2020s

Govt may send PAC-3s to Okinawa / SDF readying for launch of DPRK rocket The Yomiuri Shimbun The government is considering a plan to deploy Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) missiles in Okinawa Prefecture for the possible interception of a rocket that North Korea will launch next month...

Congress passed the FAA bill. http://www.mobile-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=82075 "The FAA is also required under the bill to provide military, commercial and privately-owned drones with expanded access to U.S. airspace currently reserved for manned aircraft by Sept. 30, 2015. That...

Debt-riddled Japan relaxes decades-old arms exports ban Source: http://news.yahoo.com/debt-riddled-japan-relaxes-decades-old-arms-exports-090832091.html TOKYO (Reuters) - Debt-riddled Japan Tuesday relaxed its self-imposed decades-old ban on military equipment exports in a move that will open...

Not 100% sure but with a MAD-boom, a weapons-bay and a large serach radar ... I would say that's the long rumoured Y-8GX-6 ASW. Deino

Yes, I know I'm easily exciteable. Yes, the history of aviation is littered with examples of "personal flight machines" which either didn't work, would've exceeded anything a middle class clientele can sustain or in any case couldn't be safely trusted in the hands of every Tom, Dick and Harry...

The Shenyang 601 Institute has been working for some years now on what might be a competition for Chengdu's J-20. Here's a handful of pics( sorry, can't remember the site, I think it was a Pakistani defence forum) of a model strongly resembling the blurred windtunnel model from Huitong's site...

At present it looks unlikely if the Army will need a Challenger 2 replacement for the foreseeable future. I got into hot water for suggesting that when and if we ever did, we should take a leaf out of the Australian or Canadian book and buy off the shelf. What options are out there? What would...

Thanks to Clark Lindsey for posting a link to this FAA document: Draft Environmental Assessment for Issuing an Experimental Permit to SpaceX for Operation of the Grasshopper Vehicle at the McGregor Test Site, Texas - September 2011 and for pulling out the following extracts:

Juliet Marine Systems, Inc.; issued August 10, 2011 PORTSMOUTH, N.H. --- Juliet Marine Systems, Inc. (JMS) announced today that the US Navy/USPTO have removed Secrecy Orders previously applied to GHOST. For the first time, Juliet Marine is able to release photographs of GHOST, the first...

Raytheon Systems Company, Elta Division of Israeli Aircraft Industries, and Airbus Industries A130-based submission for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Project Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEW&C) system. The team also included Hawker de Havilland, Honeywell...

Joe Baugher's website mentions a batch of four PZL M-38 Bryza aircraft that are used by the US Special Ops Command. Does anyone have any info about these, even possibly pictures? Here is what the M-38 looks like in Polish guise...

https://actuv.darpa.mil/ From the site : DARPA’s Anti-Submarine Warfare game goes live April 04, 2011 Can you best an enemy submarine commander so he can’t escape into the ocean depths? If you think you can, you are invited to put yourself into the virtual driver’s seat of one of several...

Boeing's 747-8 Intercontinental making its first flight today (3/20/2011). This is Boeing's largest ever airliner. This image is of a high-speed taxi test on 3/18/2011. I'll post flight photos when they are available. -SP

Massive rocket base to be built The world's largest design, production and testing base for rockets is being built in Tianjin, Liang Xiaohong, deputy head of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, said Thursday. The first phase of the rocket industrial base in Tianjin's Binhai New Area...

SecDef Gates and the MC Commandant (some say under orders) recommended in budget hearings last month that the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) program be cancelled in favor of a cheaper alternative. That may not be the end of the story as General Dynamics is lobbying hard that it would...

The recent post on Bauhaus Luftfahrt led me to this brief description of a VTOL aircraft using Voith-Schneider propellers and the attached image on their web site. This was all news to me, so I was also pleased to find this great interactive demo of how a Voith-Schneider propeller actually...

Cutaway drawing of DCNS Barracuda-class nuclear-powered attack submarine. The first submarine will be named Suffren, and will be followed by the Duguay-Trouin, Dupetit-Thouars, Duquesne, Tourville and De Grasse, the build order of these five following submarines being subject to change. Source...

DCNS Gowind sales brochure from Euronaval 2008. Source: (link removed, hijacked in the meantime)

There was some rumbling recently about a new "carrier killer" ship concept from Taiwan, supposed leaked recently, though it isn't a full up project yet from what I understand. Visually similar to the chinese wave piercing catamaran that is operating now.

Pentagon Eyes More Than $800 Million for New Nuclear Cruise Missile Tuesday, March 9, 2010 By Elaine M. Grossman WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Air Force plans to spend more than $800 million to build a new nuclear-armed cruise missile for its bomber aircraft, according to little-noticed details...