Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 364 First Osprey Flight: The Phrog Retires

04/26/2015
04/26/2015: LtCol. Paul Kopacz, Commanding Officer, Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 364 (VMM-364), pilots a MV-22 Osprey at Camp Pendleton, Calif., on 23 April 2015. This was the first flight for VMM-364 since transitioning from CH-46E Sea Knight’s as Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 364 (HMM-364) and is a milestone event for…

The USMC and the RAAF Focus on the Next Generation of Warfare

04/25/2015
2015-04-25 By an historical anomaly more than strategic planning, the USMC and the RAAF find themselves in similar situations in one key regard: both are undergoing fundamental modernization of their air platforms, and are approaching the re-set not from a platform-centric mentality but a transformation approach. Prior to the airpower…

Tectonic Junction: The Evolution of French Forward-Based Forces in Djibouti

04/25/2015
2015-04-22 By Murielle Delaporte *** This article is based in part on interviews conducted last November with French and U.S. military forces based in Djibouti. Djibouti is uniquely located "near a tectonic triple junction, where three tectonic plates meet: African, Arabian and Somali," reads its geological description referring to the Red…

Visiting the A400M in Seville and in Orleans

04/20/2015
04/12/2015: By Robbin Laird I visited the Final Assembly Line of the A400M in Seville on April 8, 2015 and at the Bricy Air Base at Orléans on April 10, 2015. While at the FAL, I saw 4 A400Ms on the tarmac, one of them a developmental plane and three for…

Japanese Experiment with Balloon Assisted UAV Over Anarctica

04/14/2015
2015-04-14 According to a press release by the National Institute of Polar Research, Japanese researchers conducted experiments over Antarctica with a Balloon assisted UAV. A balloon-assisted UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) named "Phoenix-S1," developed by Kyushu University and Fukuoka University, Japan, has successfully brought back stratospheric aerosol samples from the altitude…

Life as an RAF F-16 Pilot

04/13/2015
2015-04-13  The US and British services operate often together and a key element of so doing is cross training. In this piece published on the UK MoD website, the experience of an RAF pilot at Nellis at the 422nd squadron, which we visited earlier this year, is recounted. Squadron Leader…

Travis AFB C-5M Makes Aviation History

04/09/2015
04/08/2015:A C-5M Super Galaxy aircrew from Travis Air Force Base claimed 45 aeronautical records in one flight, positioning the U.S. military’s largest airframe as the world’s top aviation record holder with a total of 86 world records. The flight from Travis AFB established standards in 45 previously unset categories. The…