Category Archives: Aviation

First European Aegis Ashore Begins Construction

First European Aegis Ashore Begins Construction

The deckhouse for the Aegis Ashore system bound for Romania at the Lockheed Martin Aegis facility. Missile Defense Agency Photo

The deckhouse for the Aegis Ashore system bound for Romania at the Lockheed Martin Aegis facility. Missile Defense Agency Photo

The U.S. and NATO have begun construction on the first deployed Aegis Ashore installation in Deveselu, Romania as part of a wider ballistic missile defense (BMD) strategy on Monday, according to several press reports. Read More

The Future of Air Sea Battle

The Future of Air Sea Battle

U.S. Navy and Royal Malaysian air force aircraft conduct a fly-by over the U.S. Navy's forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN-73) on Oct. 25. US Navy Photo

US Navy and Royal Malaysian air force aircraft conduct a fly-by over the U.S. Navy’s forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN-73) on Oct. 25. US Navy Photo

The Pentagon is taking its next steps in developing the often misunderstood and occasionally controversial Air-Sea Battle concept, according to several USNI News interviews with Navy and defense officials. Read More

Mabus Responds to Congressional UCLASS Concerns

Mabus Responds to Congressional UCLASS Concerns

An X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator completes an arrested landing on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) on July, 10 2013. US Navy Photo

An X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator completes an arrested landing on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) on July, 10 2013. US Navy Photo

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus has promised to work closely with the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces to address their concerns about the service’s Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program, according to an Oct. 17 letter obtained by USNI News. Read More

Nimitz Leaves Red Sea

Nimitz Leaves Red Sea

An F/A-18E Super Hornet prepares to land on the flight deck aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) on Oct 5, 2013. US Navy Photo

An F/A-18E Super Hornet prepares to land on the flight deck aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) on Oct 5, 2013. US Navy Photo

The American aircraft carrier that has been on standby in case of a flare up in Syria has left the Red Sea for a brief stint in the Mediterranean Sea, Navy officials told USNI News on Monday. Read More

New Canopy Manufacturing Technique Could Cut Total JSF Costs by $125 million

New Canopy Manufacturing Technique Could Cut Total JSF Costs by $125 million

The canopy of a US Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter on Aug. 24, 2013. US Navy Photo

The canopy of a US Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter on Aug. 24, 2013. US Navy Photo

The U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) has developed a new manufacturing process to build fighter aircraft canopies.

The new technique will be used on the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) in 2014 by GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems and could cut the cost of the total aircraft procurement by $125 million over the production run of about 3,000 planned aircraft. Read More

NAVAIR's Unmanned Shakeup

NAVAIR’s Unmanned Shakeup

X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator is towed into the hangar bay of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) on May, 13 1980. US Navy Photo

X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator is towed into the hangar bay of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) on May, 13 2013. US Navy Photo

The U.S. Navy is realigning its carrier-based unmanned aircraft programs under one office at Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), USNI News has learned.

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Astronaut Scott Carpenter was 'Trying to Defend the Planet'

Astronaut Scott Carpenter was ‘Trying to Defend the Planet’

Scott Carpenter

Scott Carpenter

Scott Carpenter was one the original Mercury 7 astronauts and a former Naval aviator. Carpenter died on Thursday. He was 88. The following was a 2001 interview in Naval History magazine.

In his Aurora 7 spacecraft on 24 May 1962, one of the original Mercury 7 space pioneers became the second American to orbit the Earth. After a rather rocky flight, overshooting his splashdown target by 250 miles, he was assigned to monitor the design and development of the lunar module for the Apollo project. He then took leave from the space program in the spring of 1965 to serve as an aquanaut in the U.S. Navy’s SeaLab II project, spending 30 days 205 feet below the surface off the coast of La Jolla, California. “The first person to explore both of humanity’s great remaining frontiers” talked recently with Naval History editor Fred L. Schultz between sessions of a Naval Forces Under the Sea symposium sponsored by the Office of Naval Research and the U.S. Naval Academy. Read More