As the war in Ukraine drags on, Ukrainian forces have apparently found a new way to take on the ever-present threat of Russian drones: strap a bunch of missiles to a decades-old crop duster as a new kind of air defense system. Video posted to Telegram channels show a Czechoslovakian-made Zlin Z-137 Agro Turbo crop duster plane with two R-73 air-to-air missiles strapped under its wings.
Videos were brief so it’s unclear how many of these planes are being used by Ukraine or how effective they actually are against Russian drones.
Author: Michael
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A British Royal Air Force F-35Bmade an emergency landing at Kagoshima Airport in southern Japan on August 9, with the Japanese Ministry of Defence confirming that it landed due to “an aircraft malfunction” and had been operating from the Royal Navy’s troubled aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales. The incident closely follows the forced landing of a British F-35B at Thiruvananthapuram Airport in southern India on June 14, which resulted in the aircraft being grounded for 39 days as efforts to make it airworthy continued to fall short.
U.S. Air Force
In an excellent article published recently, Andrew Latham makes a strong case for increasing the Air Force’s buy of B-21 bombers from the current plan of 100 to a much larger number. “The 300 to 400 range? That starts to become a full-spectrum strategic force that’s credible, resilient, and able to absorb the inevitable shocks associated with warfighting.
This video describes the military situation in
Russia’s most widely fielded class of active radar guided air-to-air missiles has achieved its most high value kill on record in over three decades of service. The missile was reported by Sudanese sources to have bene used to shoot down a United Arab Emirates Air Force transport Near Nyala Airport in the south of the country’s Darfur region. Previously Sudanese sources had only reported that an air-to-air precision attack had been launched, fuelling speculation that one of the country’s MiG-29S fighters procured in the 2000s had launched the attack.
The Indian Defence Ministry has suspended negotiations for the procurement of six Boeing P-8I Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, in response to escalating tensions with the United States. Relations between the two countries have worsened significantly over the past six months, as Washington has increased pressure on Delhi both to significantly reduce its defence procurements from Russia, and more broadly to cut economic ties in particular relating to purchases of Russian oil.
The “largest federal detention center in history” will open at the Army’s Fort Bliss later this month as part of the federal government’s ongoing effort to detain and deport migrants.
The new facility, Camp East Montana, is set to open on Aug. 17 on the base, with an initial capacity for 1,000 people. The use of the Army base in Texas by Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the latest instance of the Department of Homeland Security leaning on the military for logistical support.
The El Paso Times first reported on the opening date.
Commander Salamander Substack
Indulge me a bit to bring back one of my first FbF from 2006 about one of my favorite ships….and it is German.
The Graf Spee.
She had a short but glorious history, an epic wartime cruise, and fought a classic battle against an enemy as honorable as she was, and to this day she calls people to her grave.
She still calls to some; well at least me. Look again at her stats.
Range: 8,900 nautical miles at 20 knots (16,500 km at 37 km/h), or 19,000 nautical miles at 10 knots (35,000 km at 18.5 km/h).
James Arthur Lovell Jr., the test pilot turned astronaut who helped prevent the Apollo 13 mission from ending in disaster, died on Thursday at the age of 97.
NASA confirmed Lovell’s death on Friday, noting that “from a pair of pioneering Gemini missions to the successes of Apollo, Jim helped our nation forge a historic path in space.” A naval aviator turned test pilot, his work at NASA over more than a decade helped the United States achieve major milestones. Although he would never walk on the Moon himself, Lovell would help make that achievement possible.