Italy to plan the first flight of an F35 outside the US in October

The first F-35 flight outside the US will take place in October when Italy’s first F-35 begins test flights after rolling off the country’s final assembly line, a Lockheed Martin official said.

After entering service with the Italian Air Force, the aircraft, AL-1, will then fly across the Atlantic in the first quarter of 2016, probably via the UK and Iceland, to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, where Italian pilots will train, said Debra Palmer, the Lockheed executive leading F-35 work in Italy.

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AL1

Source:
http://www.defensenews.com/

Air Force wants UAV swarms

i don’t know why some are talking about Swarm or depicting small UAS here. The NOCA doc is clear as stated by the link: “provide long range, high speed strike capability in remote regions where forward basing is difficult or prohibited,”. The word Swarm is nowhere to be seen.

The picture on that link is very confusing. You are not going to achieve that with a tuned-up commercial drone*.

The effort is based on existing technology and which ones could be discarded to achieve the cost objectives and the ability to be discarded without compromising sensitive tech. The attritable part is scalable (I guess in function of the defenses).

Here are the interesting part of the objectives:

offer dramatic reductions in cost in order to bring “mass” to the engagement, and achieve a cost imposing effect
on future adversaries.

It would reverts the “Militants” Vs Predator equation forcing them to get more armor and more defensive gears and driving the cost to sustain their objectives dramatically up.

*I know that this particular one is not. But the range of perf are.

I thought than adding an impressive stray of decimals would make an impression. 😀

The Gripen makes the most sense. There is the possibility of local production, technology transfer, and a common support model. It is really tough to justify the F-35’s huge cost. Under what circumstances would the Finns find themselves facing an S-400? Are the Russians going to place them on the border so that their RADAR coverage extends into Finland? 100-150 million per example is hard to justify for that reason alone. Especially for an aircraft that is near IOC, but not capable of fulfilling all of its intended roles. Finland is not going to invade Russia. The U.S. and NATO would get involved long before the opposite would happen (when is there a conflict the U.S. does stay out of?).

Once again I had to pull out my calculator:

From the F35 thread via BiO, last F35A buy:

$8.4 billion for 65 next-generation F-35 fighters, eight more than requested by the Pentagon

This makes the aircraft at 129M$:

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How could Finland buy a Gripen NG* just for the cost dismissing F35 when Cap are not order of magnitude better than their modernized F18 and costs roughly in the same range.

Furthermore, the expected risk of a partial coverage by S400 would point toward a Stealth STOVL (or a combined STOVL/Conventional).

Now tell me that Saab are on the advanced stage of their new bread, and then we can have such a conversation.

*Whatever it ends to be

Su-24. It’s whole nose has fallen off.

Hit in front and above (cockpit aimed). Probably not a basic ManPad but one of the Last generation (software and sensor). Wing position suggest also a high Mach. Footage suggest a high altitude (enough time for the cameraman to hear about the shotdown, grab his video camera (not a cellphone) and run up the stairs).

Would be interesting to ear about the suspected weapon… And where it comes from 😡

Notice that the extensive damage might have been the result of aerodynamic forces and not a sign of the quantity of explosive*.

*this converges toward the wing position.

You have to build it as a flying object otherwise your simulation efforts will led to nothing. It’s much more difficult to build a simulator able to replicate all AND a flying machine than concentrate on the prime objective: A fighter jet.

So, you are obviously right. it’s a mock-up put to public attention. But it might reflect a study and have some R&D background with aerodynamics and fighter architecture works.

So, it is valid to look at the gross characteristics of the configuration, without getting too much in the details, and make some analysis.

For example, we can see that the F101 type of wing (don’t have the name in mind now) reflect the RCS reduction effort with a low penetration capability (high Wing loading) with still a moderate to high mach at alt (fuselage lift with full benefits at lower density).

The short nose however point us directly toward a carrier borne aircraft (conventional or ramp capable (fuselage lift*)) unless we see it only as a flying mockup.

my 2 cents only obviously.

*see also the massive V tail for a quick and effective rotation

France gets its Third Reaper

France has received its third MQ-9 Reaper. The UAV joins two other Reapers which have accumulated more than 4,000 flight hours since France began flying them in January 2014, according to a General Atomics news release. They are flown by Drone Squadron 1/33 “Belfort.”

France will receive a total of 12 Reapers by 2019.

Source:
http://www.c4isrnet.com/

You are also comparing surprise attack with daily tasked raids. You can’t expect the same results.

For example, this why you can still rely on dedicated fighter jets to have some sort of nuclear deterrence (ex. Fr strategic forces – FAS).