Aviation News
For Lieutenant Colonel Mario C. Mendoza Jr., flying over northern Australia never loses its edge. As working group lead for the Philippine Air Force (PAF) contingent at Exercise Pitch Black, and an instructor pilot for the FA-50, Mendoza has spent the exercise navigating airspace far larger than anything he trains in back home.
The smell of chicken noodle soup drifts across a stretch of tarmac at RAAF Base Darwin, competing with the scent of jet fuel. It comes from a kitchen the Royal Thai Air Force brought with it from home, staffed by cooks who start work at 3 a.m. and finish well into the afternoon, feeding nearly a hundred people three meals a day, sometimes four. It is, by the account of the officer running the detachment, one of the more important pieces of equipment his unit deployed to Australia this year.
South Korea’s KF-21 Boramae fighter program has reached a turning point. Indonesia, the aircraft’s only co-development partner, has confirmed it is walking away from local production in favor of buying the jet directly from Seoul, closing out a decade-long industrial partnership even as Korea works to turn the KF-21 into its first fighter jet export success.
ROK Ministry of National Defense's public work is used according to Korea Open Government License (KOGL) (KOGL Type 1 or KOGL Type 1), via Wikimedia Commons
Continue reading “Indonesia finalizes KF-21 payment as Malaysia, UAE and Philippines study the jet”
According to a news report from the Nikkei, Japan, Britain and Italy are considering bringing Canada into their next-generation fighter jet program as an observer, a status that would give Ottawa access to confidential development data.
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Hunini, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Continue reading “GCAP eyes Canadian observer status while Australia and Singapore expressed interest”
A French military safety investigation has concluded that a brief, uncoordinated struggle for control of one of two Rafale fighter jets was central to a mid-air collision in August 2024 that killed two airmen near the town of Colombey-les-Belles in eastern France.
Graphic: BEA-É
Continue reading “French investigators detail cockpit confusion behind fatal Rafale mid-air collision”