The Boeing Company released a summary of the deliveries it made in the first quarter of 2016 on 7 April, revealing an overall rise in completed military platforms year-on-year.

While deliveries of its commercial airliners were lower than in the first quarter of 2015, eight more military aircraft handovers were made in the first quarter of 2016. This overall rise came despite lower deliveries of F/A-18s and new-build Chinook CH-47s. The largest rise in deliveries was achieved by Boeing’s F-15, four of which were completed, compared to one in the first quarter of 2015.
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The CF-18 Demonstration Jet is unveiled during a ceremony at 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alberta, on 5 April, 2016. Image by: Cpl Bryan Carter, 4 Wing Imaging, CK04-2016-0278-002

[Avionics Today 04-11-2016] The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) has unveiled the CF-18 Demonstration Jet for its 2016 season. The ceremony took place at 4 Wing Cold, Alberta, where the jet was painted over the past few weeks, and was attended by the Wing Commander, officials from the City of Cold Lake and the Town of Bonnyville, and Capt. Ryan Kean who will be flying the jet

The specially painted CF-18 Hornet features a tribute paint job designed by veteran design director, Jim Belliveau. The paint job commemorates the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP), which ran from 1939 to 1945, and the 75th anniversary of the establishment of RCAF’s 400-series squadrons.

“It is always a privilege for 4 Wing to be entrusted with the responsibility to design and prepare the Demonstration CF-18 which allows the Royal Canadian Air Force to connect with thousands of Canadians and present them with proud moments of our heritage. This year again, Mr. Jim Belliveau has demonstrated incredible talent in capturing an idea as complex as the British Commonwealth Air Training Program,” said Colonel Eric Kenny, Commander at 4 Wing Cold Lake. “Mr. Belliveau and our technicians outdid themselves bringing to life Jim’s idea. This jet will be for all to enjoy because of the hard work and commitment of our 4 Wing members.”

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The U.S. Army successfully fired a Miniature Hit-to-Kill missile from its newest launch platform , April 4, 2016. The missile successfully fired as part of an Engineering Demonstration of the Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2-Intercept. The system features a first-of-its-kind Multi-Mission Launcher, which is designed to fire a variety of different interceptor missiles, depending on the threat.

The MHTK missile has no warhead. Rather, as the name implies, it is designed to intercept and defeat rocket, artillery and mortar threats with kinetic energy during a direct hit. Previously during the Engineering Demonstration, the MML successfully fired Longbow Hellfire and AIM-9X missiles. A variety of other missiles will also be tested as part of the ongoing Engineering Demonstration at White Sands Missile Range.

The IFPC Inc 2-I system is a mobile ground-based weapon system designed to defeat unmanned aircraft systems, cruise missiles, and rockets, artillery, and mortars. In addition to the MML, the IFPC Inc 2-I System will use the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System for its command and control, a Sentinel radar, and existing interceptors to provide 360-degree protection with the ability to engage simultaneous threats arriving from different azimuths.

The MML is mounted on a medium tactical vehicle. The launcher can rotate 360 degrees and elevate from 0-90 degrees. It consists of fifteen tubes, each of which can hold either a single large interceptor or multiple smaller interceptors. Developed using an open systems architecture, the launcher will interface to the IBCS Engagement Operations Center to support and coordinate target engagements.

IFPC Inc 2-I is a joint collaborative effort between the Army’s Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space’s Cruise Missile Defense Systems Project Office and the Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center. The joint CMDS/AMRDEC team brought together more than 150 subject matter experts from across the AMRDEC enterprise with representatives from six directorates and more than 20 functional areas to design, manufacture, procure, assemble, and test the U.S. Army’s newest Air Defense launcher. The MML Product Team leveraged more than 85 industry partners to assist in design and manufacturing. AMRDEC will provide additional MMLs through the Engineering and Manufacturing Development acquisition phase, six of which will be assembled by Letterkenny Army Depot. This is the first development of a major acquisition program by the government organic industrial base in more than 30 years.

About PEO Missiles and Space: PEO Missiles and Space provides centralized management for all Army air and missile defense and tactical missile programs as well as selected Army Space programs. The PEO is responsible for the full life-cycle management of assigned programs.

