Military: January 2010 Archives

In-flows of food, medical supplies, construction equipment and military troops - mostly from Brazil, Canada and the USA - continued to pour into the rubble of Haiti's earthquake-battered capital at the end of last week.

A steady stream of foreigners, meanwhile, poured out of Haiti by airlift, including 1,441 Canadians flown home by 20 January aboard Canada's newly acquired Boeing C-17s.

Reflecting the grim horror of the 7.3-magnitude quake's devastation, a Brazilian air force Lockheed Martin C-130 on 20 January flew home the bodies of 17 army comrades, members of a Brazilian battalion deployed to Port-au-Prince before the disaster under the United Nations' stabilisation mission. Read more...

Here a United States Air Force aircraft parachute-drops aid to Haiti.

The UK Ministry of Defence will sign a contract within the next few weeks to replace its British Aerospace Nimrod R1 electronic intelligence aircraft, having deemed the capability an essential element of its future military equipment inventory.

Once finalised, the deal will advance the planned acquisition of three stored Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joint airframes from the US government. These will be modified for operational use by L-3 Communications Integrated Systems in the USA. Continue reading...

This week's Image of the Week (featured on page 3 of Flight International), is taken by AirSpace user Philip Dalglish. Philip writes: "This shot was taken on the 27th June 2009. Taken at Cad West in the Mach Loop this F15.E Strike Eagle ( AF91 332 ) from RAF Lakenheath is a very menacing sight at close quarters. The F15's were quite regular visitors in LFA7 in preparation for low level action in Afghanistan."

Vulcan test pilot Martin Withers wrote this article about flying the Vulcan.

I have had a super summer in 2009 display-flying the world's only airworthy Avro Vulcan bomber - an aircraft I first got my hands on in 1971 as a co-pilot at RAF Waddington with 44 Sqn. I went on to do a tour as a captain and later had the honour of taking the aircraft into battle during the Falklands War in 1982, on Operation Black Buck.

The hardest feature of displaying the Vulcan is not the flying of it, but keeping yourself correctly positioned. The view through the cockpit windows is a little like looking through a letter box, and you cannot see across the cockpit so if you are running in with the display centre on the right you need the other pilot to call "two, one, now" because you cannot see it. Similarly, when making a right turn you need him to tell you to slacken off or increase the bank as you are coming round.

This can make displays where there are operating restrictions more of a challenge. At the Silverstone racing circuit, for example, we were not allowed to over-fly the Porsche centre, which meant we had very little room to get back on the display line when manoeuvring and I was relying entirely on the guy in the right-hand seat to give me the calls as I never knew whether I was over it or not. Read more...

Here are illustrations of the Vulcan's cockpit layout as well as its 2009 display routine.