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Tag: fighter jets

  • Russian Bombers Spotted Near California Coast

    On Monday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) reported visuals of Russian bomber planes off of the coasts of Alaska and California.

    The planes were first spotted at 4:30 pm PST. Four Russian Tu-95 Bear-H long-range bombers and a Il-76 refueling tanker entered the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) near the far-western Aleutian Islands in Alaska. The ADIZ is a 200-mile buffer zone which extends away from the coasts of Canada and the United States. While it is not illegal to enter the airspace of an ADIZ, any planes which do so will have their activity monitored by jets from NORAD.

    As soon as NORAD scrambled two, F-22 fighter jets to monitor the activity of the planes, the bombers changed course – two headed west toward eastern Russia, and the other two diverted south.

    Around 9:30 pm PST, the two planes which headed south were discovered to be within 50 miles of the California coastline. Sovereign airspace does not begin until 12 miles from the coast.

    “The [Russian] aircraft remained in international airspace at all times, behaved professionally, and undertook no dangerous military activities. At no time did any of the bombers ever enter sovereign [U.S.] airspace,” reported Canadian Army Captain Jennifer Stadnyk, a NORAD spokeswoman.

    Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a spokesman for NORAD, explained that this was most likely a simple training exercise: “They typically do long range aviation training in the summer and it is not unusual for them to be more active during this time. We assess this was part of training. And they did not enter territorial airspace.”

    Despite the facts that there have been 50 such encounters over the past five years and the planes did nothing illegal, some members of Congress, such as Republican Representative Mike Conaway from Texas, are still fear mongering about Putin and a nuclear threat from Russia:

    Putin is doing this specifically to try to taunt the U.S. and exercise, at least in the reported world, some sort of saber-rattling, muscle-flexing kind of nonsense. Truth of the matter is we would have squashed either one of those [bombers] like baby seals… It’s a provocation and it’s unnecessary. But it fits in with [Putin’s] macho kind of saber-rattling.

    Whether this incursion was saber-rattling by Putin or a routine training session is yet to be determined. What is for certain, however, is that latent Cold War tensions continue to rise, resulting in much fear and uncertainty.

    Image via

  • Gripen Fighter Jets Deal Nixed by Swiss Voters

    Saab Group was dealt a major blow this week as Swiss voters halted a plan to order the company’s Gripen fighter jets. The deal had been worth an estimated $3.5 billion.

    The deal stems from a February 2013 agreement between the Saab, the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration, and the Swiss Defense Ministry. Under the terms of the deal Saab was to have developed and provided 60 Gripen E fighter jets to Sweden and 22 of the jets to Switzerland. According to Saab, the jets bound for Sweden are still in production and on schedule for delivery in 2018. Saab is also in the process of formalizing a deal to deliver 36 Gripen’s to Brazil.

    A majority of Swiss voters (over 53%) voted against the proposed Gripen deal. According to a Bloomberg report, opposition to the deal hung on estimates that the jets could cost more than $11 billion throughout their period of service. The Swiss Defense Ministry has indicated that it will follow the directive of the vote and cancel the deal.

    “Our focus is helping countries protect their ways of life, which we do by serving the global market with world-leading products, including Gripen,” said Hakan Buskhe, CEO of Saab. “We have seen in Switzerland support for Gripen, including through its evaluation and selection over competitors and in the votations in the Swiss Parliament last year.

    “We respect the process in Switzerland and do not comment on today’s outcome in the referendum. Following selection in 2011, hundreds of business relationships in Switzerland have been created through the Swiss Industrial Participation program, which was created in relation to the Gripen E procurement. These are relationships we look forward to continuing as long as possible,” adds Håkan Buskhe.

    Saab stock fell significantly following the vote, falling as much as 7% according to Bloomberg.

    In addition to the Gripen vote, Swiss voters also rejected a proposed law to set their country’s minimum wage at almost $25. The raise would have given Switzerland the highest minimum wage in the world.

    Image via Saab

  • F-15 Silent Eagle Rejected by South Korea

    Reuters via the CS Monitor reported today that South Korea has voted down a bid from Boeing to sell the country 60 F-15 Silent Eagles in favor of starting the process again to get a better fighter.

    Although the F-15 was the only plane to fit the south Korean budget initially, the ruling party’s lawmakers and former military officials have all criticized the plane’s mediocre stealth effectiveness. Specifically, the AFP noted that the F-15 was unable to evade radar like an EADS Eurofighter Typhoon or a Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighter.

    South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok, speaking about the need for better jets, said “Our air force thinks that we need combat capabilities in response to the latest trend of aerospace technology development centered around the fifth generation fighter jets and to provocations from North Korea.”

    Lockheed Martin’s F-35A Joint Strike Fighter is the next jet South Korea is considering buying, although its advanced stealth capabilities were initially considered out of Seoul’s budget range. The F-35A JSF has been ordered by seven countries: Japan, Israel, Britain, Australia, Italy, Norway, and Turkey.

    South Korea may take up to a year to fashion a budget that would include room for new fighters, but South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration, or DAPA (the organization responsible for assessing the fighters), said that it “will swiftly pursue the program again in order to minimize the vacuum in combat capabilities.”

    In the meantime, Lockheed Martin plans to try and lower the costs of the F-35A in the wake of increased production. “We will continue to support the U.S. government in its offer of the F-35A to Korea,” a Lockheed Martin representative to South Korea said.

    Boeing seems to be the loser of the deal, as the company spent out-of-pocket to develop the Silent Eagle variant of the F-15. While it’s not yet known whether Boeing will file suit, a DAPA official commented that South Korea had followed the rules regarding the bidding process.

    [Image via a Boeing marketing video specifically created for the F-15 Silent Eagle on YouTube]