About CMDS: Part of PEO Missiles and Space, the Cruise Missile Defense Systems Project Office provides support to Soldiers, protecting them from aerial and missile attack, as well as enemy surveillance. CMDS programs include: Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2-Intercept, Sentinel Radar, STINGER-based Avenger and Man-portable Air Defense System.

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FORT RUCKER, Ala. — Fort Rucker welcomed a new commander this week.

The Dothan Eagle reports that a change of command ceremony was held Wednesday for Maj. Gen. William K. Gayler, the new commander of the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence.

The program also celebrated the accomplishments of outgoing commander Maj. Gen. Michael D. Lundy.

Gayler was previously deputy commanding general of U.S. Army Europe. A commissioned aviation officer since 1988, he has been deployed for Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
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The U.S. Army could have as many as 44 of the first female infantry officers by this time next year, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told Congress on Thursday.

Milley told lawmakers at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that the first principle in his plan to open all combat-arms jobs to women is grow female infantry leaders in these units first.

“We are going to graduate coming up in May-June timeframe from both West Point and ROTC — I think it’s 44 women that have volunteered to be infantry lieutenants,” Milley said.

“If they meet all the appropriate standards — they will go through the various infantry schools, such as BOLC, the Basic Officer Leadership Course at Fort Benning, Georgia — they will graduate in the fall.

“They’ll do follow-on training that is normal for infantry such as Ranger School, and if they continue to meet all those standards, then they will be assigned to infantry units sometime about this time next year … you will start seeing female infantry and armor officers, non-commissioned officers and junior soldiers in those combat units.”

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter reversed centuries of U.S. military tradition in December with the historic announcement that all military occupational specialties, including infantry, armor and special operations jobs, are now open to women.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, raised the concern that critics have said that the only way women will become infantry, Rangers and SEALS in real numbers is to lower standards.

“Do you plan to allow the lowering of standards and how do you plan to deal with these views from the leadership and junior personnel levels?” Gillibrand said.

“Absolutely not,” Milley responded. “Standards are standards, and those standards are developed through years upon years of blood-soaked lessons learned in combat. They are neither male nor female. They are combat standards.

“If you meet the standard for combat, then you pass go, collect $200 and move on your way. If you don’t, then you do something else in life.”

Army leaders must guard against lowering of standards, Milley said.

“If we do that, we are actually putting at risk the unit and the….
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PACIFIC OCEAN (June 7, 2011) An MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 77 prepares to land aboard the littoral combat ship USS Freedom (LCS 1). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication 2nd Class Aaron Burden/Released)

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SAN FRANCISCO — The remains of a Korean War soldier have been flown back to the San Francisco Bay Area more than six decades after he went missing in South Korea.

Army Cpl. Robert Graham disappeared after Chinese forces attacked his combat battalion in February 1951, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday.

Graham was captured and starved to death in a North Korean camp. He was 20 years old.

“Things are finally coming to closure for the family … after 65 years,” said James George, 59, of Fairfield, a retired Marine Corps master sergeant who escorted his uncle’s remains on a flight from Hawaii to San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday.

Wearing his military uniform, George watched as six servicemen carried the flag-wrapped casket from the airplane to a waiting hearse.

George and two other relatives contributed DNA that enabled the Army to identify a single bone from Graham’s leg last fall. The bone was among body parts of missing U.S. servicemen that North Korea turned over in 1993. Recent advances in genetic testing allowed officials to make the ID.

His remains were not among those returned by North Korea after the armistice in July 1953.
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U.S. Coast Guard | Apr 08, 2016

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Sikorsky Aircraft has been asked to deliver 109 military helicopters to the Turkish Armed Forces by 2020.

The order is part of an ongoing General Purpose Helicopter Project, which was initiated in 2009 to develop the Turkish rotorcraft industry and meet the needs of the country’s military, along with other customers.

İsmet Yılmaz, Turkey’s national defense minister, told members of Parliament that Sikorsky would work with several other contractors and subcontractors on the project. Turkish Aerospace Industries would manufacture the cockpit, cabin and impellers and handle the integration. Text Encoding Initiative would manufacture the engine. Alp Aviation would manufacture the landing gears, rotor heads and main, middle and rear gear boxes. Aselsan would manufacture the avionics suite.

