The following pictures, courtesy of the Helmand Governor’s Media Center, show what looks like a small drone that was discovered along with poppy, small arms, ammunitions and other materials used to make improvised explosive devices (IED), by the Afghanistan’s National Department of Security in the Nar-e-Seraj district of Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 19.

Although the size is very small, the remotely controlled plane could be, if not the first, the most recent attempt by the Taliban to build and operate a minidrone for short range reconnaissance purposes (although, based on the images, it’s not clear where the camera is installed).

I haven’t found other images supposedly showing Taliban drones, but I can’t rule out the possibility that some other primitive robots have been either tested or operated by the insurgents in Afghanistan.

As Royal Aeronautical Society’s Tim Robinson suggests, rather than a new type it could be a recovered/modified/refitted/copied NATO one. In particular, the Lockheed Martin Desert Hawk is almost identical to the one confiscated on May 19. If it’s a NATO UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), whether the drone was airworthy and operative has still to be verified.

If you have more details about the drone showed in these pictures or previous types believed to be operated by the Taliban, please leave a comment or send me an email.

Courtesy image HGMC

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) says that the Eager Lion 2012 is “the largest annual exercise in the Central Command area of operations” whose is aim is “to strengthen military-to-military relationships of participating partner nations through a joint, whole-of-government, multinational approach, integrating all instruments of national power to meet current and future complex national security challenges.   The exercise scenarios are designed to portray realistic, modern-day security challenges.  The scenarios are designed years in advance to fulfill collaborative training goals.”

Although “annual”, this year’s Eager Lion seems to be a bit different from 2011 edition: what does not pass unnoticed is that the drills are no longer bilateral (U.S. – Jordan) but involve the military of 17 different countries.

Participating countries are Australia, Bahrain, Brunei, Egypt, France, Italy, Iraq, Jordan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Spain, Romania, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States.

Image credit: U.S. Army via CENTCOM

Even if officials strongly denied the drills are aimed at any realistic threats in the region, the fact that the U.S. is amassing forces in Middle East seems to be a sign that Washington (along with several close and less close partners) is preparing to manage a large crisis response operation in that part of the globe.

In fact, there are fears that the Syrian uprising will force thousands refuge into Jordan across Syria’s southern border. And, there is also a specific concern that Assad regime could lose control of some its chemical and biological weapons stocks, that could illicitly smuggled into Jordan, as reported by the CNN.

Eager Lion, headquartered at Kasotc (King Abdullah II Special Operation Training Center), in Amman, focuses on irregular warfare, special operations, counterinsurgency and crisis response.

Little is known about the participating units. Just a few press releases and some images published on Flickr days after the exercise kicked off give an idea of what is currently operating in Jordan whilst there is almost no or little information about the assets and troops brought in by the rest of the coalition partners.

Among the most interesting ones, there are the Marines with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (with the MV-22 Osprey tit rotor aircraft of the VMM-261) and the U.S. Air Force F-15s of the 104th Fighter Wing, Massachusetts Air National Guard, deployed to Mwaffaq Al Salti Air Base within the 131 EFS (Expeditionary Fighter Squadron).

Image credit: U.S. Air Force via CENTCOM

Source: Royal Air Force

Two Temporary Airspace Restrictions or RA(T)s will be in force from 09:30 to 11:30 hours (UTC) and from 09:50 to 11:50 hours (UTC) on 19 May and affect a broad corridor of airspace from the South Coast to west London, corresponding to the route the formation will fly to reach Windsor, and then to the north and northwest of Windsor to facilitate the dispersal of the aircraft.

You will notice that the Typhoon, UK’s most advanced plane (F-35B aside) is not featured in the main flypast: don’t worry, it’s not being grounded like the RAF E-3s, nor being kept on alert for the Olympic Games.

The flypast will comprise two separate aircraft formations – nine Typhoon fighter jets open the event, followed later by the large mixed formation (including two formations of Tucano and Hawk aircraft, the Red Arrows, and aircraft from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.

Image credit: UK Civil Aviation Authority

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The 1-229th Avn. Regt. is an attack reconnaissance battalion.

The video needs only a different soundtrack: Ride Of The Valkyries (Wagner) as in Apocalypse Now!

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Thet show the hangar floor and eight helicopters covered with 7 feet of foam at the Army Aviation Support Facility (AASF #2) at the St. Cloud airport. Barely visible (hence “stealthy”…) below the foam are UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters most probably belonging to the local based C Company, 2nd General Support Aviation Battalion, 211th Aviation Regiment (Air Ambulance), a Minnesota Army National Guard aeromedical evacuation company.

