"The IAF will analyze the findings from the incident and will draw conclusions and recommendations for the safe return of the aircraft to operational duty," the IDF Spokesperson's Unit added.
The Kfir of the FAC will begin to be decommissioned next year. The aircrafts have more than 40 years on service and Colombia is the only active operator of the model, with a very high maintenance cost and spare parts are difficult to obtain.
Minister affirmed that the Rafale has a flight hour cost 30% cheaper than that of the current Kfir, and the is a cheaper acquisition than the F-16 Block 70.
Colombia is currently negotiating with Francethe terms of the purchase. The acquisition of a first batch of between three and five Rafale, is expected to arrive during 2023 and the complete fleet of 16 aircraft will be implemented over the next 10 years.
That the Rafale could start arriving in 2023 may be indicative that these units could come from the French Air and Space Force stocks, similar to what was offered to Greece and Croatia.
The milestone comes four years after the New Zealand Government entered into an agreement with the U.S. Navy for the P-8A.
Boeing Defence Australia will provide sustainment services for New Zealand’s.
New Zealand’s three remaining P-8 aircraft are all in advanced stages of production and will be delivered in 2023. The aircraft will replace New Zealand’s current fleet of six P-3K2 Orions and will be based at Royal New Zealand Air Force Base Ohakea.
A top delegation of the Argentine Air Force is reportedly in Denmark to evaluate second-hand F-16s. The South American nation appears to have postponed the technical evaluation of India’s Tejas Light combat aircraft (LCA).
Along with the Danish alternative, Argentina is also considering the Chinese-built JF-17 Thunder and India’s Hindustan Aeronautic Limited (HAL) Tejas aircraft.
The delegation consisted of experts and technicians that went to the European nation to assess the offered aircraft.
Technical teams and experts are currently researching and reviewing bids from China, India, and Denmark. The F-16 A/B MLU aircraft is proposed to Argentina under the joint efforts of Copenhagen and Washington.
Previously, there were speculations that Argentina had finalized the Chinese JF-17 for its Air Force during the pandemic.
Reports claimed that China had sent a few JF-17 jets to Argentina for evaluation. In response to this preemptive news, the United States reportedly pressured Argentina to abandon the deal.
China would have gained a foothold in America’s backyard had the deal been approved. Since then, it appears Washington has been attempting to sell the Argentine Air Force used Danish fighter jets.
Meanwhile, India has also aggressively promoted its Tejas light combat aircraft to the South American nation. According to sources familiar with the subject, the top defense authorities from Argentina frequently brought their best pilots along when they visited HAL facilities in India to inspect the LCA Tejas.
Buenos Aires purportedly asked for another round to test the homegrown fighter plane, but HAL postponed it until sometime in 2023. An Argentine mission led by the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chief of Argentina, General Juan Paleo, visited India’s DefExpo 2022.
Previously, a high-level delegation from HAL also visited Argentina, demonstrating India’s effort and Argentina’s interest.
Buenos Aires has been struggling to modernize its air force. Following the Falklands War, the United Kingdom put a complete embargo on exports of defense hardware to Argentina.
Three former British military Sea Kings will be provided to Ukraine. Apparently first of them has already arrived.
The announcement was made by UK Defense Secretary from Oslo, where he was meeting with officials from allied countries to discuss further support to Ukraine.
In the last six weeks, Ukrainian crews were trained in the UK to fly and maintain the aircraft - to provide search and rescue capabilities.
The Sea King was previously used by both the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, with the last craft being retired by the Navy in 2018.
Few countries have sent manned aircraft to Ukraine since the start of the conflict, and requests by its government for Western nations to send fighter jets so far remain unanswered.
The RS-28 Sarmat is a Russian silo-based missile system armed with a heavy liquid-propellant orbital intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
The General Director of the Makeyev State Missile Center, Vladimir Degtyar, said in an interview recently that the serial production of the latest R-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile has started in Russia.
According to Degtyar, the R-28 Sarmat missile will boost the Russian military’s combat capability over the next 40 to 50 years to ensure the nation’s security. He said this ICBM would become the primary means of the nuclear deterrent and a guarantee of preserving peace in the current geopolitical environment.
