The US Air Force has declared its 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin AFB is now ‘ready for training’ on the F-35A Lightning II, following the successful completion of a 65 day operational utility evaluation (OUE) in November. Air Education and Training Command (AETC) commander, Gen Edward Rice Jr said: “The preliminary results provided by the
The RAAF’s first C-27J Spartan tactical transport has entered final assembly at Alenia Aermacchi’s Turin plant. The fuselage for the future A34-001 was manufactured at Alenia Aermacchi’s Capodichino, Naples site before being transported to Turin via road and sea freight for final assembly. Australia has ordered 10 Spartans to replace the Caribou retired three years
by Kristian Hollins In the haze of further indecision by government yesterday, a few key points were lost in the ether which might give an indication of the way government is progressively thinking. When Australia made the decision to buy-in to the ambitious Joint Strike Fighter program, it was with a view to resolving two fleets–one
Defence Minister Stephen Smith and Defence Materiel Minister Jason Clare have announced that the Project AIR 5077 Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) Wedgetail has been removed from the government’s Projects of Concern list. The project was first approved in 2000 with a budget of $3.8 billion (in today’s dollars) to procure six 737-700BBJ aircraft
Minister for Defence Stephen Smith and Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare have announced the achievement of Final Operating Capability by the RAAF’s fleet of 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets. The major milestone is achieved when the entire capability can be deployed on Defence operations. According to Defence, FOC takes into account not only the aircraft
By Kristian Hollins The Minister for Defence — in some circles now known as the Minister for Disarmament — today announced…nothing. Worse, the government announced a potentially very expensive way of doing nothing. In an overly-wordy statement, the four paragraphs of substance said Defence will now submit a “Letter of Request (LOR) to the United
