08/16/2015: The Missile Defense Agency (MDA), U.S. Pacific Command, and U.S. Navy sailors aboard the USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) successfully conducted a series of four flight test events exercising the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) element of the nation's Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). The flight test, designated…
08/07/2015: When former Chief of Staff of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) launched Plan Jericho, he underscored that the core opportunity, which the F-35 provided for the RAAF and the Australian defense forces, is opening up an era of continuous transformation. In his presentation, February 23, 2015 to the…
2015-08-10 By Gary Schaub, Jr. Last September, Denmark reacted quickly and enthusiastically to the American call to join the anti-Daesh coalition, contributing a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft early on, 7 F-16s, and 120 soldiers to train Iraqi security forces. During the past 10 months, Danish F-16s have flown over 452…
2015-08-11 By Robbin Laird During my visit to PACFLEET at the end of July 2015, I had a chance to discuss the perspective of Colonel Jeffrey “Face” Hagan who is on the staff of Admiral Swift, the PACFLEET Commander. His role is to operate as link between PACFLEET and the…
2015-08-11 When visiting the Royal Australian Air Force Base at Richmond earlier this week, there was an opportunity to talk with the C-130 squadron, including the training team, about the RAAF reworking the role of the C-130 with the operations of the C-17 and the KC-30A largely in place. The focus is…
2015-08-06 By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake When Secretary Gates decided to put the F-35B on probation and Senator McCain became his powerful echo chamber we responded at the time on the pages of Breaking Defense that these actions were misguided. We have spent many hours with the pilots, maintainers,…
08/04/2015: During a visit to Australia in August 2015, Second Line of Defense had a chance to talk with senior RAFF personnel about the operations in Iraq and Syria. There will be more to come as these interviews are completed, but a key point was that two new combat systems were…
2015-08-08 Recently an Italian 767 Tanker refueled an F-35 in the United States. This was the first time a foreign tanker has refueled an F-35. The Italian tanker also operates as part of the European Air Transport Command and can look forward to tanking not only Italian and US F-35s…
