Author: Michael

Summary and Key Points: Russia’s MiG 1.44 stealth fighter prototype flew for the first time on February 29, 2000 from the Gromov Flight Research Institute at Zhukovsky near Moscow — and effectively disappeared after just two test flights totaling less than 40 minutes.

-Test pilot Vladimir Gorboonov took the aircraft to roughly 1,000 meters and 600 kilometers per hour on the 18-minute maiden flight.

-A second flight in April 2000 lasted roughly 22 minutes. The MiG 1.44 was developed under the Soviet MFI Multifunctional Frontline Fighter program as Moscow’s answer to the U.S.

Grumman’s Super Tomcat 21 — and its ASF-14 evolution — was the company’s 1990s effort to transform the F-14 Tomcat into a long-range multirole strike fighter with limited supercruise at Mach 1.3, an active electronically scanned array radar, FLIR sensors, possible thrust-vectoring nozzles, more internal fuel, and General Electric F110-GE-429 engines. It was designed to replace both the canceled A-12 Avenger II and the retiring A-6 Intruder. The Navy chose McDonnell Douglas’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet instead. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney called the F-14 a jobs program.

The U.S. Army’s next-generation M1E3 Abrams tank and XM30 infantry fighting vehicle prototypes will arrive at the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood this fall for live testing. The M1E3 replaces the Honeywell AGT-1500 turbine engine with a hybrid power system, adds an unmanned turret with an autoloader, and reduces the crew to three soldiers in an armored capsule inside the hull — away from live ammunition. The XM30, developed by American Rheinmetall and Raytheon, replaces the M2 Bradley and swaps the long-serving M242 Bushmaster for a new XM913 50mm chain gun.

The British Royal Navy’s next-generation nuclear ballistic missile submarines — HMS Dreadnought, HMS Valiant, HMS Warspite, and HMS King George VI — are all currently under construction at BAE Systems’ Barrow-in-Furness shipyard. Each Dreadnought-class boat displaces approximately 17,200 tonnes, making it the largest submarine ever built for the Royal Navy. They will be powered by the Rolls-Royce PRW3 nuclear reactor — a design influenced by the American SG9 reactor used on the Virginia-class — and will carry 12 Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles each.

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle acknowledged this month that American shipyards are unlikely to consistently achieve the U.S. Navy’s target of two Virginia-class submarines per year until the early 2030s. The Virginia-class — built jointly by General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII Newport News Shipbuilding since 2004 — is now in its fifth production block. Block V introduced the Virginia Payload Module, an 84-foot hull extension that tripled Tomahawk capacity from roughly 12 missiles to 40.

Public Domain

The maniacal push for deploying U.S. forces on the ground in Ukraine is relentless. The Blob’s urge must be resisted.
In an oped recently at Real Clear Defense, William Courtney and Philip Wasielewski published a piece outlining their vision of why American troops should be on the ground in Ukraine to support ‘security guarantees’ for Kyiv in any pending ceasefire.
It should be noted that Courtney is former foreign service and Wasielewsi is former CIA.

15 years on, veterans of the Iraq War Mike Bate

After years of considering how to leverage in-space refueling and servicing technologies, the Space Force is kicking off a number of near-term efforts to chart a path toward operationalizing the capability.
The service is planning to host two demonstrations in 2027 for on-orbit logistics — one focused on refueling satellites in space and another on augmented maneuver, Col. Scott Carstette, Space System Command’s director of servicing, mobility and logistics (SML), told reporters Wednesday.

The F-35A Lightning II has been certified as a Dual-Capable Aircraft, allowing it to deliver both conventional and thermonuclear weapons. It is the first fifth-generation stealth fighter ever certified for the nuclear mission and the first tactical fighter to receive the designation since the early 1990s. The F-35A can carry two B61-12 thermonuclear bombs internally, preserving its stealth profile. The B61-12 features a Boeing guidance tail kit, inertial navigation, and a variable yield from 0.3 to 50 kilotons. The aircraft uses an isolated Nuclear Aircraft Monitoring and Control system.

The U.S.