US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member


Last Fort Worth-built F-16 leaves Lockheed factory

Lockheed Martin’s last F-16 produced at its Fort Worth, Texas facility rolled out the door on 14 November, marking the end of a 40-year era for the single-engined fighter.

The last Texas-made F-16 will fly with the Iraqi air force, but over the last four decades the fourth-generation fighter has flown with 28 customers around the globe, from the US Air Force and NASA, to Israel, Venezuela and Poland.

“The Fighting Falcon Nest,” as it is affectionately referred to by Lockheed employees, is dwarfed by a F-35 production line that already stretches the length of several football fields.

The fifth-generation fighter line will eventually cannibalise the smaller F-16 facility, as Lockheed makes room for the F-35 production ramp up.

Lockheed will transition F-16 production to an existing facility in Greenville, South Carolina, where it’s also planning to assemble T-50 trainer jets pending the outcome of the US Air Force's T-X trainer recapitalisation contract.

The Lockheed/Korea Aerospace Industries T-50A is a close cousin to the F-16, sharing the same basic shape, flight controls and wing.

Initial activities supporting the move to South Carolina are already underway, a Lockheed spokesman says.

With several potential international sales brewing, including a $2.78 billion deal for 19 F-16Vs for Bahrain, Lockheed expects to extend F-16 production beyond 2022.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
Each have 8 engines unique seems difficult modified in 4 engines.

B-52 re-engine effort could start in 2020

A long-awaited effort to re-engine the 76-strong Boeing B-52H fleet would start no earlier than fiscal year 2020, but the USAF’s head of Global Strike Command feels a final decision to lengthen the 60-year-old Boeing aircraft’s life is closer than ever.

Last year, the air force released a request for information evaluating financing alternatives for a potential B-52 re-engining effort. The service has been exploring financing alternatives including an operating lease, service contract and other hybrid financing options in order to fund what it estimates would be a multi-billion effort to replace 650 engines across the fleet, according to the RFI. The air force is still deciding when to release a request for proposal, Gen Robin Rand told reporters this week.

“This is all part of the [fiscal year] 2020 planning choices we’re talking about, so on the table,” he says. “I feel positive but I’m not going to try to hem in the chief or secretary, but I think we’re closer to getting a decision on re-engining than any time that I’ve been the commander.”
Rand emphasized the USAF would not implement the effort until FY2020, if the re-engining even happens.

Meanwhile, the service is waiting until the fiscal year 2018 defense budget passes before deciding where trades could be made to fund the bomber. After passing the House and Senate this week, the fiscal year 2018 National Defense Authorisation Act is on its way to President Donald Trump’s desk. The Senate recently passed its version of the appropriations bill that would fund the FY2018 NDAA.

“I think we’ve made a compelling case that one, the B-52 is going to be around and it warrants being re-engined for a lot of reasons that I’ve talked a lot about for the last two years,” Rand says.

Though Rand has reiterated the need for a new engine, it’s not clear whether the effort will even occur under his tenure. After a TF33 engine from a B-52 during a training mission last January, former USAF Secretary Deborah Lee James maintained the accident would not accelerate an effort to replace the bomber’s aging Pratt & Whitney engines. But industry still appears prepped for a competition, with Rolls Royce already pitching the BR725 engine and GE Aviation offering the CF34-10.

https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/us-military-news-reports-data-etc.t1547/page-874#post-484679

TerraN_EmpirE possible recognize AH-64D or a E some differences visibles o_O

AH-64 with Skis for Alaska
 
Last edited:
an interesting week starts in DC:

"With a Dec. 8 deadline rapidly approaching for either extending federal funding in some way or triggering a partial government shutdown, the House next week will advance a temporary patch, according to a senior aide, and try to provide money through Dec. 22.

That will give Congress more time to craft a second patch, the aide said, to operate the government through January.

While the moves, if successful, would keep the Pentagon running at last year’s levels, they are far from Republican hopes of handing Trump about $634 billion in fiscal 2018 funding for the military’s regular operations, $85 billion above last year.

