Military Aviation

Today, Embraer began construction of a major addition to its Melbourne Airport, Florida campus-a 236,000-square-foot assembly complex for its Legacy 450 and 500 aircraft. It will consist of four new buildings: an assembly hangar, paint facility, completion center and delivery center. The new construction, expected to be completed in 2016, will more than double the […]

AVweb’s weekly search of the news in the world of aviation turned up a new exhibit exploring the future of space travel, a major award for Civil Air Patrol, a partnership to support the Unmanned Aircraft System Community and approval of a new flight simulator for the Socata TBM-series aircraft. Space Center Houston’s newest exhibit, […]

Last week, when I was being shown around Embraer’s new U.S.-assembled A-29 Super Tucano with a group of journalists, the first thing that caught my eye was a big covered something sticking out of each wing. In an age of remote control drones and smart bombs, that couldn’t possibly be a machine gun, could it? […]

Brazilian aircraft giant Embraer and its U.S. partner, Sierra Nevada Corp., rolled out the first the A-29 Super Tucano for the U.S. Air Force in Jacksonville, Florida, on Thursday. (See the video here.) The aircraft is the first of 20 purchased by the Air Force for deployment in Afghanistan where they will serve as trainers […]

The oft-maligned but remarkably capable Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor entered combat for the first time this week when an undisclosed number were used in airstrikes against Islamic State strongholds and facilities in Syria. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, the aircraft dropped GPS-guided bombs on an array of targets, including a building […]

In response to what was becoming a stalemate over an airman who was trying to reenlist, the U.S. Air Force has directed its support offices to allow both enlisted members and officers to omit the words “So help me God” from oaths for enlistment and officer appointments if an airman chooses. The change became effective […]

In an ironic turn, nearly 80 years after Stalin derided the Pope of the Catholic Church by asking how many divisions he had, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, now owns one of the most advanced combat jets in the world. After giving workers at a Sukhoi Company plant icons he had […]

Two U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets collided over the Western Pacific Friday, resulting in the loss of both jets-one pilot has been rescued. A search is underway for the other pilot. A cruiser, destroyer and helicopters are currently conducting the search for the missing pilot. The aircraft were operating off the carrier USS Carl Vinson, which […]

A Chinese Su-27 fighter made several “dangerous” and “unprofessional” passes at a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon this week-coming as close as an estimated 20 feet at one point-in what the White House calleda “deeply concerning provocation.” The incident, which is reportedly in violation of international law, occurred Tuesday in international airspace in the South China […]

The Federal Aviation Administration today issued a new NOTAM restricting U.S. operators from flying in the airspace above Iraq due to what it described as “the hazardous situation created by the armed conflict.” The new NOTAM supersedes a previous one that prohibited U.S. operators from flying below 20,000 feet over Iraq. The NOTAM states that […]