Italy’s Reaper drones to be “weaponized” May 29, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in Military Aviation.Tags: Afghanistan, General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, Italian Air Force, Italy, NATO, Operation Unified Protector, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
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Although it could take a year or more to complete the process, Italy’s Reaper drones could soon be given the official go ahead to procure the Hellfire missiles and laser guided bombs that Rome has requested since the first MQ-9 drone was delivered to the Italian Air Force last year.
According to a WSJ article, the Obama administration has already given Congress a notification of a proposed sale of six kits needed to arm Italy’s fleet of Predator B (MQ-9 Reaper) drones and a formal notification should follow as soon as this week.
Even if the sale could still be blocked (as it could open the door for similar sales to other allies, making foreign sales of drone technologies, more difficult to control), a stop is unlikely, according to lawmakers and others familiar with the matter that talked to the WSJ, meaning that Italy will be, besides UK, the only other U.S. ally to fly armed drones in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The Italian Air Force has ordered six Reapers to be used in surveillance tasks in both Homeland Security and Expeditionary scenarios. The first two Reaper UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System) took part in Operation Unified Protector in Libya while the remaining four will be delivered by the end of 2012.
The Reaper is more capable than its predecessor Predator A (four of those are currently flying in support of ISAF in Afghanistan, after serving in Iraq): it carries a Multi-spectral Targeting System (MTS-B), that is a suite of sensors integrating an infrared sensor, a color/monochrome daylight TV camera, and laser designator and illuminator. It is also equipped with the Lynx IIE Synthetic Aperture Radar although the system will be implemented with the impending required software upgrade.
The U.S. Reapers can be armed with both AGM-114 Hellfire anti-armour missiles and GBU-12/38/49 laser-guided and GPS-guided PGMs (Precision Guided Munitions) that could be important to protect Italian and NATO troops operating on the ground.
“On several occasions, if we had armed drones we would have saved human lives” said an Italian drone pilot during a media briefing in June 2011.
Italy has about 4,200 military in Afghanistan, most of which in the western part of the country.
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Odyssey of an A-4 Skyhawk Pilot during the Falklands War: Captain Alberto Jorge Philippi’s story May 29, 2012
Posted by Richard Clements in Military Aviation, Military History.Tags: Argentinean pilots, British Aerospace Sea Harrier, Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, Falkland Islands, HMS Ardent, Malvinas
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Whilst much has been written about the British involvement in the Falklands/Malvinas conflict a short story was written by an Argentinean pilot who was involved in the attack on the beach head at San Carlos.
The article written a year after the conflict finished describes how Captain Alberto Jorge Philippi took off from the Rio Grande naval base as a three ship A-4 Skyhawk formation and headed towards the Malvinas at 27,000 feet.
Once Philippi and his colleagues were 100 miles from the islands they dropped to an altitude of 100 feet. Philippi describes how the weather was poor with low clouds and rain as they followed the coast to the southern entrance to the San Carlos sound where they dropped to an altitude of 50 feet.
[Read also: This impressive image was taken 30 years ago today: Argentine A-4B Skyhawks low level attack on HMS Broadsword]
Even though the radar altimeter was set to sound at 30 feet, Philippi mentions how it went off numerous occasions as they sped up the sound towards the British fleet which was in the process of landing thousands of troops from amphibious landing craft.
Philippi then spotted the masts of a ship amongst the rocks at his 11 O’clock and signalled to his colleagues this was to be their target. After closing to the rocks to hide his aircraft and confuse the frigates fire control radar, Philippi turned hard wing tip skimming the wave tops to bring the target onto his nose.
Once Philippi was 1,000 – 1,500 meters from the Frigate (HMS Ardent) he performed a pop-up delivery from around 300 feet, waited for the cross hairs to meet over the bow of the ship and released his weapons.
Once the bombs were away, Philippi turned hard to the right whilst loosing the altitude he had gained to deliver his weapons back down to the 50 feet he was at prior to release.
Seconds later, Philippi’s colleague Jose Cesar Arca’s voice came over the radio and said “Very Good Sir” as the bombs impacted the back of the ship. Arca’s bombs also found their target even though Arca had flown through the debris and smoke kicked up by Philippi.
