The first Western fourth generation fighters the heavyweight F-14 Tomcat and F-15 Eagle entered service in 1974 and 1976 respectively the former in the U.S. Navy and the latter in the Air Force, with the two relied on to provide an elite air superiority capability until the first fifth generation
The U.S. Air Force is seeking to press through congressional resistance to its efforts to begin retiring F-22 Raptor fifth generation fighter aircraft in 2023, with 32 airframes or 17% of the fleet marked for removal from the fleet this year. Plans to retire the F-22s were first announced in March
Among a wide range of assets designed to delivery nuclear weapons which have seen intensive recent testing in North Korea, the Haeil-2 underwater drone saw its second round of testing at see commence from April 4-6, during which it simulated a 1000km journey at sea over 71 hours. The drone’s
The United States is continuing to deploy new F-35 fifth generation fighters to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, where they are replacing ageing F-15C/D Eagle aircraft from the previous generation which were kept on permeant deployment there for over four decades. The F-35As are being deployed from the
After Finland began to move towards formal accession to NATO Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu announced that a new army corps would be formed in Karelia and the region around St. Petersburg, adjacent to the Russian-Finnish border. The corps would be comprised primarily of assets from the
The formalisation of Finland’s accession to the NATO alliance on April 4 was within 72 hours followed by the announcement that the country had made a request to the Israeli Defence Ministry to provide the David’s Sling missile system, under a contract estimated at 316 million Euros which could be
On April 7 the Israeli Defence Ministry confirmed that it had received a request to acquire the David’s Sling missile system, which is widely considered the world’s most capable long range multirole air defence platform that is NATO compatible and is expected to revolutionise the country’s aerial
The Chengdu J-10 is today in production in greater numbers than any other fighter class in the world aside from the American F-35, and has over close to 20 years played a central role in the modernisation of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force. The aircraft has now been flying for
On April 5 the first images were published clearly showing the J-20 fifth generation fighter flight testing WS-15 next generation engines. The fighter was first seen flight testing the engine in January 2022, with multiple further sightings having been made since, although all images before April
On April 4 NATO diplomats handed over documents pertaining to Finland’s accession to the bloc to the United States, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken announcing that “with receipt of this document of accession, we can now declare that Finland is the 31st member of the North Atlantic treaty.”
