The US Air Force has gone through a variety of iterations of its “flight screening program,” including the tragic T-3 Firefly program more than a decade ago. The short, civil aircraft-based program is designed to filter out those who demonstrate less than Read more
F-15E Strike Eagle #89-0487 recently achieved 10,000 flight hours, making it the first F-15 of any type to log that many hours.
It an interesting bit of trivia, 487 is the same F-15E that logged the only Strike Eagle air-to-air kill in Operation Desert Storm when it dropped a bomb on an airborne Iraqi helicopter. It also scored an air-to-air kill on a rogue Reaper in Afghanistan, fulfilling every fighter pilot’s dream…
As noted previously, the US Air Force has proposed cutting a large number of A-10s from the inventory in response to the reduced Department of Defense budget.
An article at AOL Defense notes this isn’t the first time this has been proposed, and the author starts to rattle off the reasons people think the A-10 Thunderbolt II (better known as Warthog) is so great:
Two things make the A-10 especially fine at CAS: its amazing 30mm cannon which can destroy a tank with ease; and the Read more
Investigators determined pilot error caused the 6 April 2011 crash of a US Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet near Lemoore Naval Air Station, California. Both the pilot and the backseat NFO were killed.
The pilot, Lt. Matthew I. Lowe, 33, of Plantation, Fla., and the plane’s weapons officer, Lt. Nathan H. “Beefcake” Williams, 28, of Oswego, N.Y., were Read more
A C-5 Galaxy — the US Air Force’s largest cargo aircraft — from Westover Air Reserve Base, Massachusetts, performed a flyby of Gillette Stadium at the conclusion of the National Anthem on Sunday. The ceremony opened the NFL Patriots-Ravens football game.
Inscribed along the bottom of the aircraft, visible from the stands, was an emblem and “Go Pats!” The Patriots went on to win.
You never know, fighter aircraft flybys may have similar endorsements on their lower wings or fuselages… Read more
The Air Force has released the report of the September 2011 crash of an A-10C Thunderbolt II in Georgia.
According to the report, the mishap aircraft’s stall warning system malfunctioned at 15,000 feet, preventing stall warning tones from functioning properly… Without evidence of additional malfunctions, the mishap pilot continued the FCF.
At 34,000 feet, the mishap aircraft experienced a stall Read more
The Stars and Stripes reports the F-15E Strike Eagle that crashed in March in Libya was brought down due to a weight imbalance.
An Air Force investigation into what caused the crash of an F-15E Strike Eagle during a night combat operation over Libya last March has concluded that a weight imbalance was a major factor…
The situation deteriorated Read more
The Military Times notes the unveiling of a Navy airship at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey.
The MZ-3A is the Navy’s scientific test platform for surveillance cameras, radars and other sensors…[used] “to prove LTA [lighter-than-air] has a place in our military construct,” said Cmdr. Jay Steingold.
The slow, long-endurance vehicles are variations on the blimp/dirigible and could fill a variety of roles. The Navy isn’t the only one to have such a program: Read more