Defense

Global Hawk may be the U.S. Air Force’s fallback option for ground surveillance if the service decides against a replacement for J-Stars.

The U.S. Navy could decide who will develop the world’s first navalized unmanned aerial refueling tanker by next summer, having issued a request for proposals.

The U.S. State Department has OK'd a potential Foreign Military Sale of an estimated $2.4 billion program to upgrade 123 Greek F-16s to the Lockheed Martin Block V configuration.

Mark Cherry, Aurora Flight Sciences' president and COO, is joining Boeing as leader of the Phantom Works advanced technology organization.

The U.S. Air Force is steadily ramping up production of precision-guided weapons.

A local partner is likely to be heavily involved in a proposed upgrade of half of the Lynx helicopters in service with the Republic of Korea Navy.

Spain will bury another combat pilot after Lt. Fernando Pérez Serrano died in a Spanish Air Force EF-18 Hornet crash at Torrejón Air Base.

September was a busy month at several high-profile companies, and it could be a good indication of what is to come for the industry as many of them adjust to market conditions.

Small unmanned aircraft set new standards for flight endurance as developers push the limits of aerodynamics and propulsion.

Despite the urgency of the replacement effort, the T-X contract award is now delayed until after the new year, the U.S. Air Force says.

BAE Systems says it has a “robust roadmap” for its distributed aperture semi-active laser seeker (Dasals) technology beyond the widely used Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System guided rocket.

The first flight of NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket, slated to put an unmanned Orion capsule into orbit around the Moon for Exploration Mission 1, is now targeted for launch in late 2019.

The U.S. Army plans to instrument a tandem-rotor Dragonfly Pictures DP-14 to assess whether a UAV can be built to support human life while airborne.

The U.S. Navy says its fighter squadrons have been fully equipped with the service’s first-ever networked-enabled air-to-ground glide bomb, the Raytheon AGM-154C-1 Joint Standoff Weapon.

Russia’s automated Progress MS-07 successfully docked with the six-person International Space Station early Oct. 16.

Transport Canada has confirmed that a SkyJet Beechcraft King Air A100 collided with a drone on Oct. 12 while on approach to Quebec City’s Jean Lesage International Airport.

Aerovel’s Flexrotor long-endurance vertical-takeoff-and-landing unmanned aircraft has completed a 32-hr., 8-min. flight, landing with more than 3 hr. worth of fuel remaining.

Florida is to establish a biofuel supply chain based around brassica carinata, a non-edible plant that has already been used to produce 100% bio-derived jet fuel.

Scaled flies Model 401; Yamaha goes multicopter; Flirtey flies defibrillators; Spike tests supersonic design; DARPA taps Aerojet for TBCC; Dubai’s firefighting UAV.

MBDA’s missile programs are benefiting from a joint research initiative that involves participants from industry and academe.

Latvia ordered three of the long-range air surveillance radars in 2015, and the first two are now fully built.

The Indonesian Navy’s chief of staff, Adm. Ade Supandi, accepted delivery of the three aircraft at a ceremony at the Juanda naval airbase in Surabaya on Oct. 13.

About 30 gigabytes of sensitive data were stolen from a small Australian defense contractor, including details on Lockheed Martin’s F-35 and C-130 transport aircraft, and Boeing’s P-8 and Joint Direct Attack Munition smart bomb.

Mysterious new issues are causing British aerospace and structures manufacturer GKN to warn about financial shortcomings at its Aerospace and automotive-focused Driveline business units.

Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia have launched the air surveillance operations to complement existing maritime patrols in an area that overlaps the territorial waters of each country.