Free Republic

The Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) is giving the final touches to the preliminary design of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas Mk-II, scheduled to be completed by the end of March. An official confirmed to Express on Saturday that the detailed design phase of LCA Mk-2 would begin in the second quarter of 2014. A separate project team from ADA and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), dedicated to the upgraded version, is currently undertaking daily reviews to get the first cut of the design out by next month. The main scope of Tejas Mk-2 programme is to have the engine changed...

LAST year, during a naval exercise off California, a dummy missile fired at an American warship roared through the cruiser’s defences and slammed into its superstructure, starting a fire and injuring two sailors. The dummy missile, with no warhead fitted, punched a hole half a metre wide in the port side of the guided missile cruiser USS Chancellorville, which returned to port for repairs. When a similar American missile was fired at the Australian frigate HMAS Perth in an exercise off Hawaii, the Australian crew shot it down using technology developed in the suburbs of Canberra and Adelaide. The Australian...

The Navy is working to make the Tomahawk missile a better bunker buster and allow it to distinguish targets on the move better. U.S. Central Command recently sponsored development and testing of a new, more penetrating Tomahawk warhead called the Joint Multiple Effects Warhead System, or JMEWS, according to Capt. Joe Mauser, Tomahawk program manager. Testing analyzed the ability of the programmable warhead to integrate onto the most advanced Block IV Tomahawk missile, a weapon which can loiter over targets, send back single frame images and change course in flight via a GPS guidance system. The JMEWS would give the...

China plans to build four aircraft carriers in total to boost its naval power and exert its maritime claims, according to a Russian media report. Official reports in January said that the PLA plans to have at least two aircraft carriers by 2015 or 2016 and said the country's second aircraft carrier is indeed under construction as previous unofficial reports had claimed. The country plans to build four aircraft carriers in total, the state newswire Xinhua citing a Russian weekly newspaper as reporting. China commissioned the Liaoning, a refitted Soviet-era carrier purchased from Ukraine, in 2012. Future carriers are expected...

Major figures within the People's Liberation Army Air Force have differing opinions about whether purchasing Su-35s from Russia really serves the interests of the Chinese military aviation industry, according to the Taipei-based Central News Agency (CNA) in an interview with Andrei Chang, a Canadian military analyst. During a press conference held at the Singapore Air Show of 2014, Mikhail Pogosyan, the general director of United Aircraft Corporation, said that Russia is unlikely to support China copying its advanced fighters again as it did in the 1990s. Copying other nation's fighter will not bring any major improvement to the Chinese aviation...

Faced with China’s increasingly assertive military posture, as well as a continuing ballistic missile threat from North Korea, Japan plans to spend more on defense, boosting its air and maritime forces. The plan commits to buying 28 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II combat aircraft, 17 Bell-Boeing MV-22 Osprey tiltrotors, and three Northrop Grumman Global Hawk UAVs over the next five years. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) will also upgrade existing fleets of F-2 and F-15 fighters. The National Security Strategy that was published last December adjusts the Japanese force structure to create an amphibious brigade–promoting the plan to buy...

Russia’s Irkut Corp. is well known in the Asia Pacific region because of the mighty vectored-thrust Sukhoi Su-30 series multirole fighters in service with Indian and Malaysian air forces, numbering about 200 aircraft. The maker also supplied Su-27UB operational trainers to China; and a number of Asian nations still operate swing-wing MiG-23U trainers and MiG-27 strike aircraft built at the corporation’s manufacturing site in Irkutsk city, western Siberia. The company has been fostering a very special relationship with India since the mid-1960s, when it supplied Antonov An-12 tactical transports. Today, about half of the Indian air force fighter squadrons are...

According to media reports, Egypt’s interim government, installed by the army in July 2013, is negotiating a $2 billion arms package with Russia. Some sources say the deal may have already been signed during the visit this week to Moscow by the head of the Egyptian army, Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. It is understood that the deal is being funded by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Cairo appears to have turned to Russia following the souring of relations with Washington after the ousting of President Mohammed Morsi last summer. In spite of the political background, an Egyptian...

During to the visit in the 21st Tactical Air Base in Swidwin, Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak announced that the aircraft Su 22 will remain in the service. Earlier there were plans to withdrawn these machines. In Swidwin there are two tactical aviation squadrons equipped with a total of 32 Su-22M4K attack aircrafts and Su-22UM3K two-seat operational conversion trainers. All delivered even in the eighties of the last century, have never been upgraded, despite such plans in the 90's. For several years the Polish factory supporting the service of Su-22 (called Military Aviation Plant No. 2 in Bydgoszcz) also ceased to...

FRENCH taxpayers have subsidised the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers, it was claimed today. It is estimated the French have paid out between €100m (£82m) to more than €200m as a subsidy for HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, The I reports. The newspaper says it comes after former prime minister Tony Blair and then-President Jacques Chirac signed a defence co-operation agreement in 2006. The French public spending watchdog spotted the loss in the details of the 2013 French defence estimates. Cour des Comptes says the deal led to ‘a French contribution pure and simple to the financing...