The pilots had decided to escape using the route they had used to get to the target area but, within minutes, Marcelo Gustavo Marquez, the third pilot of the same formation, shouted “Harrier! Harrier!” down his radio.
The A-4 pilots immediately jettisoned their external stores to escape and seek safety in the clouds. Whilst in the process of ejecting the external stores, Philippi felt an explosion at the back of his jet and immediately felt the nose of the jet rise uncontrollably. As he wrestled with the increasingly unresponsive stick he took a look over his right shoulder to see the Sea Harrier at some 150 metres away.
Image credit: Imperial War Museum
“I am going to eject, I am well” Phillipi said over his radio and with that he opened the speed brakes to reduce speed, placed his hand on the ejection handle and pulled. The force of the ejection knocked Philippi out and he came to hanging from his parachute within cloud: he had lost his helmet and mask during the ejection, but thanked God he was still alive.
Whilst still hanging from the chute Philippi removed his boots, inflated his life jacket and loosened his harness before making a slash into the sea some 100 metres from shore.
After a rather hard swim to shore the Skyhawk pilot did what any downed pilot does and activated his distress signal and waited to be picked up. He then witnessed one of the British ships bombard a grounded Argentine ship thinking it was still a threat.
Phillipi headed south and was alone for three days before coming across a sheep farm where the farmer fed him, gave him some clothes before he was picked up by helicopter and flown to Darwin, where Philippi’s problems didn’t end. There he witnessed the attacks by the Harriers and British Army and eventually flew out on the last helicopter to Puerto Argentino (Port Stanley).
A couple of days later Philippi was flown back to the mainland on a C-130, which did the whole trip at 50 feet.
Richard Clements for TheAviationist.com
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If you suffer motion sickness this video is not for you: low level flying with a Super Hornet May 28, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in Military Aviation.Tags: Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Motion sickness, NAS Lemoore, U.S. Navy
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Someone might find it a bit boring whereas others will suffer motion sickness symptoms.
Anyway, I think this video gives a clear idea what flying a U.S. Navy’s VFA-137 F/A-18E Super Hornet during a low level sortie through the Sierra Nevada in East California out of Naval Air Station Lemoore, Ca., looks like.
Since it does not feature any soundtrack, the footage let’s you literally hear the typical cockpit sounds as the pilot, wearing a JHMCS helmet, pulls some Gs on aggressive low level turns needed to avoid obstacles and take advantage of terrain masking (to prevent detection by enemy radar systems).
As already explained, in the age of stealth bombers, standoff weapons, drones, cyberwar, electronic warfare, etc. low-level high-speed flying is still one of the most important parts of both planes and helicopters combat pilot training.
H/T to @AeroSamm for the heads-up
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Report unveils the presence of more than a million counterfeit electronic parts in U.S. combat planes May 28, 2012
Posted by Richard Clements in China, Military Aviation.Tags: C-130J, C-27, China, Department of Defense, P-8A Poseidon, SH-60B, United States Armed Forces, United States Senate Committee on Armed Services
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The Senate Armed Services Committee has just released a year long report in the use of counterfeit parts in military equipment whose findings are simply shocking.
The report unveils the presence of some 1,800 cases of fake parts (worth more than a million components) than a in SH-60B helicopters and in C-130J and C-27J cargo planes as well as the US Navy’s P-8 Poseidon.
The report highlighted that more than 70 percent of the counterfeit parts were traced back to China, but it blamed weaknesses in the U.S. supply chain, and China’s failure to curb the counterfeit parts manufacturers.
U.S. servicemen rely on a multitude of sophisticated electronic parts found in all sorts of systems, from GPS to Night Vision equipment and these counterfeit parts have not passed through the rigorous testing that the real parts have.
Indeed, whilst the report laid the blame squarely at the feet of the Chinese it said: “U.S authorities and contract companies contributed to the vulnerabilities of the defense supply chain by not detecting the fake parts or routinely failing to report suspected counterfeiting to the military.”
The report did however praise the National Defence Authorization Act, signed into law on Dec 31, 2011, by President Barack Obama, whose intention is to stop the flood of these counterfeit parts into the U.S. even by reducing sourcing from unknown supplier.
Just think to what would happen if China tried to intentionally flood the U.S. military with counterfeit parts: a failure could put the lives of U.S. service personnel in danger at the wrong moment both in combat and during normal training activities.
