Military Aviation

Under a contract worth up to $3 billion, U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) last August chose the AT-802U Sky Warden, a single-engine turboprop with an interesting difference for a modern military aircraft. The service plans to acquire up to 75 for “counterterror” duty. Derived from the Leland Snow-designed Air Tractor agricultural application aircraft […]

The Air Force has grounded 116 C-130Hs, more than 20 percent of the fleet, after it was determined that inscriptions scratched in the propellers documenting inspections for cracks actually caused cracks. “The process used to engrave serial numbers on the propellers likely contributed to cracks that are being found on the C-130Hs,” Maj. Beau Downey, […]

Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have completed their first demonstration for the U.S. Army of logistics and rescue missions using an uncrewed “optionally piloted” Black Hawk helicopter. The demonstration simulated missions including an 83-mile autonomous medical resupply carrying 400 units of real and simulated blood, delivery of a […]

Bell Textron announced on Wednesday that it has handed over its 189th AH-1Z Viper twin-engine attack helicopter to the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC). In addition to completing the program of record (POR) for the model, the delivery is also the last for the USMC’s H-1 upgrade program, which was launched in 1996. Bell completed deliveries […]

The Air Force has flown two single-pilot sorties with KC-46 Pegasus tankers. The Oct. 25 flights were the first to test an experimental set of procedures it says are planned for use in grim circumstances. Earlier this year, the Air Force floated the idea, saying it was afraid it would run short of tanker pilots […]

Anyone who wonders what it’s like to eject probably won’t come much closer than a video making the social media rounds. The brief helmet cam clip glimpses the split second destiny changes that are part of the drill for jet jockeys and this one seems to take the time to reflect on that. The video […]

The matriarch of the Air Force’s strategic nuclear fleet is getting some work done, and the result is smoother skin and curvier limbs. Air and Space Forces Magazine released an image of a 3-D rendering of what the next iteration of the 70-plus-year-old B-52 will likely look like and it’s definitely a softer image. “The […]

Australian authorities have arrested a former Marine Corps pilot and owner of an aviation consultancy in China and are holding him under special bail conditions at the request of the U.S. government. The Australian Broadcasting Company is reporting that Daniel Edmund Duggan was taken into custody by Australian Federal Police last Friday just as reports […]

The governments of France, Australia and Canada have joined the U.K. investigating whether their retired military pilots are helping to train Chinese pilots. All three powers have warned their former employees, all of whom swore an oath to defend their respective country, that helping the People’s Liberation Army gain the upper hand over Western allies […]

It’s not often anyone rolls hundreds of thousands of pounds of tactical bomber at low level in front of 50,000 people, but that was the surprise patrons of the Edwards Air Force Base airshow were in for earlier this month. A B-1B did a slow roll over the centerline during its bombing display at the […]