This announcement comes at a time when Russia is allegedly reeling through difficult times due to a shortage of missiles in its arsenal. With Ukraine having retaken some of the territories that Moscow occupied in the initial weeks of the operations, there’s a significant need to hold on to other regions in the south.
Last week, the state media reported that Russia had successfully tested the R-28 ICBM silo.
“The flight tests of the Sarmat missile system have been successfully carried out. The Yars road-mobile missile system has also proven its capabilities by launches at the Plesetsk state testing spaceport”, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
This shows the alacrity with which Russia has developed, tested, and manufactured the monster missile.
The first test of Sarmat was conducted in April 2022, and a month later, in May, the former Roscosmos chairman Dmitry Rogozin, a close aide of Russian President Vladimir Putin, stated that around 48 Satan-2 missiles were in “mass production” and would soon go into combat service.
“Sarmat” (RS-28) will replace “Voevoda” RS- 20V, the most powerful strategic missile in existence. The development of RS-28 Sarmat was started more than a decade ago, in 2011.
The new missile will be able to penetrate enemy missile defense systems and have the ability to travel through both the North and South Poles to deliver multiple reentry vehicles to any location on Earth.
The Sarmat missile system will join the Strategic Missile Forces once the test program is completed. The head missile regiment in the Uzhur missile formation in the Krasnoyarsk Territory is already getting ready to be rearmed with this new missile system.
The induction of this missile in service would further create anxieties in the West about Russian nuclear fear-mongering.
Earlier this year, Russian state television had simulated a nuclear attack on three European capitals, including Paris, Berlin, and London, stating that the Sarmat ICBM with a nuclear warhead would destroy these three cities in less than 200 seconds.
As per information made public during the Army-2019 exhibition, the Sarmat IICBM’srange is 18,000 kilometers, and the launch weight is more than 200 tons, of which 178 tons is fuel. The missile measures 3 meters in diameter and 35.5 meters in length overall.
British aerospace manufacturer BAE Systems will help Mitsubishi Heavy Industries develop the F-X fighter, while Rolls-Royce will assist IHI Corporation with developing the XF9 engine for the aircraft. According to Asahi, Avio Aero from Italy will also be involved in the development of the engine.
The F-X fighter is set to be operational by 2035, when the F-2 will begin to be phased out.
aerotime
France, Germany and Spain have reached agreement over starting the next phase of the development of a new fighter jet dubbed FCAS, Europe's largest defence project at an estimated cost of more than 100 billion euros.
The three countries and their respective industries had struck a deal.
A French official also confirmed that the industries, seen as the main stumbling blocks on the way to an agreement recently, had found a deal to move to the next phase of the warplane project.
Previously, sources had said that the next development phase for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) is expected to cost some 3.5 billion euros ($3.63 billion), to be shared equally by the three countries.
France's Dassault, Airbus and Indra - the latter two representing Germany and Spain, respectively - are involved in the scheme to start replacing French Rafale and German and Spanish Eurofighters from 2040.
French President Emmanuel Macron and then German Chancellor Angela Merkel first announced plans in July 2017 for FCAS, which will include a fighter jet and a range of associated weapons, including drones.
Lately, the project - originally meant to unify Europeans after the migration crisis and Britain's decision to leave the European Union - has been a source of tension between the two countries.
Last month, Macron cancelled a joint Franco-German ministerial meeting over disagreements with Berlin on a wide range of issues including defence and energy projects.
Both sides had been struggling for more than a year to agree the next stage of FCAS's development, although the French and German government broadly agreed on the project.
Some sources saw the blame lying with Dassault, as the company had refused to budge in a long-running row over intellectual property rights.
Other sources blamed Airbus for pushing for a bigger workshare of the Dassault-led project, insisting it should be given "equal footing" with the French company.
Indonesian Air Force planned purchase of Boeing Indonesia’s planned purchase of F-15ID fighter jets is in advanced stages and awaiting final sign-off from the government, the Indonesia’s defense minister said on Monday. Speaking after meeting his U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin in Jakarta, Prabowo Subianto said that Boeing had agreed to the financial offer proposed and he was confident the package was affordable. In February, the U.S. State Department approved the potential sale of Boeing F-15ID aircraft and related equipment to Indonesia in a deal valued at up to US$13.9 billion. Indonesia has been seeking to overhaul its ageing air fleet for some time, which currently includes U.S.-made F-16 and Russian Sukhoi Su-27 and Su-30 jets.
