2012-07-18 By Kym Bergmann / Canberra This article has been provided by our new partner, Asia Pacific Defence Reporter and is published with their permission. The announcement that Australia would participate in the Joint Strike Fighter project was made almost exactly a decade ago on June 22, 2002. In another…
2012-07-16 By Robbin Laird The month long visit of the X3 – high-speed hybrid Eurocopter to America is half-way overview. It began at the Eurocopter facilities in Grand Prairie, Texas in June 2012. With the Lt Governor of Texas and other political dignitaries present, the senior leadership of Eurocopter introduced…
2012-07-16 by Robbin Laird This past weekend in a fine piece in The New York Times, C.J. Chivers focused on the airpower dimension in Afghan operations. The title was tellingly: “Afghan Conflict Losing Air Power as U.S. pulls out.” In its way, this strike was a model of what air power can…
7/9/12: by Robbin Laird Building new platforms in the 21st century is challenging. caroThe challenge in part is that it has been so long since new air platforms have been built that an entire generation has grown up as the recipients of the work of the 50s and 60s and…
By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake This year’s Farnbourgh Airshow is occurring at an interesting juncture in history. On the financial side, there is the Euro crisis, and various dynamics such as the fate of the Chinese and American economies. On the defense side, there is the end of a…
6/21/12: by Robbin Laird A key element of the F-35 decision by Norway was the acceptance of the integration of a new Kongsberg missile onto the F-35 itself. Through the development of the Naval Strike Missile (NSM), the Norwegian Armed Forces has established KONGSBERG and other Norwegian industry in the…
6/15/12: Next week, the new demonstration helicopter the X3 will be visiting the United States. Second Line of Defense will be there as the tour kicks off in Dallas Texas. SLD first saw the new helo at the Paris Air Show last year, and we are looking forward to catching…
6/8/12: The A400M is being built with the 21st century approach to fleet management in mind. Ranging from Unique Identification Tags built in, to multinational training, to providing for global support, the A400M has the advantages inherent in advanced manufacturing. As we argued earlier: It was clear notably with the…