Aviation Today :: Military

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The Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) received its first two BAE Systems Hawk Mk 165 Advanced Jet Trainer (AJT) aircraft on 6 April.

The aircraft arrived at King Faisal Air Base in the Kingdom after a ferry flight from BAE System’s Warton facility in the United Kingdom.

The RSAF is to receive 20 more aircraft as part of the first batch ordered in 2012, with deliveries of a second batch of 22 that was disclosed by IHS Jane’s in February to follow.

Once operational, the Hawk AJT will replace the Mk 65 and Mk 65A platforms currently in service.

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Army Lt. Col. Lynn Ray has become one of the key female officers in the Pentagon’s grand design to have them serve as combination role models and taskmasters in moving women into previously restricted military occupational specialties.

The implementation plan varies from service to service, but the bottom line is that “the standard is the standard across the board” for men and women, said Ray, the first commander of the newly formed “Pioneer” Regimental Engineer Squadron of the storied 3rd Cavalry Regiment of the First Cavalry Division based at Fort Hood in Texas.

“I think it’s a fantastic thing that we’ve opened up the combat engineer 12B MOS to enlisted soldiers. I think it’s phenomenal. I think everything comes in the time that it should, and I think the time is right — where our society, our military and the way we think — is more open to it,” Ray said.

However, the “young ladies” seeking to make the grade in her unit will get no slack, Ray said. “As a woman deciding on whether women qualify as 12 Bravo — well, I look at them as just the same, the same training, the same reception, the same standards that need to be met by a male soldier. That is the absolute most important thing.”

Of the 760 troops in her squadron, about 60 now are enlisted women, Ray said. “They are volunteering to do something, break the mold, go outside of themselves — that tells me they want to be a combat engineer, they want to be in that MOS. They weren’t forced into it. That’s half the battle.”

“I did not shave off the standards or anything when these young ladies got here, and they have not disappointed” thus far, Ray said.

ARMY OPENS UP POSITIONS

The Army opened up combat engineer positions to women last June ahead of Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s historic decision last December to lift all restrictions against women, including in the infantry, armor, artillery and special operations.

The decision reversed generations of military tradition and was not without controversy. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford was conspicuously absent from Carter’s announcement at a Pentagon news conference. As Marine Corps commandant, Dunford had sought “exceptions” for the Marines from opening all billets, but his recommendation was rejected by Carter and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.

In March, the services submitted their “implementation” plans for integrating women into new billets that were reviewed by Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work and Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In a statement, Carter said the department’s top priority was to implement the changes “the right way, because the combat effectiveness of the world’s….

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Turkish army tanks roll past a portrait of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, during a military parade on the 86th anniversary of Victory Day in Ankara, August 30, 2008. Tensions between Turkey’s government and its powerful generals will continue clouding the future of the European Union-applicant country, after the new military commander warned against the rising profile of Islam. REUTERS/Fatih Saribas (TURKEY)

The Turkish military took the unusual step on 31 March of disavowing any possibility of it staging a coup. With Turkish politics currently in turmoil, Lale Sariibrahimoglu analyses just how realistic a prospect of an intervention by the Turkish armed forces is

ANALYSIS

The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) is known for its historical interventions into the country’s politics. Having cast itself as the guardian of secular principles in this predominantly Muslim nation, the TSK staged several coups between the 1960s and the 1990s.

Clearly then, the possibility of another intervention is not too remote. Ümit Kardas, a retired Turkish military judge and a professor in criminal law, told IHS Jane’s that as long as the TSK remains outside of full civilian control the possibility of a coup always exists.

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A cache of .50-caliber machine guns is assembled on the deck of the guided-missile destroyer USS Gravely (DDG 107). The weapons were seized from a stateless dhow which was intercepted by the Coastal Patrol ship USS Sirocco (PC 6) on March 28, 2016. (U.S. Navy photo)

The U.S. Navy has released photos of the Iranian weapons it recently seized from a ship in the Arabian Sea.

