First Mission for Spain's Ejercito del Aire A330
The flight will
transport 85 Ukrainian orphans to Spain. The children, who will travel under
the tutelage of their caregivers from the orphanage.
The aircraft used is the first of three A330 units acquired by Spain which are being converted to multi-role transport and supply aircraft at the Airbus facilities in Getafe.
This is one more of the humanitarian flights organized by the Ministry of Defense since the war in Ukraine began.
Canada to Buy 88 F-35 Fighter Jets From Lockheed Martin After Years of Delays
Canada announced plans Monday to buy 88 US-made F-35 stealth fighter jets to replace its aging flee of F-18s.
The new aircraft’s central role will be to patrol North American air space with the US Air Force under NORAD and it could also be tasked with helping to bolster NATO defenses in Europe, or other overseas missions.
Lockheed Martin beat out Saab’s Gripen, after Boeing’s Superhornet was excluded from the running, and an Airbus-led consortium and France’s Dassault Aviation withdrew their Typhoon and Rafale fighters from the competition.
Ottawa had earmarked 19 billion Canadian dollars ($15 billion) for the purchase six years ago. Negotiations with Lockheed Martin would now proceed to finalize the contract within the next seven months with delivery of the aircraft as early as 2025.
Canada spent two decades helping to develop the stealth fighter with the United States and its allies.
But when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau‘s Liberals swept to power in 2015 he scrapped three previous administrations’ plans to purchase the state-of-the-art F-35 to replace its aging F-18 fleet, calling it too expensive.
Prior to Monday, Canada was the only nation in the partnership not yet committed to buying the F-35s.
It follows Germany’s announcement mid-March to buy 35 F-35s as part of a multi-billion-euro push to modernize its armed forces in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Finland’s order of 64 stealth fighters in December after seeing a spike in incursions into its airspace by Russian jets in recent years.
Airbus said when it withdrew from the Canadian competition in 2019 that NORAD security requirements were too expensive, while sources told AFP that Dassault Aviation was unable to meet technical requirements tied to Canada’s membership in the Five Eyes intelligence sharing group of nations.
The Five Eyes group is comprised of Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand.
Ottawa had planned to buy 18 new Boeing Super Hornets as a stopgap while it relaunched the procurement competition, but that deal fell apart over a trade dispute.
Canada bought 18 used Australian F-18 jets to fill an air force interim capability gap. These were similar to its own F-18s, which were first deployed in 1983.
USAF wants to retire and scrap up to 33 F-22 Raptors
The Air Force plans to retire nearly three dozen of Tyndall Air Force
Base’s F-22 fighter jets in fiscal 2023, ending tentative plans to move them to
Virginia that have been on hold for more than three years.
The Raptors have been flying out of nearby
Eglin AFB in Florida since a hurricane destroyed Tyndall in October 2018.
Officials want to divest 33 of the
service’s oldest F-22s and use that money to instead research cutting-edge
combat jet designs under the “Next-Generation Air Dominance” program. If Congress
approves the idea, it would send all but three Block 20 Raptors to the
“boneyard” at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona, and shrink the overall
fleet from 186 to 153 fighters.
The Air Force’s remaining F-22s would be
redistributed across the Raptor squadrons, which include units at Joint Base
Langley-Eustis, Virginia; Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii; and Joint
Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, and Eglin.
Eglin has hosted flying operations for the
325th Fighter Wing since Hurricane Michael destroyed their previous home at
Tyndall Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle. That includes the Air Force’s
only F-22 training unit, the 43rd Fighter Squadron.
USAF wants to retire 150 Aircraft but add up to 24 F-15E
The Air Force is looking to get rid of 150 aircraft, including 21 Warthogs, and add 24 F-15 fighter jets with an eye toward the Pacific region, according to its proposed $169.5 billion budget for fiscal year 2023 released Monday.
The Air Force request rolled out Monday as part of the Pentagon’s proposed $773 billion fiscal year 2023 budget.
The Air Force budget adds $2.7 billion over the previous year in procurement, with about $1.4 billion earmarked for 24 F-15 EX fighter jets. In 2022, the service added 12.
The Air Force also projects divesting 21 A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jets, known as Warthogs, in this proposed budget, which will be backfilled by F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets.
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