2014-03-12 by Robbin Laird I attended a seminar held by The Williams Foundation yesterday in Canberra, Australia. The focus of the seminar was on Air Combat Operations: 2025 and Beyond. The core emphasis was on the impact of the F-35 on reshaping the Australian combat approach appropriate to the challenges,…
03/05/2014: Footage of RAF pilot Squadron Leader Hugh Nichols performing the first uniformed British STOVL operation in the F-35 Lightning II at Eglin Air Force Base. Credit: Hurlburt Field : 2/27/14 And a piece by Lauren Sage Reinlie published 2/25/14 The jet shot through the sky, as jets tend to…
2014-03-06 Dr. Danny Lam and Dr. Brian Paul Cozzarin The Canadian F-35 procurement represents the largest peacetime acquisition of new aircraft for Canadian forces since the Korean War. Securing industrial benefits from military procurement is essential for advanced industrialized nations, and it has long been Canadian industrial policy to do…
2014-02-28 Second Line of Defense is currently visiting the Pacific and soon will visit the Wedgetail squadron, which currently operates from RAAF Base Williamtown, near Newcastle, New South Wales. During the exercise AWACS and Wedgetail played the core command and control role and F-22s in Alaska (which includes one flown by…
2014-02-02 By Ed Timperlake and Robbin Laird When President Obama announced a “Pivot to the Pacific,” the focus was really upon the United States and what it was going to do in the period ahead. But the US is simply part of a very dynamic and fluid defense and security…
2014-02-13 An F-35C aircraft flies a high angle of attack intentional departure test flight in November 2013. The video includes comments from the pilots and engineers testing the F-35C carrier variant's high angle of attack capabilities at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. Earlier we wrote about our visit to…
2014-01-16 It took a while for the KC-130J to work out its wrinkles. But by 2002, the new plane entered into USMC operations. This preceded the Osprey by five years, but the maturing of the Osprey and its pairing with the KC-130J is shaping a new long range force insertion capability.…
2014-01-15 Lockheed Martin commemorated the 100th F-35 Lightning II today with a ceremony for employees, elected officials and customers. The 100th F-35, known as AF-41, will be the first F-35 delivered to Luke Air Force Base (AFB) in Glendale, Ariz. Fleet Status Of the first 100 F-35s produced, 44 are…