Many feel that the FCAS (Future Combat Air System) is a Mission Impossible when one focuses on how much money — $4 billion by 2025 is to be jointly allocated by France and Germany.

Boeing, Lockheed, Dassault Aviation of France, the European Eurofighter consortium, Sweden’s Saab, and United Aircraft Corporation of Russia are all jockeying for position for an Indian fighter contract worth $15 billion for 110 planes, and an $8 billion navy program of around 60 aircraft.

Barring the collapse of the British government, London plans to unveil its Combat Air Strategy during the Farnborough Air Show. Unlike its Brexit strategy to leave the European Union, there is general consensus here around the broad thrust of the document: position the UK to remain a key player in the design, development and manufacture… Keep reading →

Whenever a high visibility military mission occurs – such as the April 13 combined strikes against Syrian chemical capabilities -, observers in democratic countries tend to focus on the glass half full and try to dig out every single matter that might have gone wrong. France is no exception and in the aftermath of the French… Keep reading →

As former Air Force Chief of Staff “Buzz” Moseley once declared, “there is not a place on the face of the earth that the USAF will not fight their way into.” But this aspiration has been complicated by 15 years of fighting low-end opponents like the Taliban even as peer adversaries like China and Russia… Keep reading →

PARIS AIR SHOW: Crowds thronged around the French Defense Ministry pavilion today, chatting with Rafale fighter pilots and the engineers who helped build the planes. It was a most unusual sight, all those civilians — with a fairly high percentage of women — listening intently to and then chatting with the pilots, who also stood in… Keep reading →

PARIS AIR SHOW: Critics of the F-35 have long wondered why friends and allies have stuck with the program. It can’t be, they argue, because of the aircraft’s capabilities. It is, they say, years behind schedule, billions over budget and won’t be able to deliver all its weapons for years. Ah, grasshopper, but there are… Keep reading →

The Paris Air Show is dominated by the commercial sector, which in terms of market and money is clearly more important than the defense aerospace market. But the simple size of that civilian market is not the most critical consideration. As the aerospace world meets in Paris in 2015, national survival is becoming a more pressing concern… Keep reading →

Douglas Barrie knows aerospace. He was the European mastermind of Defense News when I was editor and now he works for the respected International Institute for Strategic Studies. The core of his job there is analyzing global air power capabilities for IISS’ flagship publication, Military Balance. He’s authoritative. Here he writes about the Paris Air Show and the very uncertain state… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: At least the US military is attending the Paris Air Show in some force this year, but right now none of the American aircraft pictured below are scheduled to fly at the show. Some 90 US military personnel will be on hand to maintain the aircraft and safeguard them. Here’s the list of military aircraft that… Keep reading →