The Aviationist Blog

This was the first time the open-source container-orchestration system has flown on an operational major weapon system in the Department of Defense. In what was the first time the system has flown on an operational [...]

The post The U.S. Air Force Has Tested Kubernetes On A U-2 Dragon Lady Spyplane appeared first on The Aviationist.

Boom XB-1 Is Technology Demonstrator/Testbed for New “Low Boom” SST (supersonic transport). The new Boom Supersonic XB-1 test aircraft was rolled out for the first time today, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020 at the company’s headquarters [...]

The post Look at This Beautiful Video of Today’s Rollout of the New Boom Supersonic XB-1 Demonstrator appeared first on The Aviationist.

Looks like the DB-110 Pod Is not Enough For the Polish Air Force. The Armament Inspectorate of the Polish Ministry of Defense announced a launch of a procurement procedure, on Oct. 6, 2020, aimed at [...]

The post Poland to Procure Synthetic Aperture Radar Pods for Its F-16s? appeared first on The Aviationist.

Former Director of The Fastest, Most Secretive Reconnaissance Program Lt. Col. Szczepanik Talks to The Aviationist. Only 86 pilots and 86 Reconnaissance Systems Operators (RSOs) in the world have flown the iconic Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird [...]

The post Up Close And Personal With The Blackbird: An Exclusive Interview with Former Director of Worldwide SR-71 Operations appeared first on The Aviationist.

The CC-295 Will Replace The CC-115 Buffalo And CC-130H Hercules Currently Used For SAR The Royal Canadian Air Force received on September 25 the new CC-295W Kingfisher, as the Airbus C295W is locally designated, at [...]

The post Canada Has Received The First CC-295 Kingfisher Search And Rescue Aircraft appeared first on The Aviationist.

Contributing factors to the loss were Helmet Mounted Display misalignment; pilot’s cognitive degradation due to fatigue and lack of systems knowledge on flight control logic. On Sept. 30, 2020, the U.S. Air Force released the [...]

The post Investigation Report Points To Landing Speed As Main Cause Of Loss Of F-35A At Eglin AFB Valued 176M USD appeared first on The Aviationist.

Obscure XV-5A Vertifan Was The “Mistake” That Preceded Tiltrotors Like Osprey. It was a gateway design to both the F-35B STOVL (Short Take-Off and Verical Landing) variant and the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor. Its performance was [...]

The post 54 Years Ago Today: The Fatal Crash of XV-5A Vertifan That Lead to The F-35B and V-22 Tiltrotor appeared first on The Aviationist.

Several spotters have noticed interesting weapon markings on some of the Buzzards “Vipers” deployed to the UK. Last week, the F-16s of the 31st Fighter Wing, from Aviano Air Base, Italy, have started returning home [...]

The post Let’s Have A Look At The GBU-39 SDB And APKWS Markings Sported By The F-16s Of The 510th FS “Buzzards” appeared first on The Aviationist.

This contract adds to the other two awarded to the company for training at Luke and Holloman Air Force Bases As we reported in the past, the U.S. Air Force is contracting the adversary training [...]

The post ATAC Selected To Provide Adversary Training At Eglin Air Force Base appeared first on The Aviationist.

The Drone, Called Sparrowhawk, Is A Demonstrator That Replicates Technologies Of The DARPA Gremlins Program. General Atomics (GA-ASI) recently announced the first captive carry test of the Sparrowhawk Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS). The test [...]

The post Let’s Talk About The First Captive Test Of First Air-Launched and Air-Retrievable Unmanned Aerial System appeared first on The Aviationist.

Over 65 WWII warbirds were gathered for the Arsenal of Democracy Flyover of Washington DC but the weather did not cooperate. After years of preparation, the 2020 Arsenal of Democracy Flyover was canceled due to [...]

The post A Behind The Scenes Look At The Preparation For Arsenal of Democracy Flyover Scrubbed Due To Weather appeared first on The Aviationist.

The episode happened after the crew had to divert because of adverse weather and the helicopter was parked at a remote airfield. An unusual incident happened on Sept. 16, 2020, when a polar bear damaged [...]

The post Canadian CH-149 Cormorant Helicopter Damaged By A Curious Polar Bear appeared first on The Aviationist.

The U.S. Air Force intelligence aircraft have been using fake Mode-S codes, but this doesn’t give any real operational advantage. It just fuels some crazy conspiracy theory. On Sept. 7, 2020, a USAF RC-135W Rivet [...]

The post Yes, U.S. RC-135s Have Used Bogus Hex Codes To Transmit A False Identity. But It’s Not To Fool China Or Other Enemies. appeared first on The Aviationist.

The New Aircraft Will Abandon The Classic Three-tone Livery Sported By Kuwait’s Legacy F/A-18Cs. One of the first F/A-18Es Super Hornet for the Kuwait Air Force has recently been photographed sporting its new low-visibility livery [...]

The post Kuwaiti F/A-18E Super Hornet Photographed In Its New Low-Visibility Livery appeared first on The Aviationist.

The jets of the 555th Fighter Squadron are based at Graf Ignatievo Air Base, Bulgaria, where they deployed for Thracian Viper 20. Six “Vipers” of the 31st Fighter Wing, from Aviano Air Base, Italy, have [...]

The post U.S. F-16s From Aviano AB Have Started Supporting NATO Enhanced Air Policing From Bulgaria appeared first on The Aviationist.

With a really thin margin of just 9,000 votes, Swiss citizens have approved the multi-billion procurement of new fighter jets to replace both the F-5 and F/A-18 jets in service today. The majority (50.2%) of [...]

The post Swiss Citizens Have Just Given The Go Ahead To The Purchase of New Fighter Jets For The Air Force appeared first on The Aviationist.

After Flying Multiple Missions From Kadena Air Base, Japan, the experimental ARTEMIS (Airborne Reconnaissance and Targeting Multi-Mission Intelligence System) Deployed to the Black Sea Region. The ARTEMIS, is the U.S. Army’s first ever Manned Aerial [...]

The post The U.S. Army’s First Ever Manned ISR ARTEMIS Jet Has Carried Out Missions Over Georgia And Abkhazia appeared first on The Aviationist.

A Magnetic Anomaly Detection Sensor Will Complement The Already Announced Sonobuoys To Detect Submarines. Icarus Aerospace announced last week the partnership with CAE Defence & Security to provide their Wasp-M, the fully militarized version of [...]

The post Icarus Aerospace Continues Development Of Anti-Submarine Warfare Capability For Their Wasp-M Aircraft appeared first on The Aviationist.

The aircraft has crashed in the Kharkiv region. An Antonov An-26 of the Ukrainian Air Force has crashed around 20.50LT on Sept. 25, 2020. The military aircraft came down about 1.2 km from the the [...]

The post Ukrainian Air Force Antonov An-26 Crashes in Eastern Ukraine. At Least 22 Killed in the Incident. appeared first on The Aviationist.

vASC2020 Conference Provided Interesting Details About The Current Situation Of The U.S. Bomber Force. As you may already know, this year’s edition of the Air Force Association Air, Space & Cyber Conference was held virtually [...]

The post Here Is The Status Of The U.S. Bomber Force Outlined By The vASC2020 Conference appeared first on The Aviationist.