Fighter-Jet Maker's Net Fell on Weaker Sales and Margins STOCKHOLM—Swedish defense group Saab SAAB-B.SK -1.02% AB hopes that a recent Brazilian order for its Gripen fighter-jet will help it win more deals from other countries, even as the company's fourth-quarter earnings fell amid tough market conditions, its chief executive said on Thursday. "Brazil's choice of Gripen has received attention across the globe," Hakan Buskhe said in an interview. "This gives an extra boost to a number of other discussions that we are involved in." Brazil in December placed an order worth an estimated $4.5 billion for 36 Gripen jets to...

February 08, 2014: Delayed by over four years, but this one is truly better late than never. In what will be a significant boost to the Indian Navy’s quest for a credible air defence system deployable on its frontline vessels and aircraft carriers, the Indo-Israeli long-range surface-to-air missile (LR-SAM) system will be tested in a naval configuration towards the end of this year, reveals the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Chief Dr Avinash Chander. The missile underwent a first test from a land launcher in 2010, and has since been tested an unspecified number of times. The collaborative programme,...

Based in the Golan Heights, the 7th Armored Brigade has relied on Merkava Mark II tanks for more than 20 years. An Armored Corps brigade based in the North is set to do away with its aged tanks and begin receiving the IDF’s last word in tank warfare, the Merkava Mark IV, equipped with the Trophy antitank- missile shield. Based in the Golan Heights, the 7th Armored Brigade has relied on Merkava Mark II tanks for more than 20 years. Some of the older tanks were manufactured in the late 1970s, but have since undergone a series of technological upgrades....

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has chosen the Singapore Airshow to reveal its latest UAV. The new Super Heron HF is a major update of the Heron 1 that has become a popular choice for medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned missions. “The best just got better,” announced Joseph Weiss, IAI’s president and CEO, at yesterday’s ceremony to unveil the Super Heron HF in the show static display area, adjacent to IAI’s chalet (CD03). At first glance the most obvious new feature of the vehicle is its upturned wingtips, which have been adopted partly to offset the extra weight of other modifications. The most...

While much of the world’s media attention is focused on China’s indigenous fighter programs, such as the J-10, J-20 and J-21/31, Shenyang continues to develop the “Flanker” series that has been in PLAAF (People’s Liberation Army Air Force) service since 1992. The latest versions to go into production are the J-15 carrier-borne fighter, and the J-16 multirole attack aircraft. Fighter Flankers China began its association with the Sukhoi Flanker in 1992, when the country became the first outside the former Soviet states to acquire the heavy fighter. Three batches of Su-27SK single-seaters and Su-27UBK two-seaters were acquired directly from Russia,...

Sweden has a secret action plan to influence a referendum in Switzerland on the purchase of 22 new Jas Gripen fighter jets by the Swiss air force, according to Swedish media reports. Military officials, high ranking civil servants in the government, and seven ministers are aware of the plan, Sveriges Radio (SR) reported. Both Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Trade Minister Ewa Björling claim, however, that they are unaware of any such plan. Citing classified documents, the broadcaster claims that both Bildt and Björling, as well as Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, received a letter from the Swedish ambassador in Switzerland,...

Rafael is proceeding with the adaptation of the Spice 1000 Electro-Optically, Stand-Off guided weapon as part of its roadmap to carry this family of weapons into the future. “The Israel Air Force will be able to operate the F-35s with Spice 1000 soon after these fighter jets arrive in Israel later in the decade” a source in RAFAEL told Defense-Update. The aircraft will be able to carry the weapon in either internal or external configuration. RAFAEL is expanding the SPICE family that began with the combat-proven SPICE 2000, with the introduction of SPICE 1000 and expansion of the platform it...

India’s own fighter, the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), is playing a growing role in protecting Indian airspace. On December 20, when the Tejas was cleared for operational service in the Indian Air Force (IAF), Defence Minister A K Antony declared 200 Tejas fighters would eventually enter combat service. Today, that figure quietly swelled to well above 300, with the government indicating the IAF would have at least 14 Tejas squadrons. Each IAF combat squadron has 21 fighter aircraft; 14 squadrons add to 294 Tejas fighters. The 21 comprise 16 frontline, single-seat fighters, two twin-seat trainers and three reserve aircraft...

In January 2014 a United States Marine Corps (USMC) V22 Osprey landed for the first time onboard the Dixmude, a French Navy Mistral class LHD. The success of this experiment confirmed the full interoperability of Mistral class amphibious vessels with the means implemented by American Expeditionary Strike Groups. The French LHD are indeed fully interoperable with LCAC landing crafts, with heavy helicopters (Sikorsky CH53 Sea Stallion) and now with the Bell-Boeing V22 Opsrey tilt rotor aircraft. A USMC V22 Osprey onboard the French Navy Dixmude LHD Picture: French Navy For about two hours several deck landings were conducted in order...

Russia’s Kolomna Machine-Building Design Bureau is ready to export Iskander tactical systems, its Director-General and chief designer Valery Kashin told ITAR-TASS. The bureau conducted intensive marketing research in the previous years and even prepared a contract with a foreign customer, but it was never signed for political reasons, he said. “Then we stopped advancing the Iskander to foreign markets after we had been awarded a long-term contract from the Defence Ministry to supply the system to the Russian army, and we had to increase our output four to five times to fulfill the obligations,” Kashin said. Foreign customers were advised...