BY : Reuters

Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer (ERJ.N: Quote, Profile, Research)(EMBR3.SA: Quote, Profile, Research) confirmed on Friday it had sold a fighter plane to Blackwater Worldwide, the controversial private defence firm that guards U.S. personnel in Iraq. The sale of the Super Tucano was cleared by both the Brazilian and U.S. governments, but the plane will not be used in any combat zones, said Fernando Ikedo, vice-president of market intelligence for defence and government markets.

"We sold a Super Tucano to (Blackwater subsidiary) EP Aviation but for use as training in the U.S. only," he told a news briefing at Embraer's European headquarters.

"There is no link to Iraq," he added.

BY : PTI

India has decided to go global to procure the quick reaction Surface to Air Missile System as the Trishul missile project, being developed as an interceptor to protect the country's vital installations, is yet to be completed.

Though New Delhi was planning to import such intercepting missiles from Israel, the talks seem to have gone into a cold storage as the role of the Israeli firm which had imported seven such missiles in 2000 had come under CBI scanner for

BY : JANES

Although now notionally Boeing aircraft, both the F-15E Strike Eagle and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet have their roots in McDonnell Douglas, before its amalgamation into Boeing in 1997.

Both will remain in production for at least another four years but, given the pre-eminence of Lockheed Martin's F-22 Raptor in the fighter market and with the company's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) primed to fill multiple roles in the future, Eagle and Hornet are set to be the company's final manned fighters. Meanwhile, Boeing is keen to plug gaps caused by JSF delays and its two fighters come loaded

BY: PTI

In a major step towards giving the Indian Army discrete aerial reconnaissance and target acquisition capabilities, Nishant, the DRDO's pilotless aircraft, will soon be put through pre-induction trails.

The Army is expected to take Nishant, an unmanned aerial vehicle, for 'confirmatory and training trials before induction' within a month.

"The trials are scheduled to be held shortly," officials of the Defence Research Development Organisation said on Friday.

Designed to perform discrete aerial intelligence gathering and for acquiring targets on land and air, Nishant would be put to use by the Indian Army in forward areas in

BY : israelenews

In its first major defence export to the country, India has inked a $100-million deal to sell composite materials to Israel for its future generation of mini Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).

Under the recently signed contract, Indian aviation giant Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will export lightweight composite materials, manufactured from carbon fibers, to Israel. While the composites are primarily intended for a new Israeli mini UAV project, they will also be used for space applications, Government sources said.

BY : portsmouth



The results of a £300m contract to supply a state-of-the-art tracker to the Royal Navy have now been unveiled.
The navy's newly-updated Seawolf system was put through a dry run at the Qinetiq-owned Fraser test site, Eastney, as it tracked a target across the Solent.
During the demonstration, the giant, one-ton tracker swivelled from position to position in an instant, panning, rotating and dipping as its target, a Cessna light aircraft, soared across the sea.

BY : Reuters

The United Arab Emirates is in talks with France to buy advanced Rafale fighter planes to replace its fleet of 63 Mirage 2000 jets, the French president's office said in a statement on Thursday.

The statement said commercial negotiations had not yet started and there was no timetable for a deal, but added that if an accord were struck the first planes, which are built by Dassault Aviation (AVMD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research), could be delivered in 2012.

"The discussions will continue in the weeks ahead," President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said.

The Rafale was developed and built at a cost of 28 billion euros over the 20-year life

BY : The International Herald Tribune

This battered harbor town on Sri Lanka's southern tip, with its scrawny men selling even scrawnier fish, seems an unlikely focus for an emerging international competition over energy supply routes that fuel much of the global economy.

An impoverished place still recovering from the devastation of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Hambantota has a desolate air, a sense of nowhereness, punctuated by the realization that looking south over the expanse of ocean, the next landfall is Antarctica.

But just over the horizon runs one of the world's great trade arteries, the shipping lanes where thousands of vessels carry oil from the Middle East and raw materials to Asia, returning with television sets, toys and sneakers for European consumers.

BY : Asian Age


India will now procure only 197 helicopters for the Indian Army and Air Force from abroad through an RFP process instead of the 384 that it had earlier envisaged. This is because Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) has now been given the opportunity by the government to design and develop 187 light utility and observation helicopters for the Indian Army and Air Force. The HAL is now focusing on design and development of

BY :PTI

Already running 10 years behind schedule, the country's prestigious Light Combat Aircraft Tejas would be carrying only “limited weaponry” when they get ready by 2012.
As the first of these indigenous fighters strive for initial operational clearance in 2010, experts have come up with sudden complications that Tejas' US aeroengine GE404 does not have requisite thrust to give it power to carry its full load of weaponry, highly-placed sources said.