding advanced jet trainers since the early 1990s, attributing the increase in aircraft accidents to the Air Force’s lack of advanced jet trainers.br /“This void will now be filled,” a senior Indian Air Force official said.br /Of the 66 aircraft being bought, 24 are being developed, built and delivered by BAE, while state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Bangalore, will manufacture the remaining 42 under license from BAE in India. All 66 Hawks will be in Indian Air Force hands by 2010-11.

NEW DELHI — Senior Indian Air Force officials say they are finding holes in the agreement their government signed Oct. 18 with Russia for joint production of a fifth-generation fighter aircraft.br /The Air Force prefers to get involved in the project from the beginning of the design stage, but the Russians say the design of the proposed fifth-generation aircraft is frozen, Air Force sources said.br /Being involved from the start would allow the Air Force to introduce its own requirements into the design process and to become familiar with the design of the aircraft they propose to fly, a senior service official said.br /Another Air Force official agreed, noting that so far, even the service’s Staff Qualitative Requirements have not been finalized.br /In addition, the Air Force says India should not contribute more than $2 billion to the joint project, but the proposed deal calls for an Indian contribution of about $5 billion — half of the estimated $10 billion cost, according to Air Force officials.br /No details have yet been released as to how many aircraft would be built for India and Russia through the agreement.br /A diplomat with the Russian Embassy here said the two governments have signed the fifth-generation fighter agreement, but Indian state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) and Russia’s Sukhoi Design Bureau have yet to sign.br /The first prototype of the aircraft is projected to be test-flown by 2015, the diplomat said.br /“We are willing to participate in the fifth-generation aircraft, but we will invest only $2 billion on our side in the development of the fighter,” a senior HAL official said.br /India and Russia signed the intergovernmental agreement to jointly develop and produce the futuristic, multirole stealth fighter, based on Sukhoi’s super-secret PAK-FA project, in Moscow on Oct. 18.br /Indian Air Force officials said the aircraft will be a variant of the T-50 aircraft from Sukhoi.br /However, the Air Force has already committed about $6 billion to acquire the Sukhoi Su-30 MKI and should not buy more than one type of Sukhoi aircraft, said Surya Pal Singh, a retired Air Force commodore. India is buying 40 Su-30 MKIs, and HAL will build another 140 under license in India.br /India also was offered a variant of the MiG aircraft for the fifth-generation fighter project. It is still not clear how Sukhoi was selected.br /The Russians, for lack of funds, have wanted to collaborate with India on the fifth-generation aircraft. The fighter will be flown by both the Russian and Indian Air Forces.