Although the following images prove that the problem is not only with the hangars at USAF bases, once again it looks a bit weird how frequent this kind of incident is within the U.S. armed forces.

Noteworthy, the doors of the helicopters are open: maybe it’s better to keep them closed, in order to prevent the foam from damaging the aircraft instruments.

Image credit: Minnesota National Guard

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On May 8, eight of the remaining U.S. F-16 fighter jets leased by the Italian Air Force to strengthen Italy’s air defense until the full maturity of the Eurofighter Typhoon made a stopover at Lajes Field, Azores, on their way back to the U.S.

The aircraft had departed from Trapani, in Sicily, and headed towards North America as “Retro 31″, a flight of six “Vipers” (as the F-16 is nicknamed in the fighter pilots community) accompanied by a 22ARW KC-135R tanker and a supporting Italian C-130.

The remaining two planes, used as spares and arriving via Monte Real near Leiria, in the western coast of mainland Portogallo, returned to Trapani where they will remain with the past 8 ones for a few more weeks, until the Italian Air Force officially retires the type on May 25.

Miguel Santos, a retired PoAF Lt.Col. and an aircraft spotter and photographer who lives in Terceira island, Azores, took the following interesting images.

Image credit: Miguel Santos

The Italian Vipers, were returned to the to Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, where the aircraft will be kept in storage by the 309^th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG)  at the local “Boneyard”.

Efficient, combat proven planes, once again cocooned, in a scrap yard.

Under Peace Caesar program, the Italian Air Force purchased a total 45,000 flying hours between 2004 and 2010 (then extended to 47,000 until the first half of 2012), with all the necessary logistic support, of a fleet composed by 30 F-16A Block 15 ADF (Air Defense Fighter) upgraded with the “Falcon Up” and “Falcon 2020” modifications, 3 F-16B Block 10 OCU (Operational Capabilities Upgrade) and a single F-16B ADF. Another 4 twin seats airframes would have been delivered to the ItAF to be cannibalized for spare parts.

The first batch of F-16s were returned to the U.S. in 2010.

During the recent air war in Libya, the Italian F-16ADF of the 18° Gruppo flew more than 1,559 flying hours and 348 missions since the early stages of US-coordinated Operation Odyssey Dawn begun on Mar. 19, 2011.

Flying also in a “heavy” configuration, that included two drop tanks, four AMRAAM (Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles) and two AIM-9L Sidewinders, the Squadron’s “Vipers” escorted the first Italian SEAD packages inside the Libyan airspace. With the beginning of NATO’s Operation Unified Protector at 06.00GMT on Mar. 31, 2011 and until the end of the air campaign at 23.59 GMT on Oct. 31, 2011, the Italian F-16s, alongside all the other Italian Air Force assets under the Task Group Air “Birgi”, flew air defense and combat air patrol missions required to enforce the No-Fly Zone over Libya and to ensure the air superiority needed to successfully accomplish the assigned mission.

Furthermore, in connection with the Libyan crisis, the 18^th Squadron ensured the Quick Reaction Alert service at an heightened level of readiness with F-16s ready to take off in few minutes in order to intercept and face any suspicious aircraft.

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Believed to be an exclusive U.S. “black project”, the radar-evading chopper (most probably a quiet one, rather than an actual helicopter invisible to radars), such helos would be used by the IAF to drop Iranian dissidents into Iran to gather intelligence on the Tehran’s nuclear program, according to a report written by Maloof for G2 bulletin, a global intelligence newsletter.

This is the first time someone reports about radar-evading choppers in the hands of Israel.

Even if it’s quite unlikely that the Washington shared the secrets of its most advanced helicopter with Jerusalem, considered that the American Stealth Hawk is probably based on 1978 study freely available on the Internet, we can’t rule out the possibility that the Israeli industry has found a way to modify the IAF Black Hawks (nicknamed “Yanshuf”, English for “Owl”) to make them stealthy.

Provided a Stealth Yanshuf really exists, this is what it would look like in two updated versions of the renderings I conceived with AviationGraphic.com‘s Ugo Crisponi: above, the famous highly modified version with retractable landing gear MH-X (please remember this is not the actual designation), whose shape reminds the one of an S-76; below, the more likely slightly-modified Stealth Black Hawk (described here).

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Soundtrack aside, the video is enjoyable as it gives the opportunity to see the fifth generation plane during the taxi, (quite short) take off roll and landing phases of its maiden flight.

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Belonging to the 27th FS from Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, the planes did not feature the famous Increment 3.1 that gives the stealthy fighters the capability to use air-to-surface weapons, and could only play the air-to-air role.

