THE RAF is being forced to borrow American spy planes and paint roundels on them to replace its fleet of Nimrod R1 signals intelligence aircraft.
The crews of the US Rivet Joint spy planes masquerading as RAF aircraft will not even be totally British with US personnel expected to take control on some missions.
The move, forced by a Ministry of Defence (MoD) cash crisis that rules out the money for a replacement aircraft for the Nimrod R1, has provoked outrage among RAF air crew who say it will mean a major loss of capability.
The combined fleet of 135 in-service Eurofighter Typhoons and seven Flight Test aircraft has accumulated over 35,000 flying hours by the end of December 2007. Since introduction into service in Spring 2004, the five customer Air Forces, including, since Summer 2007, Austria have achieved 30,650 flying hours. An amazing 50 % of this amount were flown in 2007, demonstrating the tremendous growth of the in-service fleet.
The build up of flying hours in the Nations’ Air Forces reflects the success of
SA's first new jet fighter in over 30 years is a coat of paint away from delivery to the nation's air force. Saab JAS39D Gripen “SA 01” is the first of 28 aircraft, costing R20 billion, according to the National Treasury.
The Gripen (Griffon in English) is a hi-tech platform, more computer than aircraft. Saab flight test operations manager and test pilot Magnus Olsson says the fighter is fitted with 40 Pentium-type processors to control its cockpit avionics, weapons and flight surfaces through a systems architecture called “fly-by-wire”.
Russia on Tuesday sent two long-range bombers to the Bay of Biscay, off the French and Spanish Atlantic coasts, to test-fire missiles in what it billed as its biggest navy exercise in the area since Soviet times.
British and Norwegian Tornado and F-16 jets were escorting the Russian 'Blackjack' bombers, Interfax reported, quoting the Russian Air Force.
BAE Systems has been awarded its first F-35 Low Rate Initial Production full funding contract worth over £25M.
The contract will see the company deliver the aft fuselage and empennage (vertical and horizontal tails) as well as key mission and vehicle systems for two Conventional Take Off and Landing (CTOL) variants of F-35.
“This is a significant milestone for BAE Systems and for the F-35 team. The start of Low Rate Initial Production marks the transition from development to production of the F-35 programme and is a major step towards making the F-35 available to
An important milestone in the integration of IRIS-T with the Gripen fighter, was achieved on 8 November 2007 at the Vidsel range in northern Sweden when Gripen fired the IRIS-T, within visual range (WVR), missile with an operational target seeker for the first time. It was a high g-load test firing using a fully operational missile without a warhead. The test was completely successful with the missile finding and shooting down the designated target.
XX833, a Jaguar T Mk 2A operated by QinetiQ is retired
Thursday 20th December was a historic day for aviation enthusiasts as XX833, which for the past six months was the only flying UK military registered Jaguar left in service, took its last flight, marking the end of an era for Jaguar flying in UK – the last of the RAF’s Jaguars were themselves all retired this Summer.
The QinetiQ owned Jaguar T Mk 2A, (XX833), which is operated in conjunction with the
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