The crew of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson suffered seven casualties on January 24th after a “landing mishap” involving a new F-35C Lightning II stealth fighter. The accident occurred during routine operations in the South China Sea, a region where tensions have often been high with American […]
Russian Air Force and Syrian Arab Air Force conducted their first joint air patrol on January 24th, with the former deploying Su-35 and Su-34 heavyweight fighters and the latter MiG-29s and MiG-23s for operations along the Golan Heights and the Euphrates River. The Russian Defence Ministry reported regarding the operations: […]
The Chengdu J-20 fifth generation stealth fighter is currently one of just two aircraft of its generation in production and fielded at squadron level strength, and has served in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force since March 2017. The fighter has continued to be modernised extensively since then, […]
Europe has long seen a concentration of some of the world’s most capable fighter aircraft as a frontier between the U.S. led Western Bloc and the Warsaw Pact. Although less of a priority for U.S deployments in the 21st century, due to Russia’s post-Soviet military decline and Washington’s greater focus […]
Entering service in the Russian Air Force from 2014, the Su-34 is widely considered the most capable strike fighter in service anywhere in the world. The aircraft was designed as a replacement for and successor to the highly successful Su-24M strike platform which was develop for the Soviet military and […]
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s YJ-12 cruise missile is considered one of the most capable anti-ship cruise missiles in the world, combining a high Mach 4 speed with a 400km range and sea skimming trajectory to pose a major threat to enemy surface vessels. Thought to have entered service around […]
The Russian Air Force has reportedly taken delivery of its first Su-30SM2 heavyweight fighters, which represent the first new Su-30 variant to enter service in over a decade and provide significant improvements over the prior Su-30SM design. Anticipated for close to a decade, the fighter integrates the same AL-41F-1S engine […]
Following the sharp deterioration in Russian-Ukrainian relations from 2014, after the overthrow of the government in Kiev led to the installation of a more overtly pro-Western government and low-level hostilities with its neighbour, questions have increasingly been raised regarding the ability of the Ukrainian Air Force to tackle modern Russian […]
In 2019 the Republic of China Air Force (RoCAF), the official name of Taiwan’s Air Force, became the largest foreign client for modernised ‘4+ generation’ variants of the American F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jet when a contract for 66 F-16 Block 70 fighters was signed for over $8.1 billion. These […]
The Su-34 heavyweight strike fighter first joined the Russian Air Force in 2014 after over 25 years of protracted development, and has since been ordered in larger numbers by the Russian Defence Ministry than any other combat aircraft with over 130 currently in service and dozens more scheduled for delivery. […]