2017-12-082017-11-20 The new Queen Elizabeth class carrier is the largest warship ever built in the United Kingdom. While most of the focus of the press coverage has been on the process of building the carrier and now its sea trials, the carrier is coming at a very interesting point in…
2017-11-14 UK Minister for Defence Procurement, Harriett Baldwin is visiting her counterparts in Australia. According to a UK Ministry of Defence story published on November 13, 2017, the UK and Australia are stepping up their defense relationship. Amongst the discussions was a meeting with her Australian counterpart, Minister Christopher Pyne,…
2017-11-10 By Robbin Laird The F-35 undergoes final assembly and checkout at three plants around the world – in Italy, in Japan and in Fort Worth, Texas. The Italian and Japanese lines are low rate production lines whereas the Fort Worth line is the high rate production facility. The Fort Worth…
2017-11-10 By Robbin Laird The transformation of Marine Corps aviation and with innovations in terms of the ability of the Marines to operate at greater distance, speed and more effectively in distributed operations began with the Osprey. The F-35B is now being added to the force and it provides, sensing,…
2017-11-12 An important aspect of the F-35 final assembly facility in Fort Worth is the capability to produce three variants of the aircraft on the same assembly line. Now that capability has been demonstrated off of the Italian line as the first F-35B built outside of the United States came…
2017-10-19 By Robbin Laird The USAF has seen more than a decade in which a primary function has been to support ground operations. The USAF has served as Fed Ex, a flying gas station, a strike and ISR server in the sky for various types of ground operations. The end…
2017-10-17 By Robbin Laird The Indian Air Force is about to launch competition to add new fighter aircraft. This would be in addition, to the acquisition of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft, already in place. The Indian Chief of Staff of the Air Force has indicated that the IAF will buy…
2017-10-28 Earlier this Fall, it was announced by Northrop Grumman that they intended to acquire Orbital ATK. It was noted at the time by Doug Cameron writing in the Wall Street Journal that: Northrop’s proposed $7.8 billion acquisition of Orbital, announced Monday, would help Northrop to produce and launch large and…
