All articles by James Drew – Page 14
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NewsSecond Bell 525 joins test campaign with three following in 2016
Bell Helicopter’s initial 525 Relentless flying prototype now has a companion on its test and certification campaign with Flight Test Vehicle-2 (FTV-2) joining the programme last week, the airframer confirms.
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NewsNew US army chief embraces predecessor’s aviation upgrade plan
The US Army’s new top general isn’t planning any major shakeup of the ground force’s aviation modernisation plan, but there may be opportunities to move faster on Future Vertical Lift.
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Quarrel over next-gen nuclear cruise missile heats up
As the voices opposing America’s new nuclear-tipped cruise missile grow louder, recently-retired air force general Larry Spencer has rejected suggestions that cancelling the programme will inspire other nations to follow suit.
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NewsCongress offers Christmas cheer to F-35 and F/A-18 programmes
The Lockheed Martin F-35 and Boeing F/A-18 are major winners in an omnibus spending bill announced by US lawmakers Wednesday, with funding granted for 11 more Lightning IIs than requested by President Obama in February.
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NewsWelsh: Modernise USAF or risk more lives in future conflict
The military head of the US Air Force has warned that the cost of not modernising front-line combat aviation forces “will be measured in terms of lives lost of friendly forces”.
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NewsF-22, Typhoon and Rafale tested in new joint combat exercise
The increasingly cluttered warzone in Syria and the recent shoot down of a Russian Su-24 bomber by Turkey underscore the need for deeper interoperability, deconfliction and coordination between coalition fighters, according to US Air Force’s top general.
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NewsUSN begins F/A-18 flight certification of new anti-ship missile
The US Navy’s newest and most sophisticated anti-ship cruise missile is a step closer to being carried as standard on the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet after the first “captive-carry” flight with a weight and form-representative payload over Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland.
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NewsBoeing still backing stalled CHAMP and UAV projects
Despite all the hype surrounding the high-power microwave energy weapon known as CHAMP, interest in the computer-frying device assembled and tested by Boeing Phantom Works and the US Air Force Research Laboratory appears stalled.
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NewsBoeing Phantom Works keeping T-X and F-X plans under wraps
Boeing Phantom Works president Darryl Davis is refusing to take Northrop’s bait by disclosing new information about the advanced research and design unit’s secretive “T-X” and future fighter projects.
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NewsJSTARS programme forges ahead with Pentagon tick
An air force programme to recapitalise the timeworn Northrop Grumman E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or JSTARS, is moving forward with the Pentagon’s blessing after receiving “Milestone A” approval from the US military’s top weapons buyer last week.
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AnalysisANALYSIS: Bell Helicopter pushing V-22 for USAF search-and-rescue
In March 2011, during Operation "Odyssey Dawn", two US Marine Corps Bell Boeing MV-22s were instrumental in the rescue of a Boeing F-15E pilot who had ejected from his aircraft deep within hostile territory in Libya after the Strike Eagle succumbed to mechanical failure.
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NewsFatal MV-22 crash in Hawaii linked to excessive debris ingestion
The fatal Bell-Boeing MV-22 crash in Hawaii on May 17 could prompt the US Marine Corps to adopt an improved engine filtration system being developed for the CV-22 operated by the air force.
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NewsUSAF ‘all-in’ on JSTARS Recap despite opposition
The US Air Force’s proposed acquisition of a next-generation JSTARS battlefield management platform faces an uphill struggle to secure the required funding, and would be cancelled altogether if some within the Pentagon had their way.
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NewsUSAF denies seeking more F-16 or F-15 combat jets
The US Air Force has denied any plans to purchase another tranche of Lockheed Martin F-16 or Boeing F-15 combat jets following reports it could seek bids for up to 72 new aircraft.
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NewsNorthrop, Raytheon ready for USAF's JSTARs radar competition
Raytheon and Northrop Grumman have raised their hands to participate in a radar engineering project tied to the US air force’s approximately $9 billion acquisition of “JSTARS” business jets for wide-area airborne surveillance and battle management.
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Historic touchdown for Blue Origin’s New Shepard space vehicle
Commercial spaceflight start-up Blue Origin has achieved a historic first by vertically landing and recovering the launcher stage of the New Shepard suborbital system after delivering a payload to space.
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NewsVintage Boeing B-52 gets new long-range Lockheed cruise missile
The Boeing B-52H is the vintage bomber that just won’t quit, and now the Cold War-era “Stratofortress” is being outfitted with one of America’s newest and longest-range conventional cruise missile.
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NewsUS special forces seek tube-launched glide bombs
The US air force has expressed interest in rapidly acquiring lightweight glide bombs capable of striking fast-moving targets from the common launch tubes of special operations aircraft.
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NewsLockheed-built X-56A crashes at USAF test range
One of two Lockheed Martin X-56A unmanned testbed aircraft built to trial new flutter-suppression technology for high-aspect-ratio wings has crashed at the Rogers Dry Lakebed test range in California, the US air force has disclosed.
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NewsCalls for Pentagon to raise combat-coded bomber count to 160
Air power advocates in Washington have called for the Pentagon to consider building to a force of 150 to 160 mission-ready heavy bombers before the Boeing B-1 and B-52 retire in 2045.