The coastal patrol ship USS Sirocco (PC 6) on March 28 intercepted a stateless dhow that was found to be carrying an illicit weapons cache, including 1,500 AK-47 rifles, 200 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 21 .50-caliber machine guns, according to a press release from he service.

Operating as part of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, the guided-missile destroyer USS Gravely (DDG 107) also supported the operation.

It was the third time in recent weeks that international naval forces operating in the area discovered a shipment of illicit arms that the U.S. “assessed originated in Iran and was likely bound for Houthi insurgents in Yemen,” the release states.

The weapons are now in U.S. custody awaiting final disposition;  the dhow and its crew were allowed to depart once the illicit weapons were sized, according to the statement.

Here are more photos released by the Navy:

Rows of rocket-propelled grenade, or RPG, launchers are assembled on the deck of the guided-missile destroyer USS Gravely (DDG 107). The weapons were seized from a stateless dhow which was intercepted by the Coastal Patrol ship USS Sirocco (PC 6) on March 28, 2016. (U.S. Navy photo)

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Tata Motors – Defence Solutions -Troop Carrier on LPTA 1623: Soft Top

Following diplomatic efforts by the Indian government earlier this year, the Bolivian government began exploring investment, technical assistance, and defence co-operation projects with India that could include buying or assembling logistics vehicles, sources told IHS Jane’s .

India’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) invited Bolivia’s Minister of Defence, Reymi Ferreira Justiniano, to DEFEXPO 2016, held from 28-31 March in Goa, where Ferreira met with his Indian counterpart and discussed areas of potential co-operation. India has largely only been a minor source of military equipment for the Bolivian military, although Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd did participate in a multirole helicopters tender in 2008.
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The U.S. Defense Dept. has awarded Bell Helicopter with additional funds under a foreign military sales contract to deliver AH-1Z attack helicopters to Pakistan.

Bell’s additional funds amount to $ 170,173,188 to manufacture and deliver nine AZ-1H Viper attack helicopters and nine auxiliary fuel kits to the government of Pakistan under the Foreign Military Sales program. Bell will manufacture the helicopters at its Fort Worth and Amarillo facilities and is expected to complete the work by September 2018. U.S. Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, Maryland, is the prime contractor.

This award is a modification to a previous firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-13-C-0023), which had tasked Bell with delivering AH-1Z and UH-1Y helicopters to the Defense Dept.

Aviation Today :: Military

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The guided-missile destroyer USS William P. Lawrence (DDG 110) transits Suva Harbor as the ship pulls into Suva, Fiji for a scheduled port visit. (Photo: Lt. j.g. Janie Baird)

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The UK Royal Air Force (RAF) is confident that it can maintain its current level of operations over Iraq and Syria “for years” if needs be, a senior service official said on 30 March.

Speaking to reporters at the FIDAE Airshow in Santiago, Chile, Deputy Commander of Operations Air Marshal Greg Bagwell said that the RAF’s deployment for Operation ‘Shader’ is set up for a sustained long-term effort against the Islamic State.

“Some countries do six months hard, and then leave and go back in once they’ve recovered – we are doing things differently. We could have put more [aircraft and personnel] in for a shorter period of time, but we are in this for the long-haul as it looks like it is going to go on for some time, perhaps even years,” AM Bagwell said.

The United Kingdom has 10 Panavia Tornado GR4 (two of which are held in reserve) and six Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 combat aircraft flying missions out of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. This number was surged from the initial eight Tornados that had been flying missions over Iraq since September 2014, when the United Kingdom extended its remit in December 2015 to include Syria also.

In addition to these RAF Akrotiri-based assets, the United Kingdom also has an undisclosed number (believed to be 10) General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) flying combat and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions out of ‘a Middle East location’ (reported to be Kuwait).

Combat assets are also routinely supported by Airbus Defence and Space (DS) Voyager tankers; Boeing E-3D Sentry Airborne Warning And Control System (AWACS) platforms; a Boeing RC-135 Airseeker signals intelligence aircraft; as well as Lockheed Martin C-130J Hercules, Airbus DS A400M Atlas, and Boeing C-17 Globemaster III airlifters.

According to AM Bagwell, this force structure represents the RAF’s “maximum sustained effort”, though he added that the service “has enough in the tank” to see the mission through.

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