As new military pilots begin their first training exercises, it is increasingly likely their aerial foes will be veterans flying commercially operated fighter aircraft.  
Three new or derivative weapons were unveiled at the MAKS show here last week by Tactical Missiles Corporation, all designed specifically to fit the internal weapon bays of the Sukhoi T-50 stealth fighter.
Has Lockheed Martin found the right mix of advanced design and conventional thinking with its Hybrid Wing Body airlifter concept? Wind-tunnel tests confirm its efficiency promise and a demonstrator is on the cards.
The Pentagon is planning to increase the number of UAV combat air patrols from 60 to 90 per day, according to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. That will happen in part by adding to the U.S. Army’s global use of the General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle. Government contractors will operate unarmed UAVs for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions“We don’t envision a time when they will need to be armed,” Carter says, adding that the fleet will be better managed.
The U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority has halted overland air displays by classic jet aircraft following the Aug. 22 crash of a privately owned Hawker Hunter at the Shoreham air show.
What if commercial pilots never had to learn to fly IFR? The distinction between instrument flight rules and visual flight rules (VFR) may go away in the not-too-distant future. What if the Black Hawk successor offered military pilots a 360-degree, all-weather view on a touch screen that could easily be reconfigured? These are the sort of things we might see in next-gen cockpits. Join Aviation Week editors Jim Asker, John Croft and Graham Warwick in peering into the future.
If a provocation led to unplanned violence between Japan and China, leaders may struggle to control nationalist pressure for escalation. Technical factors, especially the vulnerability of ISR systems, would also be destabilizing.
The money is part of Madrid’s broader purchase plan calling for a €171-million investment in medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial system technology through 2020, though the first UAS is not expected to be operational before 2017.
Japan probably has the third or fourth largest sigint establishment in the world, ranking behind the U.S. and Britain but possibly ahead of Russia and China, say Australian researchers.
This F-35A fired 181 rounds from its four-barrel, 25 millimeter Gatling gun embedded in its left wing during ground tests at Edwards AFB earlier this month.
Team developing V-280 Valor advanced tiltrotor for U.S. Army’s mid-2030s Future Vertical Lift rotorcraft is using a full-scale cockpit mock-up to define concepts for an advanced cockpit.
