2017-11-15 By Robbin Laird I have dealt with the F-22 for many years and first visited the First Fighter Wing in 2007 as the plane was being stood up and introduced to the force. What was anticipated and hoped for with the introduction of the first fifth generation aircraft is…
11/21/17: U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II aircraft with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 121 lands at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Iwakuni, Japan, Nov. 15, 2017. The remaining aircraft represent the last installment of F-35B Lightning IIs assigned to VMFA-121. The F-35B Lightning II is a fifth-generation fighter, which…
2017-11-14 UK Minister for Defence Procurement, Harriett Baldwin is visiting her counterparts in Australia. According to a UK Ministry of Defence story published on November 13, 2017, the UK and Australia are stepping up their defense relationship. Amongst the discussions was a meeting with her Australian counterpart, Minister Christopher Pyne,…
11/21/17: A U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II soars over Okinawa, Japan, Nov. 2, 2017, on approach to Kadena Air Base, Japan. [maxgallery id="102799"] This marks U.S. Pacific Command’s first operational tasking for the F-35As and the first time a U.S. Air Force F-35A unit has deployed as a regularly…
2017-11-13 By Todd Miller It’s early and the darkness feels more like night than day. Flight crew gathers at the 305th Air Mobility Wings (AMW) base operations, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JBMDL), NJ. Paperwork in order and mission plan briefed, we leave base ops for the aircraft. The sun cracks the…
2017-11-13 By Richard Weitz The joint presidential statement of November 11 on Syria was clearly the most important product of the intense Russian-US diplomatic dialogue that proceeded the Trump-Putin meetings in Vietnam. According to the State Department, “this statement really builds on months of fairly intense discussions with the Russians…
2017-11-16 By Todd Miller Regardless the virtues of the platform, Textron Defense Aviation LLC’s approach to build an aircraft tailored to military operations where no stated requirement exists is rare and risky. However, it is not risk taken in a vacuum, but rather an example of entrepreneurship that was inspired…
2017-11-16 The liberal democracies have much work to do to rebuild the forces and the shape an effective approach to crisis management in the Nordic and North Atlantic defense region. There are new capabilities coming to the region, notably the P-8s/and Tritons in crafting a maritime domain awareness capability and an…
