2015-06-12 By Robbin Laird and Murielle Delaporte Marine Air Group 31 is located at MCAS Beaufort, South Carolina. It is the home of six F-18 squadrons and one F-35 squadron. The F-35 Squadron – VMFAT-501 – is training coalition and USMC F-35B pilots to operate the F-35B. When Second Line…
06/15/2015: F-35's from the 56th Fighter Wing took flight with two KC-135's for an aerial refueling mission over Arizona. Credit:56th Fighter Wing Public Affairs:6/5/15 And the perspective from MCAS Beaufort: Fueling a fighter jet mid-mission isn’t as easy as exiting a highway to top off your tank. It’s really…
06/15/2015: by Sgt. Tatum Vayavananda BALTIC SEA – Marines from four NATO nations come together during BALTOPS from June 7-17. U.K. Royal Marine Commandos, Finnish Coastal Jaegers, Swedish and U.S. Marines integrate to practice expeditionary, ship-to-shore assaults to enhance their capability to work together as a combined amphibious force. “The U.K. [Commandos]…
06/15/2015:Australia now has the most advanced air battle space management capability in the world, with the Royal Australian Air Force’s E-7A Wedgetail aircraft achieving Final Operational Capability. The fleet of six Wedgetail aircraft reached the milestone this month with the entire capability, from physical aircraft to logistics, management, sustainment, facilities…
2015-06-14 By Robbin Laird When visiting the USS Wasp and both seeing part of the operational tests as well as discussing those tests with the US and British personnel involved in the testing, one of the highlights was the demonstration of being able to fly the largest module of the…
2015-06-14 By Robbin Laird In September 2007, the Osprey was deployed for the first time to Iraq. USMC Commandant Conway and Deputy Commandant of Aviation Castellaw announced and made the decision to deploy the Osprey into combat although virtually all public commentators thought this was too early for an “untested”…
2015-06-13 RVNspotting has an interesting video showing some NATO jets taking off from EFRO. Rovaniemi Airport (Finnish: Rovaniemen lentoasema) (IATA: RVN, ICAO: EFRO) is the fifth biggest airport in Finland by annual number of passengers (in 2012), located in Rovaniemi, Finland, about 10 kilometres (6 mi) north of Rovaniemi city centre. The…
2015-06-04 By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake In a meeting last year in the United Kingdom with one of the RAF officers responsible for the introduction of the F-35 into the UK forces, Group Captain Paul Godfrey highlighted the behind the scenes work to roll out an F-35 fleet, an…
