2014-07-08 By Robbin Laird During my recent visit to the 2nd I have had the opportunity to visit the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing for a number of years. The Wing has been an important force for innovation in the period in which I have been visiting. KC-130Js, and Ospreys are…
2014-07-08 Second Line of Defense visited 2nd Marine Wing in late June 2014, and we covered the VMX-22 change of command. As part of this effort, we sat down with the departing commander, Col. Michael Orr and with the newly appointed commander, who had been serving as the Executive Officer…
2014-07-03 by Kenneth Maxwell On the eve of Ramadan, the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levent (Isis), an violently extremist jihadi group, having seized territory in both Iraq and Syria, tore down the boundaries between them, and established a Caliphate, a sovereign state, believed by many Muslims to be the inheritor of the…
07/04/2014 By Robbin Laird Last year after attending the Airbus Military Trade Media briefing, I looked at what the promise the A400M provided to users and the marketplace. Journalists who attended were given the opportunity to fly the aircraft for more than an hour. Francis Tusa, the well-known British journalist…
2014/7/03 The F-35 is both cause and consequence of change in US and allied air power. The first Second Line of Defense publication, which addressed this, was called The Renorming of Air Power and the title was crafted to capture the interactivity between the new aircraft and new concepts of…
2014-06-29 By Robbin Laird Recently, I have had the chance to visit the USS America, interview with Ed Timperlake the head of the Military Sealift Command and to spend several days with Second Marine Air Wing, including watching the change of command for VMX-22. We will have several pieces coming…
2014-07-06 Washington/ New Delhi. The US Government has notified the Congress of a possible deal to sell 22 more Harpoon Block II anti-shipping missiles to the Indian Navy, this time for its four HDW German made Shishumar class submarines. Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), which manages the government to…
2014-07-05 At a presentation in early June 2014 to the Airbus Defence and Space Trade Media briefing held in Spain,the head of the A400M Program within the company, Rafael Tentor-Aunon, noted that 90% of the flight-testing is now done with 6343 flight hours and 2278 flights conducted. And in a…
