News Archive

Pakistan has sent six of its F-16 fighters to Konya Air Base, Turkey to participate in a joint military exercise codenamed "Anatolian Eagle" which is held from 27 September untill 08 October.
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Two Dutch F-16 fighters from Leeuwarden AB, the Netherlands have escorted British Airways flight BA 983. Earlier this week two F-16s from the Belgian Air Force intercepted a Russian airliner over French airspace....

Earlier this month the Pratt & Whitney led F135 System Development and Demonstration (SDD) team completed the program's 1,000 test hour. This testing milestone represents the cumulative hours of F135 SDD Testing and includes both the Conventional Take-Off and Landing (CTOL/CV) engine tests, as well as the Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) system test runs....

USAF F-16s are participating in a joint strategic air exercise codenamed "Salitre". The exercise is held in Chile and involves more thant eighty aircrafts from Argentina, Brazil, Chile and the USA and started last weekend....

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program is sponsoring the development of advanced hearing protection technologies designed to prevent noise-induced hearing loss for Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force Joint Strike Fighter maintenance personnel....

Air Force officals are drafting plans to retire as many as half of the approximately 1,200 F-16s in use by the US. It's too early to speculate, but Hill AFB is virtually a parking lot of aging F-16 that would be among the first to go....

The Theatre Airborne Reconnaissance System (TARS) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) successfully performed, for the first time, aboard an operational F-16 at Edwards Air Force Base in California. TARS SAR is the first all weather, day and night, precision radar capability developed for tactical aircraft....

The Republic of China Air Force (RoCAF) took delivery this month of 200 AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles. ...

Raytheon Company's unitary/penetration variant of Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW-C) has completed operational test (OT) firings with nine of 10 shots successful against a wide range of targets. JSOW-C was developed by a team that includes the U.S. Navy, Raytheon, BAE Systems and Thales Missile Electronics....

The 119th Fighter Wing/178th Fighter Squadron was awarded the 2004 General John J. Pesch Flight Safety Trophy for flying 65,171 accident-free hours on the F-16. ...

The US is considering to sell Israel 500 BLU-109 "Bunker Buster" warheads, as part of a $319 million package of air-launched bombs. The weapons would be used on Israel's F-16 and F-15 fleet....

Environmental Tectonics Corporation PZL Aerospace Industries in Poland announced it landed a $6.6 million contract from L-3 Communications, under which ETC-PZL will assemble, test and deliver several L-3-designed F-16 simulators to the Polish Air Force....

The chief of the Pakistan Air Force, Air Chief Marshal Kaleem Saadat, stated that the US Government will be looking into selling F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan after the US elections in November. ...

It takes less than 72 hours to convert a red, white and blue Thunderbird F-16 back to combat status. But what about taking a combat-ready aircraft and making it "Thunder-ready?"...

Seven F-16s departed from Andrews AFB yesterday enroute to Lask airbase in Poland as Trend 81-87. They are from the 182nd FS "Lonestar Gunfighters" and are taking part in a local air defense exercise called Sentry White Falcon....

Engineers have removed more than 2,700 pounds (1,225 kilograms) of unwanted estimated weight from the short-takeoff/vertical-landing (STOVL) version of the F-35 JointStrike Fighter, while increasing propulsion efficiency and reducing drag. ...

Jane's Defense announced last Friday that the Republic of China (Taiwan) pulls out of the F-16 training program in a bid to cut costs. Taiwan is however unlikely to scrap its US-based training program for its F-16 pilots for the sake of cutting costs, the Air Force General Headquarters (AFGH) said yesterday....

Six F-16C/D jets from the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) left Singapore today for an exercise in France codenamed Exercise Western Arc. The bilateral exercise runs from September 20 to October 4 and will take place at Dijon Air Base in eastern France. ...

September 11th was a special day for members of the 122nd Fighter Wing, who returned to Fort Wayne, Indiana after being stationed in Qatar for over a month....

As mentioned in earlier news: Dutch to send six F-16s to Afghanistan for elections, Radio Netherlands has reported that some 185 Dutch troops, six F-16 fighter jets and a KDC-10 tanker plane departed on Wednesday and Thursday. ...

Turkey is currently hosting NATO's live-flying exercise NATO Air Meet 04. It is taking place from 04 untill 16 September 2004, with live flying between 06-10 and 13-16 September 2004. ...

For the second consecutive year 31 'Tiger' Squadron was able to capture the famous "Silver Tiger Award". This time however, it was a ex-aequo with the German 321 Squadron....

The F-16 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile, or HARM, Targeting System test team here recently completed an early contractor test and evaluation on a new pod that will potentially expand the Fighting Falcon's warfighting capabilities....

The United Arab Emirates prepare to complete new facilities for its F-16E/F Desert Falcon. The first batch of the 80 F-16s on order is scheduled to arrive in the UAE by the end of 2004. ...

Several dozen military planes from Florida bases are being flown to Texas to avoid Hurricane Frances. The Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth will be the interim home for the planes until the hurricane passes....

BAE Systems North America recently signed Memorandums of Agreement (MOA) for work-share partnerships with Norway, The Netherlands, Italy, and Australia for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program. ...

The first two operational F-16 Block 60's landed today at the Tucson ANG, where pilots of the United Arab Emirates will start training with the 162nd Fighter Wing after the initial acceptance inspection....

The Pratt & Whitney (P&W) led F135 Propulsion System Team has delivered and begun testing on its second F135 Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) Propulsion System, engine number FX643. Later this month P&W also anticipates the resumption of testing on FX641, the 1st STOVL configured F135 Propulsion
System....