MQ-9B: Taking on the world’s toughest RPA missions, from reconnaissance to rescue
Changing the world for good with the advancements of unmanned aircraft.
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Air Force, Navy ground V-22 Osprey fleet days after fatal crash off Japan
Air Force Special Operations Command said that "preliminary investigation information" into a Nov. 29 crash that killed eight "indicates a potential materiel failure caused the mishap, but the underlying cause of the failure is unknown at this time."
Japan grounds its V-22 Ospreys, calls for US to ground theirs after fatal crash off Japanese island
A senior Defense Ministry official, Taro Yamato, said today that Japan plans to suspend flights of its 14 Ospreys temporarily. A planned training flight in southern Japan was canceled.
Slife, former Air Force special operations chief, tapped as service No. 2
Lt. Gen. Jim Slife will become the Air Force vice chief — if he can get past a confirmation blockade that has stalled out nominations in Congress.
AFSOC Expects C-130 Laser Tests Within Year
ORLANDO: More than a year since news broke that Air Force Special Operations Command planned to install and test lasers on its fabulously lethal AC-130 gunships, the plan now is to get its top unfunded requirement tested within a year. Lt. Gen. Brad Webb, head of AFSOC, told me that was now the plan. General Atomics and other […]
Presumptive Air Force Chief Appears To Shift On B-21 Cost Info
UPDATED: Adds Air Force Statement WASHINGTON: The administration’s nominee for Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. David Goldfein, came before the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning promising to improve Air Force relations with Congress. And Goldfein delivered, to the point of apparently agreeing with a pleased SASC chairman John McCain that the service should […]
‘Flying Coke Machine’ Would Replace A-10, If We Had $: Air Force Chief Welsh
WASHINGTON: The Air Force wants to replace the aging but beloved A-10 “Warthog” with a robotic “flying coke machine” that loiters over the battlefield, dispensing firepower at the touch of a button, the outgoing Chief of Staff said this morning. (More on that concept below). Gen. Mark Welsh also wants a “sixth-generation fighter” that can […]
Rites of Spring: Mating V-280 Wing And Fuselage
CORRECTED: 280 knots equals 322 mph, not 245. Spring has sprung and at the Bell Helicopter factory in Amarillo, Texas, it’s mating season, of a sort. If all goes well, by September of next year a bird of a different feather will take flight – the V-280 Valor, a medium-lift tiltrotor transport whose wing and […]
Breathless British Tabloid Report Leaves V-22 Insiders Cackling
A London Daily Mail report that the V-22 is “the SAS’s deadly new weapon in the war against Islamic State terrorists threatening to bring murder and bloodshed to the streets of Britain” has Pentagon and Osprey fleet insiders giggling and Bell-Boeing executives doing some wishful thinking. The Daily Mail told us that the SAS (Special Air Service) was […]