Free Republic

The US Is Moving Two B-2 Stealth Bombers Closer To China David Cenciotti, The AviationistJanuary 23, 2013, 2:22 PM In November 2012, the U.S. Air Forced announced a series of worldwide training deployments for its stealthy B-2 Spirit bombers. The “World Spirit Tour”, as the deployment was dubbed by Air Force Magazine, will bring the first two radar evading planes from the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, to the Pacific theater. Destination: Andersen Air Force Base. Strategically located 1,800 miles (about 2,900 km) to the east of China, Andersen has hosted a deployed strategic bomber force...

Britain's New Stealth Bomber Is Unmanned And Fully Autonomous Robert JohnsonJan. 13, 2013, 4:38 AMBritain's New Stealth Bomber Is Unmanned And Fully AutonomousBAE Taranis Britain's Air Force has been using Tornado jets as bombers for decades and is already building a fleet of new Typhoons, but BAE hopes to supplement those forces with a powerful new drone. The Taranis, named for the Celtic god of thunder will fly faster than the speed of sound and beyond the eye of enemy radar with its single-wing stealth design, and UK officials hope to see it replace piloted planes and current unmanned drones...

To kick this week off we thought we'd bring you these pictures showing that France has become the second nation in the world to (publicly) fly a stealth UAV. These images show Dassault's nEUROn (yes, it's really written that way) making its maiden flight in Istres on Dec. 1. nEUROn is a technology demonstrator; basically it's a plane used to prove that all the tech Dassault has designed for a stealth, unmanned strike jet will actually work. Here are some stats about nEUROn from Dassault: "With a length of 10 meters, a wingspan of 12.5 meters and an empty weight...

More than 4 million people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 did not vote this year. But by applying new voter science, Obama nudged enough replacements in key states — many who were rare or first-time voters — to give him his margin of victory (leveraged even larger by the Electoral College). Years of stealthy multimillion-dollar efforts paid off forAmerica’s left in the 2008 and 2012 victories by President Barack Obama. Using new voter science to get rare and first-time voters to go to the polls, the races have changedAmerica’s electorate — those who make the country’s decisions by...

Chinese J-31 stealth fighter for global market While the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex and the Chengdu Aircraft Industries Corporation (CAC) have ostensibly developed the JF-17 jointly, analysts say most of the development was done by CAC Two weeks after China’s new J-31 stealth fighter made its debut flight on October 31, it will be officially acknowledged with a mock-up of the aircraft in Airshow China, the Beijing-endorsed air show that opens in Zhuhai, China, on Tuesday. With China’s official media reporting the J-31 will be sold to abroad customers, Indian analysts say the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) might be one of...

India to Cut Stealth Fighter Order by Third India is cutting its order for a fifth-generation stealth fighter being developed jointly with Russia by a third, India's Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne told India Strategic. India's Hindustan Aeronatics Limited (HAL) is to build the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA), a derivative of the Sukhoi T-50, in India. The two nations signed a 50/50 joint venture to build the aircraft in December 2011. Russia is currently testing a handful of prototypes of the T-50 aircraft, which is due to enter service with the Russian Air Force after 2017. India...

New Chinese Stealth Fighter Photos Emerge By Bethany Whitfield / Published: Sep 20, 2012 The new Chinese stealth fighter, believed to be the J-21. Photos of what appears to be a new Chinese stealth fighter recently surfaced on the Internet, triggering a flood of speculation regarding the jet’s potential capabilities and what implications it holds for the evolution of Chinese military air power. The single-seat, twin-engine fighter has been designated as the J-21 or the J-31, and is the product of Shenyang Aircraft Corp.

Swede Launches Advanced Stealth Warship in Indonesia Following up on the report by ScandAsia in 2010 about the secretive project of Swedish PT. Lundin Industry Invest (North Sea Boats Ltd.), for the Indonesian Navy (TNI-AL), the company has launched the 63m Stealth Fast Missile Patrol Vessel which is claimed to be the most advanced stealth warship ever built in Southeast Asia. The formal launching ceremony took place on 31 August 2012 at PT Lundin’s shipyard facility in Banyuwangi, East Java, Indonesia. Among those attending were the Chief of the Indonesian Navy, high ranked navy officers, the Regent of Banyuwangi, local...

Flying over the skies of Chengdu in southwest China, the Chinese's latest stealth plane - the J-20 Might Dragon - is a testament to China's growing prowess in military technology. The debut flight of the plane may serve as a warning to the U.S. air force, which has been plagued by a list of problems in their jets - including the revelation that some of their jets have a faulty oxygen system which have slowly been poisoning their pilots. Sightings of the black plane taking off have again led to claims that the plane was developed off the back of...

Taiwan’s Navy Gets Stealthy News that Taiwan is set to get some stealthy fast patrol boats is welcome. But without some daring personnel, it might come to nothing. Huzzah! The Taipei Times’ J. Michael Cole broke the story this weekend that Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan has levied funds to field a squadron of between seven and eleven stealthy Hsun Hai (Swift Sea) fast patrol boats by 2014. Computer generated images depict a sleek catamaran that resembles a smaller sibling of USS Independence, a variant of the U.S. Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship. Each new craft will reportedly displace around 500 tons...

