2016-08-11 By Robbin Laird Exercise Pitch Black 2016 is a three-week multi-national large force employment exercise, which is being conducted from RAAF Base Darwin and RAAF Base Tindal from 29 July to 19 August 2016. Pitch Black 2016 is a high end combat exercise in which the RAAF air crews learn…
2016-08-07 By Harald Malmgren Although the British government, the Bank of England, the IMF and a variety of US and European think tanks had warned an extremely bad, even catastrophic downturn of the UK would ensue if British voters decided in favor of exit from the European Union. The June 23…
2016-08-15 By Richard Weitz Congress is making progress finalizing this year’s draft FY2017 National Missile Defense Act (NDAA). As The Washington Post recently noted, one likely revision we will see from previous years will be a change in congressional guidance on U.S. ballistic missile defenses (BMD); specifically, the Senate and…
2016-08-02 By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake General “Hawk” Carlisle has been at the center of operations as well as the airpower transition for some time. As the PACAF commander, he helped shaped the evolution of what is becoming an offensive-defensive enterprise in which combat air and missile defense systems…
2016-08-15 By Todd Miller For those of us who are not pilots, we can discuss landing aircraft on aircraft carriers but cannot appreciate just how difficult and fraught with disaster the operation is. Pilots returning from long, mentally exhausting missions are often faced with a night landing in stormy weather, at…
2016-08-13 By Scott C. Truver In early August, the USS Wasp (LHD 1) Amphibious Ready Group (ARG)––also comprising USS San Antonio (LPD 17) and USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41)––conducted AV-8B Harrier II and unmanned aircraft strikes against ISIL targets in Libya, to drive the terrorists from the coastal stronghold of…
2016-08-11 According to a story by the Royal Australian Navy, the MRH-90 operating off an Australian LHD has done its first replenishment of a US Navy ship. In a story by Leut. Andrew Ragless entitled the “MRH-90 Carries Her Share of the load and published on July 28, 2016: The first…
2016-08-11 Making its debut in a multi-national exercise, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) has deployed its KC-30A Multi-Role Tanker Transport to RAAF Base Townsville for Exercise Pitch Black 12. Measuring 58 metres in length and with a wingspan of 60 metres, the KC-30A is a heavily modified Airbus A330…
