ASIAN DEFENCE

China's J-31 Stealth Fighter Jet

PAF Mirage-III Rose-I With Refueling Probes Due to financial constraints and non release of funds by the federal government, the Pakistan Air force (PAF) has suspended its up gradation and development plan called “Air Force Development Plan 2025,” says a report of the Senate’s standing committee on defence Thursday . The committee quoted Air Chief marshal Tahir Rafique in its report, who, it said, told the committee members during its recent visit to the air headquarters that the AFDP 2025 programme was launched in 2003/04 by former president Pervez Musharraf aimed at making it at par with modern air forces of the world. He said under the plan, the PAF received money by the federal government till 2007. “After 2007 PAF did not get a penny from federal government and had to shelve the plan,” the air chief was quoted as saying in the report by its Chairman Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed.

Vidya Balan At Cannes Film Festival Vidya Balan At Cannes Film Festival Vidya Balan At Cannes Film Festival

Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) has displayed concept designs for Turkey's indigenous fifth generation F-X fighter programme at the IDEF 2013 defence exhibition, the first they have been shown publically. TAI displayed images of three different potential single seat concept designs: a single engine, conventionally laid out aircraft; a single engine aircraft, equipped with canards; and a twin engine, conventionally laid out fighter. All three concepts feature elements traditionally associated with fifth generation aircraft, including a design optimised for low radar cross-sectional density, internal weapons bays, and the ability to super cruise, Huseyin Yagci, TAI's chief engineer on the F-X programme said.

Altay Tank Army Chief of Staff Gen. Hussein Bin Abdullah Al Gobail of Saudi Arabia paid an official visit to Ankara last week. He met with his counterpart the Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Ozel. He was also accepted by President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to the daily newspaper, Vatan, such a high level of acceptance for Gobail was because of $2 billion arms sale. The newspaper claims that Saudi Arabia wants to buy the national unmanned aerial vehicle "ANKA" the national tank "Altay". According to the source, the contract negotiations for sale have been conducted. 

ShinMaywa US-2 Japan is close to signing an agreement to supply amphibious planes to India, a report said Monday, in what would be the first sale of hardware used by the military since a weapons export ban was imposed. During a four-day visit to Tokyo by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, starting Monday, the two sides are setting up firm plans for Delhi to purchase the US-2, a domestically-developed aircraft used by Japan’s armed forces. The sale, reported by the Nikkei business daily, would be the first of a finished product made by Japan’s homegrown defence industry since rules were imposed restricting the export of weapons systems and other equipment. It would also mark a strengthening of the alliance between Japan and India, which both see rising China as a threat to regional stability.

J-15 Carrier-Borne Fighter Jet J-15 Carrier-Borne Fighter Jet

 Y-8FQ Maritime Surveillance Aircraft

The production line of the new system, Herz (Protector) 9, will be inaugurated in a special ceremony attended by the country's Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi tomorrow.  Last Tuesday, the Iranian defense ministry announced that Iran plans to unveil five new defensive achievements in coming days.  Also, a senior Iranian military commander announced last month that the country would unveil a home-made long-range air-defense missile system similar to the Russian S-300 in the near future.  "This system, dubbed as Bavar (belief) 373, is being developed in the country and will be officially unveiled soon," Lieutenant Commander of the Iranian Army's Self-Sufficiency Jihad Rear Admiral Farhad Amiri said.  He noted that Bavar-373 missile defense system has reached the production stage and its subsystems have been already tested.  Earlier this year, senior military officials announced that Iran was testing the subsystems of Bavar 373 missile defense syste...

P akistan, which has being working on drone technology and  much of the its past decade has sought to acquire unmanned aerial vehicles (UCAV), a platform used by the US in Pakistan despite numerous protests by the government, has started export of drone parts. Turkey ANKA UCAV On Monday, officials at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC), Kamra handed over the first batch of parts created for the Turkish UAV (ANKA) to the Turkish Aerospace Industry (TAI) in a ceremony held during the International Defence Exhibition and Fair (IDEF) at Istanbul, Turkey.

China is working on a secret "space bomber" to compete with America's Boeing X-37 reusable unmanned spacecraft. Shenlong Spacecraft Sources say people who reported UFO sightings on March 13 in the Chines e cities of Chongqing, Kunming, Chengdu, Wuhan, Changsha, Zhaoqing and Haikou actually saw a top secret rocket being tested by the government. This coincides with an announcement on the website of China's National Space Science Center the same evening which declared that scientists had successfully conducted a high-altitude scientific exploration test. Various reports claim that China upped its space program following the successful launch of the US X-37B reusable unmanned spacecraft in December last year. Sources say China has been developing a mysterious space shuttle codenamed "Shenlong," meaning "Divine Dragon" in Chinese, a stealth space bomber that will significantly boost the country's space warfare capabilities. Chinese mi...

