2015-04-24 By Robbin Laird This is fifth time I have had the opportunity to visit the first or early squadron of a new generation air system. I started with the Osprey more than eight years ago, have had multiple visits to various bases involved in the standup of the F-35,…
2015-04-30 Lt. Col. “Chip” Berke first met John Blackburn as a guest at the Williams Foundation Seminar in March 2014 on airpower. When Blackburn was putting together a follow-on event with the Centre for Military Studies in Denmark, he requested early on that Berke provide his insights into what the fifth…
2015-04-25 Colonel Anders Rex, Chief of the Expeditionary Air Staff of the Royal Danish Air Force (RDAF) provided an overview to the RDAF approach to coalition operations at the Copenhagen Airpower Symposium held on April 17, 2015 in Copenhagen. The Royal Danish Air Force consists of five wings: three air…
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…
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…
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…
