The Fifth Generation Experience: Getting on With Combat Transformation

04/29/2015
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…

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…

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…

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…

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…