China's First Aircraft Carrier Liaoning A carrier-borne aviation force has been formally established as part of the PLA Navy, military sources said on Friday. The forming of the force, approved by the country's Central Military Commission, demonstrates that the development of China's aircraft carriers has entered a new phase, the sources said. The force comprises carrier-borne fighter jets, jet trainers and ship-borne helicopters that operate anti-submarine, rescue and vigilance tasks. The sources said the carrier-borne force is vital to the strike force of China's aircraft carrier and a vanguard in transforming its navy. It will also play a key role in developing aircraft carrier groups and building a strong navy. Wu Shengli, a member of the military commission and commander of the PLA Navy, attended the forming event on Friday. The sources said the personnel of the force are more elite than the aviation forces within the PLA. To be able to fly fight...

Chinese Stealth Drone Lijian Following the release of internet photos of the Lijian, China's first stealth combat drone, Peng Tinghua, a military analyst, stressed on his mircroblog that this unmanned aerial vehicle will be able to attack all potential targets within the Western Pacific region. The Lijian is China's response to the push of most advanced countries to roll out unmanned aerial vehicles. The design of the aircraft relied heavily on Northrop Grumman's Dassault-designed X-47B, by the looks of the official photos released by the PLA Daily, the Hong Kong-based Wenweipo said. Peng stated that the range of the Lijian is about 8,000km, according to China Aviation News. It is not able to compare with the Global Hawk, another unmanned aerial vehicle designed by Northrop Grumman with a range of 14,001 kilometers, but the Lijian is still able to attack all potential target within the Western Pacific with a combat radius of 4,000 kilometers. "Since it w...

Lijian (sharp_sword) chinese stealth drone A newly designed Chinese stealth drone is ready for its first flight test after completing its taxi test last December at an unknown airfield in the southeastern province of Jiangxi, reports Duowei News, an outlet operated by overseas Chinese. Designed jointly by the Hongdu Aviation Industry Group and Shenyang Aviation Corporation, the Lijian ("sharp sword") is China's first stealth drone and the third in the world after the X-47 designed by Northrop Grumman of the United States and France's Dassault nEUROn. The Lijian program was launched in 2009 and the drone's ground test was conducted on Dec. 13 last year. China Aviation News reports that the Lijian is now ready for flight testing. The drone is set to be used by the PLA Air Force and Navy Air Force for combat missions, and also for tracking and reconnaissance purposes.

Chinese official media and several major chinese defence websites confirmed days ago that China is in the process of developing a stealth strategic bomber - Named as"Red B2". Alongwith the successful development of Y-20, China has accumulated all the in-house technologies, including engines, for Red B2. The finance is not a problem and the timing is ripe. The consensus on the mil fora seems to be that it would be slightly smaller than B2, aiming mainly to cover Guan, Hawaii to the East (or the US East Coast in case it's a bigger version), Darwin(AUS) in the South, Diego Garcia / entire India in the S West, Western Asia/Eastern Africa in the West.  Now its time to wait and see which will have its maiden flight first this time, PAKDA or China's "Red B2".

J-10B Fighter Jet China has become the world's fifth-largest arms exporter, a respected Sweden-based think tank said on Monday, its highest ranking since the Cold War, with Pakistan the main recipient. China's volume of weapons exports between 2008 and 2012 rose 162 percent compared to the previous five year period, with its share of the global arms trade rising from 2 percent to 5 percent, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said. China replaces Britain in the top five arms-dealing countries between 2008 and 2012, a group dominated by the United States and Russia, which accounted for 30 percent and 26 percent of weapons exports, SIPRI said. "China is establishing itself as a significant arms supplier to a growing number of important recipient states," Paul Holtom, director of the SIPRI Arms Transfers Program, said in a statement. The shift, outlined in SIPRI's Trends in International Arms Transfers report, marks China's first...

Chinese New Indigenous  High-Bypass Turbofan Engines China is developing four high-bypass turbofans, only two of which were previously known. All four have potential military and civil applications. Work at Shenyang on a high-bypass turbofan in the 30,000 lb. class and suitable for large transport aircraft was already known, along with development of the similarly sized CJ-1000 engine for the C919 commercial aircraft. But it turns out that there are two such engines from the Shenyang design bureau of Avic Engine: the WS-118 and the SF-A. This was revealed in materials prepared for a May 22-23 conference organized by Galleon (Shanghai) Consulting in association with Avic. The Avic connection means the conference materials can be taken as semi-official. Both engines from the Shenyang Engine and Design Research Institute are based on fighter-engine cores, just as Western aircraft in the 1970s often used combat cores. The 26,500-lb.-thrust WS-118 is based on the WS-10A Tai...