..." etc.:
Trump's call for military buildup hits bump in Congress
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
For Wargames :eek: we going for a huge show of force :cool:

US masses stealth jets in South Korea for war games

US F-22 fighter jets roared into the sky over South Korea on Monday to start air combat exercises that North Korea says are pushing the peninsula to the brink of nuclear war.

A US 7th Air Force official said the top-of-the-line F-22s are being joined by Air Force and Marine Corps F-35s in the largest concentration of fifth-generation fighter jets ever in South Korea.
The stealthy F-22s and F-35s are among 230 US and South Korean aircraft -- supported by 12,000 troops -- participating in the annual Vigilant Ace 18 air combat drills, which are scheduled to end Friday.


North Korea state media said Monday that "ceaseless large-scale war games" by the US and South Korea are "creating a situation that a nuclear war may break out any moment."
Over the weekend, official sources from both North Korea and the US said the chances of war are growing.
...
The US aircraft that have landed on South Korea include six F-22s, six F-35s, six EA-18Gs," a South Korean defense official told CNN. "More than 10 F-15Cs and F-16s have also been deployed for the drill."
These aircraft will stay in South Korea for the week. They will be joined by more F-35Bs -- the Marine Corps version, based in Japan -- B-1 bombers and E-3 airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft that will fly in to join the war games and then return to bases elsewhere, the official said.
..
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Let's me catch the Queen

Also
B-1B arrival Amberley, 2 big boys
 
Last edited:

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
TerraN_EmpirE possible recognize AH-64D or a E some differences visibles o_O
AH-64 with Skis for Alaska

He have overlook... please ?

All modern military vehicles at some point go into such chambers, Especially now with the increasing use of radars on tanks
Never see vehicles and not rookie... you have eventualy a pic please

For Wargames :eek: we going for a huge show of force :cool:



Let's me catch the Queen

Here F-22 with F-35A also F-15C
 
Last edited:

Equation

Lieutenant General
Interesting read.o_O

US missile defenses fired 5 shots at an incoming target — and it looks as if they all missed
  • Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
    suggests that the missile's failure to hit its target was a fluke and that the missile interceptors all missed.

    Essentially, the analysis says that the parts of the Houthi-fired missile that crashed in Saudi Arabia indicate that the interceptors, fired from a Patriot Advanced Capability 3 system, did not hit the warhead as they were supposed to.

    Instead, an interceptor probably hit a part of the missile tube that had detached from the warhead, The Times found. The warhead most likely continued to travel, unimpeded, to where it blew up outside the airport. Witnesses reported hearing the explosion, and satellite imagery uncovered by The Times suggests that emergency vehicles responded to the blast.

    The missile, an old Scud variant, can be expected to miss by about a kilometer. The Scuds are old and error-prone, and the older ones used by the Houthis are relatively cheap.

    But the missile defense system developed by the US
    Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
    and has been touted by defense officials as one of the most advanced in the world.

    In South Korea, the same missile defense systems and technologies are designed to defend US troops and thousands of civilians from a North Korean missile strike.

    2016-10-03t230903z1lynxnpec921d5rtroptp3northkorea-missiles-japan.jpg
    Members of the Japan Self-Defence Forces standing guard near Patriot Advanced Capability 3 land-to-air missiles.REUTERS/Issei Kato

    "You shoot five times at this missile and they all miss? That's shocking," Laura Grego, a missile expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told The Times. "That's shocking because this system is supposed to work."

    Houthis in Yemen have fired missiles at Saudi Arabia before, and over the weekend they said they fired a cruise missile at a nuclear-energy site in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates —
    Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
    .



    Footage purportedly of the cruise missile shows that it closely resembles Iranian missiles, suggesting Tehran supplied it. Iran has also been accused of providing the missile fired at the Riyadh airport.

    A failure of the missile defenses against even a short-range missile like the one the Houthis fired at the airport may sow doubt about whether the US systems can be trusted to deter conflict in the Middle East, where military tensions have escalated.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 
Top