Youtube user “pdlgs”, a reader of this blog, has recorded some interesting radio comms of the exercise that he also uploaded on his YT channel for everyone to hear.

Among the several minutes of recorded pilot and controller chats, he has also caught an F-22 pilot using callsign “Rocket 04″ experiencing an in-flight physiological incident during a mission: suffering hypoxia like symptoms, the pilot declares an emergency requesting immediate descent to FL180 (18,000 feet) to face the oxygen deprivation condition.

Click below to hear the formation leader, informing the Nellis Range controller of the emergency.

Pdlgs has also recorded very weak audio file about Rocket 4 leaving the airspace and being escorted home by Rocket 3.

Noteworthy, the Squadron attending the last Red Flag is a unit of the 1st Fighter Wing, and Maj. Jeremy Gordon and Capt. Josh Wilson, the two “whistleblowers” appearing on CBS 60 minutes to explain why they were “uncomfortable” flying the Raptor (before changing idea few days later) belong to the 192th FW of the Virginia ANG, an associate unit of the Air Force’s 1st FW at Langley.

Because of the mysterious problem that is still choking F-22 pilots without a known root cause, the Pentagon has restricted Air Force Raptors to fly near a “proximate landing location” in order to give pilots the possibility to land quickly if their planes’ On Board Oxygen Generating System (OBOGS) fail.

As done by “Rocket 04″.

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Noteworthy the drone is flying quite low (maybe to remain in visual contact with the ground below the clouds).

Even if someone believes the video is not genuine, the robot could be involved in a surveillance mission in anticipation of NATO meeting that will be held in Chicago on May 20 – 21.

Although not even comparable with what we have seen in London for next summer’s Olympic Games security, an armed drone over the U.S. territory is at least an uncommon sight.

H/T to WOI for the heads-up

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Don’t blame me for the following comment, but as soon as I saw the photograph, I could not help but notice that those depicted in the photo could be the only F-22 stealth planes not choking their pilots.

Indeed, in spite of the recurrent hypoxia symptoms experienced by several Air Force pilots, some of whom have refused to fly the Raptor until the flaw continues, the Pentagon has not grounded the F-22 fleet, unlike the USAF that banned flight operations with the 5th generation fighter last year.

Lockheed Martin’s troubled plane will be only restricted to fly near a “proximate landing location” in order to give pilots the possibility to land quickly if their planes’ On Board Oxygen Generating System (OBOGS) fail.

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Dustin W. Sisco

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Image credit: http://club.mil.news.sina.com.cn/

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They were taken when the 457th FS AFRC (Air Force Reserve Command), from NAS Forth Worth JRB, Texas, was on a TDY (Temporary Deployment) to Portland ANGB, Oregon, in August of 2008  for DACT (Dissimilar Air Combat Training) with the local based 123rd FS of the OR ANG. It was their last day there, they were all packed up and all of a sudden the foam suppression system for the hangar they were operating out of went off.

“Spare parts, computers, and other materials got covered. Our Vipers  were out on the flightline. It was a mess, but allowed for us to get a good game of flag football in while the fire folks cleaned it up” the 457th FS’s airman says.

Image courtesy of 457th FS member

It looks like this kind of incident is rather frequent, therefore, what about an in-depth check of all the fire suppression systems before a new “foam party” takes place in one of those hangars sheltering some costly stealth planes?

A test at Ellsworth AFB in August 2005 lasted more than expected (for a human error?) and a B-1 hangar that had to be covered by one meter of foam within four minutes or less was almost filled by the fire suppression system that was allowed to generate foam for the full four minutes.

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Viterbo is one of the most important Army airfields. Along with the Centro Addestrativo Aviazione dell’Esercito (Army Aviation Training Centre), it hosts several operational flying units: the 1° Reggimento “Antares”, the 28° Gruppo Squadroni “Tucano” and the 26° REOS (Reparto Operazioni Speciali – Special Operations Unit).

Last year, Viterbo hosted the Italian Call 2011, a Multinational Helicopter Exercise.

The Aviationist’s photographer Giovanni Maduli took the following pictures of the ceremony and “dynamic demo”.

I was wrong.

First of all, a visitor recounted that something like that happened with a C-135 VIP transport at Hickam AFB many years ago. They put it into the fuel cell hangar, and left the cockpit windows open. It rained that night, the roof leaked, and the fire suppression system went off. They found the cockpit filled with halon.

Then, a pilot sent me the following picture taken in 2011 at Charleston AFB, South Carolina, when a fire suppression system went off inside a huge C-17 hangar.

Obviously, the size of both the hangar and the C-17 is such, that the U.S. airlifter was far from being submerged by foam.

Courtesy image

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