The Government of Indonesia has requested to buy up to 36 F-15ID aircrafts; 87 F110-GE-129 or F100-PW-229 engines; 45 AN/APG-82(v)1 AESA Radars; 45 AN/ALQ-250 Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability Systems (EPAWSS); 48 Advanced Display Core Processor (ADCP) II digital computers; 80 Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing Systems (JHMCS); 92 Embedded Global Positioning Systems (GPS)/Inertial Navigation System (EGI) security devices; 40 AN/AAQ-13 LANTIRN navigation pods; 40 AN/AAQ-33 Sniper Advanced Targeting Pods (ATP); 156 LAU-128 launchers; and 40 M61A “Vulcan” gun systems. Also included are Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation (ACMI) (P5 CTS); MS-110 Recce Pods; AN/ASG-34 Infrared Search and Track International; AN/ALE-47 counter-measures dispenser; AN/PYQ Simple Key Loaders; Night Vision Goggles (NVG) and support equipment and spares.
Details were given on the requirements established by the Argentine Air Force (FAA) and the models studied for its future supersonic multi-role fighter in a September report provided by the Chief of Cabinet of Ministers to the Argentine Congress.
Deputies of PRO (opposition party to the current Government) made the following diagnosis before asking questions to the Chief of Cabinet about the future incorporation of a supersonic fighter for the Argentine Air Force (FAA):
«At present, only a handful of A-4AR aircraft are in limited operational conditions. The aforementioned complement is not even a deterrent, much less sufficient to guarantee the integrity of the vast national territory.
Not only are the current capabilities patently insufficient, but they have also become dangerous for aviators, which could result in invaluable human losses of highly qualified military personnel. The situation of the equipment and its capabilities is serious and dangerous, affects the fundamental function of the force and allows the infringement of national sovereignty.»
The requirements established by FAA were:
The models under evaluation are the following:
The bid submitted for the JF-17 weapon system complies with all the requirements established by the FAA and includes according to the information submitted by the Argentine Ministry of Defense
The JF-17 Thunder is a single-engine multi-role combat aircraft developed jointly by the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex and the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation of China. The builders say that the JF-17 can be used for multiple roles, including interception, ground attack, anti-ship, and aerial reconnaissance.
58% of the JF-17 airframe, including its front fuselage, wings, and vertical stabiliser, is produced in Pakistan, whereas 42% is produced in China, with the final assembly taking place in Pakistan.
The JF-17 Block III is the latest version of this type with a new electronically scanned radar as well as advanced electronics.
Second-hand Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets such as those offered by the US so far, could not meet the requirements (they lack AESA radar and they can’t be refueled by FAA KC-130H aircraft).
Meanwhile the US will do everything possible to prevent Argentina from buying Chinese or Russian defense material, so as not to allow the establishment of military relations with its geopolitical opponents in the region.
As already reported, the FAA has been searching for a new supersonic fighter aircraft since when the Dassault Mirage III interceptor fleet was retired in 2015.
It looks like the UK is the biggest hurdle: in the last years in fact Argentina tried to purchase JAS-39 Gripen fighters from Sweden and KAI FA-50 Fighting Eagle jets from South Korea but since these aircraft use British equipment such as ejection seats built by Martin Baker, the UK blocked both the options.
Other potential solutions that have been reported included surplus Spanish Mirage F1s and Tranche 1 Eurofighter Typhoons, Leonardo M-346FA/FTs, CAC J-10s, and Aero L-159s. Even the Sukhoi Su-24 ‘Fencer’.
Thailand has taken delivery of its first Textron Aviation T-6C Texan II turboprop trainers, with the Southeast Asian nation planning to use them for training and as light-armed aircraft.
Two T-6Cs arrived at the Royal Thai Air Force or RTAF base Kamphaeng Saen northeast of the Thai capital Bangkok, with a welcoming ceremony. Thailand ordered 12 T-6Cs under a $162 million contract in 2020. They’ll replace Pilatus PC-9 turboprop trainers that equip one of three squadrons with the RTAF’s flying training school at Kamphaeng Saen.
