2016-04-06 By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake During the OT-2 aboard the USS Wasp, a young British maintainer made a simple point about the F-35: Lt. Cdr. Kitchen from the Royal Navy commented during a round table aboard the Wasp in May 2015: “The F-35 can be surrounded by myth…
04/06/2016: The F-35 Heritage team at Luke prepares for the 75 Years of Air Power at Luke Air Force Base. Credit:56th Fighter Wing Public Affairs:3/31/16
2016-04-02 We recently entered an office of a senior Navy Admiral who had a sign posted: “No drone talk here.” One good reason might be the wide variety of threats to operating drones, including this one, namely a Norwegian Eagle, the bird, not a code name for a plane. The…
2016-04-02 Nato has successfully concluded a cold-weather training exercise, Exercise Cold Response 2016 (CDR 16), which involved 12 member nations and partner countries. The exercise involved the land, maritime and aerial assets of 12 Nato and partner countries, more than 3,000 US service members and 6,500 members of the Norwegian…
2016-03-31 According to a Joint Program Office Press Release, a new weapon has been added to the bow for the F-35 as the archer. An F-35C Lightning II launched its first AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) over the Atlantic Test Ranges on 23 March. Test aircraft, CF-05, cleanly released the 1,000-pound air-to-surface…
2016-04-01 By Robbin Laird During my March 2016 visit to Australia to attend the Airpower Conference on Multi-Domain Integration and the Williams Foundation Seminar on New Approaches to Air-Land Integration, I had a chance to meet with Air Marshal Davies throughout those sessions and then to meet at his office…
03/31/2016: When visiting Australia in March 2016, the Brussels terrorism events had a major impact on the debate in Australia about how to deal with the terrorist threat closer to home. The Prime Minister of Australia gave a hard hitting speech which highlighted a tough immigration policy coupled with enhanced counter-terrorism…
2016-03-30 By Robbin Laird During the first day of the RAAF Conference on Airpower, I had a chance to sit down and to talk with the Deputy Chief of Staff of the RAAF, Air Vice-Marshal McDonald. This is the third time I have had the opportunity to interview him, initially…
