This is a very comprehensive flight test review of the Rafale. FLIGHT TEST: Dassault Rafale – Rampant Rafale.

The U.S. Air Force has a morale problem with its combat pilots. The issue is lack of action for the pilots. That, plus the increased use of unmanned aircraft, and the very real prospect that the age of the manned combat aircraft may be coming to an end. http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmoral/articles/20091102.aspx

The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) recently demonstrated autonomous operations by multiple “swarms” of unmanned air and ground vehicles, unattended ground sensors, video cameras and other devices linked together in an intelligent network powered by EdgeFrontier platform technologies from Augusta Systems, Inc. via NAVAIR And Augusta Demo Operations Of Multiple Swarms Of UAVs And Read more about US Navy Swarm UAVs[…]

DTIC Online Access Controlled is the central facility for the acquisition, storage, retrieval and dissemination of scientific and technical information supporting the Research and Engineering needs of the Department of Defense. Maintained by the Defense Technical Information Center DTIC, a recognized leader in information and knowledge management. This site provides access to DTIC’s collections, online Read more about DTIC[…]

This thing was proposed from the outset, but I have no idea what happened to it. Now finally they’ve got it going, and they’re claiming the new nozzles add 7% thrust and reduce fuel consumption by 5%. VIDEO: Eurojet proposes thrust-vectoring upgrade for Typhoon.

A sad sad day indeed – pilots who will never fly in an actual plane, just remotely control a drone, that they will likely never see either. AF Class of 2009: Pilots Who Won’t Fly.

Apparently the USSR actually went and built a doomsday machine – something that would launch command missles which would transmit coordinates to other ICBMs in the event that the Soviet Union was destroyed. The system, called ‘Perimiter’ and known as ‘Dead Hand’ basically ran through some checks and then delegated launch authority to whoever it Read more about Soviet Doomsday Machine[…]

The Dutch ministry of defence has apparently known since 2005 that the budget reserved for the JSF buy (to replace the KLu F-16 fleet) was in nowhere near enough for the planned 85 F-35s they needed. The Dutch MOD has answered parliamentary questions about this with the statement that they expected a budget increase and Read more about Dutch JSF buy based on unreal figures[…]

And continuing on with the US military madness, the alternate Rolls Royce power source for the F-35 is to stop receiving funding from. This is a huge slap in the face to the UK. US Senate axes F-35 alternate engine -23/07/2009-Washington DC-Flightglobal.com.

The US has just gone and done something I really can’t see the point of besides politics: they’ve gone and chopped their air dominance fighter after a production run of under 200 aircraft. Instead they want to lay their eggs in the F-35 JSF basket – which performs poorly against the current Australian F-18s and Read more about F-22 chopped by US Senate[…]

The Moray Eel Hunter is a drone that seeks out single swimmers closing in stealthily on your coast at 8 kts. Once it finds you it lights up, makes noise, sends signals and swims around you. So how long before it gets armed?

Who’d have thought it? Pictures of the MiG factory online for all to see!

This is like a taser without wires. It has a maximum range of 27m.

How to shame your WWII veterans: don’t attend the D-day anniversary, or fund the 500 remaining troops the trip to attend. The UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, won’t be attending and claims sending the vets there will be too expensive. There will be no official recognition from London, even though the US, French and even Read more about UK won’t remember D-Day[…]

This is a huge list of the Army Field Manuals. From how to point a gun, to how to run an infantry brigade.

Mounting the ipod on the rifle and then adding the external ballistics calculator app Bullet Flight, allows you to set bullet profiles and enter environment information.

The Royal Navy has only lauchend it’s conversion to Windows for Warships a month ago or so, and allready they’re infected by virusses! Not that it would have been any different if it had been OS X for warships (yes, macheads, you do in fact get virusses too) but still… who didn’t see that coming?!

The UN Security Council has passed a resolution permitting member countries to enter the territorial waters of Somalia to fight piracy.

The missile shield will be upgraded by multiple kill vehicles being carried up by as a single payload in a rocket. There are two competing tenders: Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Lockheed guides the mini rockets from a central command unit, Raytheon’s system has each of the warheads acting as a seeker / controller in theory, Read more about US Missle Sheild Upgrade[…]

Yup, the USA military is definitely past it’s prime – first the grounding of the entire F-15 fleet, then the ongoing A-10 grounding, the ancient tankers which have no replacement coming and now the F/A-18s are being grounded and inspected for structural faults found in many earlier models around the aerolon hinges. These kind of Read more about And now: the F/A-18 Hornets[…]