That’s why integrity of the supply chain must be considered a national security matter.
Image credit: U.S. Navy
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This impressive image was taken 30 years ago today: Argentine A-4B Skyhawks low level attack on HMS Broadsword May 25, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in Falklands War, Military Aviation, Military History.Tags: Argentine Air Force, Falkland Islands, Falklands War, HMS Broadsword, HMS Coventry, Sea Wolf
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May 25 is Argentina’s National Day.
On that day in 1982 the Fuerza Aérea Argentina (Argentine Air Force) carried out an attack with A-4B Skyhawks belonging to the Grupo 5 de Caza that had been given the task to target HMS Coventry and Broadsword, two British ships on duty to the northwest of the Falkland Islands (Malvinas).
The A-4 Skyhawks flew just a few feet above the water to avoid radar detection as the following historical photograph, depicting Captain Pablo Carballo (on the left plane) and Lieutenant Carlos Rinke (right, barely visible below the horizon) attacking HMS Broadsword, shows.
Image credit: MoD (RN)
Both Capt. Carballo and Lt. Rinke (flying as “Vulcano flight”) survived the attack (as well as the HMS Broadsword from where the picture was taken), reportedly because the Sea Wolf missile system was unable to choose between their A-4s when they became visible on radar after hiding behind West Falkland and Pebble Island to the South.
The two aircraft released one bomb each one of those missed the target whereas the other one managed to hit the Broadsword in spite of the intense anti-aircraft fire. But the Mk.17 failed to explode.
“Zeus flight”, two A-4s piloted by Lt. Mariano A. Velasco and Alférez Leonardo Barrionuevo, armed with three lighter bombs, soon followed on. Velasco fired his cannons and then released his three bombs that hit and heavily damaged HMS Coventry, that sunk within 20 minutes.
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The U.S. Marine Corps train for a war in the Pacific: F/A-18 Hornets make first ever “coral” arrestment on a tiny island of the Northern Mariana Islands. May 25, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in Military Aviation.Tags: Arresting gear, Marine Aircraft Group 12, Marine Wing Support Squadron 171, McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet, Tinian, United States Marine Corps
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Tinian, is one of the three principal islands of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, in the Pacific Ocean. It is located about 5 miles (8 km) to the southwest of its sister island, Saipan, and has a land area of 39 sq.mi. (101.01 km²).
On May, 23, four F/A-18D Hornets from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121, Marine Aircraft Group 12, landed on the island of Tinian’s West Field during Exercise Geiger Fury 2012: they were the first jets to have ever landed on the tiny island using an M-31 arresting gear set-up assembled for operations on coral terrain.
A kind of arrestment that was never done before but could be useful to turn an abandoned WWII airfield on an atoll into a full operationational forward operating base capable to launch jet sorties: disperse the Marines combat planes across the Pacific and make them available to perform close air support could be important in case of local war in the region.
Obviously, there will not be short take off and landing ops in the future, when the service will replace its Hornets with the STOVL F-35Bs.
Noteworthy Tinian island played a role during WWII: it was from the local North Field that B-29 Superfortress bombers from the 509th Composite Group carrying the atomic bombs Little Boy and Fat Man were launched against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The training activity gave the opportunity to establish the effectiveness of the coral set up of the arresting gear: the F-18s took three arrestments each on the improvised expeditionary airfield in less than one hour and 15 minutes.
The following interesting pictures, show the first “corral arrested landings” ever.
Image credit: Marine Corps Activity – Guam
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Possibly the best New York’s Fleet Week photo so far: the Blue Angels fly over the Parade of Ships. May 25, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in Military Aviation.Tags: Blue Angels, Fleet Week, New York City, Warship
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On May 23, the Parade of Ships marked the first day of the Fleet Week New York.
During the parade, 23 Tall Ships and Warships made their way from The Statue of Liberty, past the World Trade Center site to Manhattan’s West side.
The following image shows the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels demo team overflying the USS Donald Cook as it enters the New York Harbor during the Parade of Ships.
Image: U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Martin Egnash
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Russian Tu-214R intelligence gathering plane exposed! First photo of the new spyplane during test flight lands on the Web. May 24, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in Military Aviation.Tags: ELINT, Kazan Aircraft Production Association, Open Skies Treaty, Russia, SIGINT, Signals intelligence, Synthetic Aperture Radar, Tu-214R
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Evgeny Volkov is the name of the photographer who took the first picture of a flying Russian Tu-214R known to date.
