On November 22 the first F-16 Block 70/72 was unveiled by its manufacturer Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defence industrial firm, which has for decades held a duopoly on the American fighter market alongside Boeing which produces the F-15 and F-18. The aircraft is a notable improvement over
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force has inducted its tenth batch of J-16 heavyweight fighter jets into frontline service, with the first clear images of aircraft with Batch 10 construction numbers appearing in the final week of November – namely fighter no. 1013. The tenth batch appears to
On November 25 two Russian Air Force Tu-160 intercontinental range strategic bombers were reported to have been deployed for a 13 hour flight over international waters over the Barents and Norwegian Seas, with the Defence Ministry reporting: “Two Tu-160 long-range strategic bombers carried out a
On November 23 the first images of prototypes in production for Turkey’s TF-X fighter program were released, raising questions regarding the future of development and resurfacing longstanding concerns regarding its viability. Developed by Turkish Aerospace Industries, a firm with no experience in
As the United States and its Western allies sustain their massive material support for the Ukrainian Military, which since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian War in February has amounted to tens of billions of dollars, the possibility of equipping Ukraine with modern combat aircraft has
The Russian Defence Ministry has received a new batch of Su-30SM2 heavyweight fighters, following the delivery of the first ever unit in January, which is expected to furnish a new unit with some of the most capable combat jets in the fleet. The Su-30SM2 is an upgrade package for the Su-30SM, one
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force has begin to re-engine its J-10B fighter aircraft with indigenous WS-10B power plants, retiring their original Russian-supplied AL-31 engines long before their service lives expired. This follows confirmation in January that twin engine J-11B
The Su-30MKA heavyweight twin engine fighter today forms the backbone of the Algerian Air Force’s combat fleet, and since entering service in 2009 has provided the country with the leading fighter on the continent which it is widely considered to this day. The Su-30 was developed as a twin seat
On November 18 North Korea successfully test launched the Hwasong-17 intercontinental range ballistic missile (ICBM), which flew for approximately 1,000km with an extreme peak altitude of 6,100km. This follows a longstanding trend towards Korean missiles being launched on irregular trajectories to
Since the 1990s the Russian Air Force has relied overwhelmingly on heavyweight combat jets for all major roles, with all lightweight designs such as the third generation MiG-21BiS and MiG-23MLD retired shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union leaving only the MiG-29 fourth generation medium
