South Korea’s Defense Ministry says multiple Russian military planes violated the South Korean airspace off its east coast on Tuesday.
The ministry says South Korea launched fighter jets and that they fired warning shots.
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According to the South Korean military, the Russian aircraft […] violated South Korean airspace over Dokdo — an island that is occupied by South Korea and also claimed by Japan, which calls it Takeshima — just after 9 a.m. (midnight GMT Monday).
Officials said South Korean F-15k and F-16k jets were scrambled to intercept one of the planes and fired flares after sending a message to the aircraft.
The Russian plane left the area above disputed islets but it returned and violated the airspace again, the ministry official said. He said the South Korean fighter jets fired warning shots again. The Russian plane did not return fire in either incident, the official said.
“The South Korean military took tactical action including dropping flares and firing a warning shot,” a defence ministry statement said.
It was the first time a Russian military plane violated South Korean airspace, according to South Korean officials.
Given the the range of new customer in Eu (close by geographically), it would be dubious not to see those lots distributed among existing subs and new entrants there. You have the industry, the tooling, the suitability of wages and some offset obligation to cover.
Northrop named US operators Grand Sky Development and Tenax Aerospace as each having signed deals to acquire the Firebird.
Those are more civilian operators obviously but still this is an interesting market outreach that could ready the stage for a future ISR military acquisition
Brian Chappel, the company’s senior vice-president and general manager autonomous systems, told FlightGlobal that it sees a clear need in Europe for the multi-intelligence, long-endurance capabilities offered by Firebird.
“As Europe recognises [the need] and invests more into ISR, everything can’t be big and exquisite – you are going have to have a range of capabilities,” Chappel says. “Governments and militaries in Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, all those are very interesting opportunities, and we’ve finding interest already.”
The Barkhane ISR operation in Mali for example would be greatly eased with such optionally manned platform able to transit over long distance in regulated airspace in order to be re positioned quickly at minimal deployment and infrastructure cost.
Chappel says the aircraft could be supplied for less than $10 million for manned operations, with this price rising to around $20 million in fully unmanned guise. The optionally piloted version on static display at RIAT can be converted for unmanned operations by two people in less than 4h, he notes.
In press information relating to the event, France’s special forces command says: “The air force is actively studying the acquisition of [CH-47s] for the French special forces. They would complete the current range of helicopters.”
Parts of the French military have long been keen on acquiring a heavy-lift capability. During the late 2000s Paris was engaged in a joint effort with Germany under the Future Transport Helicopter programme.
Based on the markings, the missile is an R.530 F20 version with serial number 5284, belonging to the production lot 83 and sold to the Government of Qatar on Oct. 10, 1980.
The missile is marked as a “live” (not inert) as shown by the presence of a yellow band, that is used to highlight the presence of an explosive warhead, and a red band, meaning the presence of rocket fuel; however, during the inspection, it was found that the warhead was missing. The Police didn’t provide additional details about the fuel and the guidance section.
The Super 530 missiles were meant to arm the 14 Mirage F1EDA fighters bought the same year by the Qatar Emiri Air Force. The F20 version was specifically designed to be carried by Mirage F1, while the D version was designed to be carried by the newer Mirage 2000. In 1994 Qatar replaced the Mirage F1 with the Mirage 2000, selling its old fighters to Spain and the Super 530 missile to an unknown nation.
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Qatar foreign ministry spokeswoman Lolwah Alkhater said in a statement: “The authorities in Qatar have immediately started an investigation alongside the respective Italian authorities and the authorities of another friendly nation to which the Matra missile was sold 25 years ago. The captured Matra Super530 missile was sold by Qatar in the year 1994 in a deal that included 40 Matra Super 530 missiles to a friendly nation that wishes not to be named at this point of the investigation. Qatar is working very closely now with the pertinent parties including Italy to unveil the facts and it is very concerned as to how a missile sold 25 years ago ended up in the hands of a third non-state party.”
Naval Aviation Enterprise Naval Sustainment System O-Level Reform
The Naval Sustainment System aims to improve readiness across the Naval Aviation Enterprise. To meet that challenge, the fleet is reforming maintenance at the Operational Level by finding efficiencies and implementing industry best practices to get combat-ready aircraft back to the flight line.
Shall we say that this camera pod is to be carried by the accompanying plane flying in formation with the test plane. Being of an identical type, data can be compared in a single flight (loaded Vs unloaded)
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