The image Evgeny has uploaded to the Russianplanes.net portal, shows the Tu-214R carring registration number RA-64511, serial number 42305011, serial number 511, built by the Kazan Aircraft Production Association’s (KAPO) and flown at the company’s airfield.
Although some sources say that the plane will serve as an airborne command post, the two Tu-214R being built under contract with Russia’s Ministry of Defense, will be also ELINT (Electronic Intelligence)/ SIGINT (Signal Intelligence) platforms.
Indeed, the aircraft features the same types of external bulges of other very well known intelligence gathering planes, as the U.S. RC-135 or the Israeli B-707 with the Phalcon system.
The aircraft depicted in the image made its first flight in December 2009 and it is expected to complete the flight testing phase by 2013.
The second example, registered RA-64514, serial number 42305014, serial number 514, is currently in final assembly shop at KAPO and it is scheduled to enter service in 2014.
A special Tu-214 version, designated Tu-214ON, fitted with four photographic and three TV cameras, synthetic aperture radar and a linear-scanning infrared sensor, was developed to perform monitoring and observation flights under the Open Skies Treaty.
The Tu-214ON (registration RA-64519) attended MAKS 2011 airshow.
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First F-35A sporting 31st Test and Evaluation Squadron lettering and “OT” tail code, spotted at NAS Forth Worth JRB May 24, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in F-35.Tags: Edwards Air Force Base, Eglin Air Force Base, F-35, Lockheed Martin, Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth
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The following image, taken on May 17, shows the first flight of F-35A AF-17 at NAS Fort Worth JRB (Joint Reserve Base), with Lockheed Martin test pilot Bill Gigliotti at the controls.
The aircraft, scheduled to go to Eglin AFB, Florida, later in 2012, is the first to get the 31 TES lettering as well as the 53rd Wing’s “OT” tail code alongside the AF-18, that did not get the 31 TES lettering though.
Something new at least, in a world dominated by tedious overall gray planeswith low visibility markings.
Belonging to the Eglin’s 53 Wing, the 31st Test and Evaluation Squadron is located at Edwards AFB, California. According to the Air Force website:
“The squadron evaluates the operational effectiveness and suitability of advanced ACC weapon systems by providing operations, maintenance and engineering experts to work alongside AFMC and Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center personnel. The squadron also provides early war-fighter insight and influence during developmental testing. Weapon systems currently involved in operational test and evaluation include the F-35, B-1, B-2, B-52, RQ-4 Global Hawk, and MQ-9 Reaper. Squadron personnel integrate live test results with modeling and simulation data to predict combat capabilities under realistic scenarios thereby setting the stage for tactical development in the Combat Air Forces. Results and conclusions support DoD acquisition, deployment and employment decisions.”
Time to add a new type to the list.
Photo by Carl Richards / Code One
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U.S. Air Force Academy graduation ceremony. In two interesting pictures. May 24, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in Military Aviation.Tags: Barack Obama, Colorado Springs, Don't ask don't tell, United States Air Force Academy, US Air Force Academy
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On May 23, 2012, Falcon Stadium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, hosted the graduation ceremony of the U.S. Air Force Academy class of 2012.
The event had a certain media coverage because, 8 months since the repeal of the famous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the U.S. Air Force Academy graduated its first group of openly gay cadets.
The repeal of DADT only took effect last September, meaning that for the first time any class 2012 cadet could have come out while enrolled in the academy without fear of discharge.
Anyway, everything went smoothly and the following interesting images depict two different phases of the ceremony.
The first one depicts the class 2012 throwing their hats in the air at the end of the ceremony as the F-16s of the Thunderbirds U.S. Air Force aerial demonstration team fly overhead.
Image credit: Jewel Samad/AFP/GettyImages
U.S. President Barack Obama delivered the commencement address for this year’s graduation ceremony but, when I first saw the image below, I thought it was a fake.
However, it is genuine. It simply shows a seeminlgy proud and happy Barack Obama (hence his weird expression) as he receives a painting of Air Force One from the cadets of USAF class of 2012
Image credit: Jewel Samad/AFP/GettyImages