A secret chapter in American naval research could soon reach an ignoble close when a rusty barge and its once-classified contents leave Suisun Bay for the scrap heap. Slipping through the sea like a black mirage on catamaran legs, the 164-foot Sea Shadow looks like something Darth Vader might fly. It is the world's only ship built to be invisible, assembled secretly in Redwood City in 1985 by the U.S. Navy and contractor Lockheed Martin at an estimated cost of $50 million. Sea Shadow's purpose was to test radar-cloaking technology and other naval engineering innovations. Many of its breakthroughs can...

How Lockheed’s Skunk Works Got into the Stealth Fighter Business How Lockheed’s Skunk Works Got into the Stealth Fighter Business How do you hide an airplane behind a bird? Very skillfully. Lt. Col. William B. O'Connor (ret.) flew the F-117 Nighthawk during the Bosnia Conflict, and in Stealth Fighter, he explains the history, operation, and soul America's most advanced stealth jet. While the United States had never embraced a defensive mindset and had only fielded one strategic SAM system to that point, the Nike-Hercules dating from the 1950s, and one real medium-range tactical system, the HAWK (homing all the way...

The $7 billion dollar warship being built to maintain American naval supremacy over China in the 21st Century One of the largest, most expensive and advanced warships ever commissioned for the U.S Navy is taking shape at Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine. Named the U.S.S Zumwalt, the $7 billion guided-missile destroyer is at the cutting edge of technology and now deemed vital for defence following President Obama's Asia-Pacific pivot. Featuring a radical wave-piercing hull known as a 'tumblehome', the odd looking ship incorporates stealth technology that makes the 600-foot, 14,500 ton warship seem like a fishing vessel to enemy...

IN FOCUS: End of F-22 production closes chapter in eventful history On 14 March, a lone Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor took to the skies over Georgia on a test flight. It was the last of 187 aircraft ordered by the US Air Force. The USAF had originally wanted 750 of the stealthy fifth-generation fighters, but a political debate over the very nature of aerial warfare in the 21st century ultimately sealed its fate. The debate started in the halls of the Pentagon in the wake of the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan around 2004 and came to a head...

Say you own a 20-year-old car and intend to drive it beyond the year 2050. It will need some fixing. A challenge similar to that continually faces Whiteman Air Force Base, home to the B-2 stealth bomber. Many aircraft parts made in the 1980s, when the first of 21 B-2s rolled out of a Northrop Grumman Corp. hangar, are as obsolete today as the floppy disk. Yet the plan is to keep those bat-winged bombers flying, and eluding the latest in radar technology, until 2058. The Pentagon is moving forward with a $2 billion, 10-year effort to modernize the fleet’s...

New pictures of the China's J-20 Mighty Dragon stealth fighter have surfaced and are making their way across military blogs. This newest round of photos show the J-20 in the skies somewhere over mainland China. The prototype is said to be using the Saturn AL-31 turbofan engine developed by the Russian's for their Su-27 air superiority fighter. Reuben Johnson at The Washington Times reports the Chinese may be as much as 10 years away from producing an original stealth engine to slip into the J-20. In the meantime, they'll have to take comfort in the fact that while the F-22...

The program executive officer for the problem-plagued F-35 said Thursday he has "great confidence" the multi-service fighter can deliver the oft-promised stealth and the sophisticated package of sensors. Vice Adm. David Venlet said he has "measured data" to show that. In a late afternoon address to an audience of defense and financial industry representatives, Venlet said all the current problems with the Lockheed Martin-built aircraft that have been highlighted in the media and congressional hearings "are in the normal range of fighter aircraft development." The problems Venlet cited included the sophisticated helmet that should allow the pilot to see on...

Norway's defence secretary Roger Ingebrigtsen and an entourage of military officials visited the F-35 test force at Edwards AFB, California, during the last week of February. The visit to the desert base comes at a time when Norway is trying to finalise how many aircraft it will ultimately buy. "Right now we're in the process where the Norwegian government is about to make a recommendation to their parliament as far as how many F-35s we want to buy and where we should base these aircraft," says Major Eystein Kvarving, a spokesman for the Norwegian Defence Ministry on 29 February in...

The Air Force is the world's most advanced air and space force and, with the integration of fifth generation aircraft, is gaining new tactical advantages that transcend beyond just stealth into areas such as enhanced maneuverability, multi-role capabilities and fused sensor and avionics systems that can communicate with other weapons systems. That's why it is imperative that U.S. forces continue to develop and begin to use fifth-generation fighters as they transition to the new Pacific-based strategy, according to Lt. Gen. Herbert J. "Hawk" Carlisle, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans and Requirements, Headquarters U.S. Air Force. During the Air...

With a recent contract award from Northrop Grumman to provide electronic support measures (ESM) on the B-2 Spirit bomber, BAE Systems will be providing electronic warfare on all three U.S. Air Force low-observable platforms, including the F-22 and F-35 fighters, according to the company. The new ESM system will replace the original Lockheed Martin AN/APR-50 defensive management system on the 20 B-2s. The ESM system works in conjunction with the radar warning receiver to detect and alert aircrew to electronic threats. Although it says it was selected “in a competitive bid process over the incumbent and industry’s top electronic warfare...