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…
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…
2015-04-11 By Robbin Laird Two documents released over the last year provide a clear direction for the US Navy-Marine Corps team in 21st century operations. The first is Expeditionary Force 21, which provides a concept for the Marine Corps (MC) to build, equip and train their forces for 21st century…
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…
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…
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…
2015-03-19 By Robbin Laird The RAF is undergoing two fighter aircraft transitions at the same time. On the one hand, the Tornado is being retired and the Typhoon is subsuming its missions. On the other hand, the F-35B is coming to the fleet and will be working with Typhoon for…
2015-03-27 By Robbin Laird The supply side of the amphibious fleet has gone down over the past two decades. The amphibious ship fleet inventory has been reduced by 50% over the past twenty years and will operate in the range of 28-33 ships in the foreseeable future. The demand side…
