Year-end revelations of two new Chinese combat aircraft designs, the Chengdu J-36 and the Shenyang J-XX, should have put an end to the idea that China’s aerospace and defense industry just copies the West. Yet …
Articles by: "Bill Sweetman"
Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group’s J-36 scooped up most of the publicity around China’s late-December revelations, but a second combat type, one from Shenyang Aircraft and referred to for now as J-XX, was revealed at the …
The speed, agility, range and stealth of an individual aircraft type are still important, but they’re no longer the whole story of air combat. Advances in sensing, processing and communications are changing military operations. The …
Originally published on 21 August 2024. BAE Systems and its Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) partners pulled off a coup of technology theatre at the Farnborough air show in July, unveiling a new design for …
China’s aircraft industry celebrated Mao Zedong’s birthday in style, unveiling three aircraft developments that will comprise an air warfare family of systems for the 2030s and beyond. One, from Shenyang, looks like a demonstrator for …
Supposedly, something big happened in the defence world on 12 December. Upstart startup Anduril announced a joint venture with Archer Aviation, one of the leading companies in the industry for making electric vertical take-off and …
Elon Musk wants to cancel the F-35, get rid of manned combat aircraft generally and rely more on drones. It was no surprise, even without Musk’s comments along those lines, that the US Air Force …
‘Listening to new options’, according to a senior civilian advisor, is a key piece of the US Air Force process of force redesign. One of those options is using the fighter-like drones that will come …
The Resolute Force Pacific (Reforpac) exercise will be the largest US Air Force non-combat deployment in many years, with more than 300 aircraft involved. The two-week exercise in mid-2025 will coincide with the multinational, biennial, …
Boeing is one of the Pentagon’s biggest contractors and therefore a heavyweight supplier for US allies. So its alarming financial condition is much more than investment news. The company has got itself into loss-making defence …
Some experts on air power will tell you that Ukraine is not the best place to learn lessons. Neither side in Ukraine enjoys air superiority, retired Lieutenant General David Deptula of the Air Force Association’s …
On October 1, before Iran launched more than 180 missiles against Israel, an X user called @MossadIL posted a video of the Damavand power station. It’s a 2.9 GW combined-cycle natural-gas plant that is the …