December 30

2011 -- Brazilian planemaker Embraer will sell its A-29 Super Tucano aircraft to the U.S. Air Force, in a firm-fixed price delivery order contract worth $355 million, the company said in a statement late today.

The A-29 Super Tucano was built for counterinsurgency missions and is currently used by five air forces and on order by others.

2011 -- The Israeli military killed Muaman Abu-daf and seriously wounded five other Palestinian militants in in a strike in the Zeitoun district in Gaza City today.  Witnesses in Gaza said they were struck with a missile dropped by an Israeli drone in what it said was the thwarting of a rocket attack into southern Israel.

An Israeli announcement said its air force had “targeted a terrorist squad that was identified moments before firing rockets at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip. A hit was confirmed, thwarting the rocket fire attempt. The aforementioned squad is responsible for the firing of rockets at Israel in the past number of days.” Israeli military sources later called Muaman Abu-daf a “senior operative in the global jihad terror movement,” accusing him of involvement in a number of rocket attacks on Israel as well as having placed explosive devices near the barrier with Gaza aimed at patrolling Israeli forces. They also said he had been involved in a thwarted terror attack on the Egyptian-Israeli border this week.

Today's strike that killed Abu Daf is the third by the Israeli Air Force against what the IDF refers to as "Global Jihad-affiliated terrorists," or Gaza-based groups linked to al Qaeda. On Dec. 27, the Israeli Air Force killed Abdallah Telbani, who was involved in a plot to attack Israel from the Egyptian Sinai as well as with rocket and IED attacks along the Israeli-Gaza border.

And on Dec. 28, the Israeli Air Force killed Rami Daoud Jabar Khafarna and Hazam Mahmad Sa'adi Al Shakr, two former Hamas members who were involved with "Global Jihad-affiliated terrorist" networks in Gaza. Khafarna and Shakr were members of a "squad" that "was previously known to the IDF due to its attempt in carrying out a terror attack on the Israel-Egypt border."

There are four main Salafist groups that operate in the Gaza Strip. All four groups have expressed their support for al Qaeda. Those groups are the Jaish al Islam, Jund Ansar Allah, Jaish al Ummah, and Jaish al Mu'minun. These groups have clashed with Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated terror group that rules Gaza and is supported by Iran and Syria. 

Military experts around the world have extolled drone-launched missiles as weapons with pinpoint accuracy, which can minimize civilian casualties. Their use is rapidly expanding, for example by the United States in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in part because the use of drones places no friendly military personnel directly at risk.  But  drones, much like sniper rifles, are only as good at sparing civilians as the care taken by the people who operate them. The accuracy and concentrated blast radius of the missile can reduce civilian casualties, but in Gaza, Israel’s targeting choices led to the loss of many civilian lives.

2011 --  The Wall Street Journal says. "The anticarbon movement has already done enough harm by increasing the cost of energy and wasting money on subsidies for ethanol and other renewables that can't compete on their own," the newspaper says. "Now it may start a trade war, which may be the only language that Eurocrats understand." 

2011 -- The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is to receive 84 new Boeing F-15 fighters with advanced radar equipment and digital electronic warfare systems plus upgrades of 70 older F-15s as well as munitions, spare parts, training, maintenance and logistics in an $29.4 billion deal agreed with the U.S. Administration yesterday.

The White House finally gave its blessing to the deal which had been approved by Congress last year after saying it would support more than 50,000 jobs and help reinforce regional security in the Gulf amid mounting tension with Iran.

2011 -- The UAE has signed a deal valued at as much as $3.49 billion for Lockheed Martin's newest missile interceptor, according to U.S. government officials. 

According to news agency Bloomberg, the initial installment of a so-called “undefinitized contract action” is valued at about $1.96 billion. The Pentagon may announce the contract action as soon as next week, said an unnamed official.

The missiles are known as Thaad (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense) and are a vital part of the regional defence that the Obama administration plans to deploy in the Middle East against Iran’s medium- and long-range ballistic missiles. According to Bloomberg sources, batteries of land-based interceptors would be linked with the U.S. Navy’s detection systems on Aegis-class destroyers and cruisers.

2011 -- The US Geological Survey has issued a heightened alert after a volcano on a remote Alaskan island belched a cloud of ash 15,000 feet high, potentially affecting trans-Pacific flight routes.

2011 -- A Sudanese helicopter gunship crashed at an air base in North Kordofan state on Friday, official media said, but there was no immediate confirmation of casualties or what caused the incident.

2010 -- The 362nd Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron at JB Balad, Iraq, has flown its 5,000th combat sortie over that nation. The MC-12W unit conducted its first mission in June 2009 and needed less than 18 months to reach the 5,000 mark.

MC-12s carry a crew of four, along with imagery sensors and electronic eavesdropping equipment, to provide ground commanders at the tactical level with near real-time intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance information. The 362nd ERS was the first MC-12 operational unit, but today, there are two additional squadrons in the war theater, both in Afghanistan: the 4th ERS at Bagram Airfield and the 361st ERS at Kandahar Airfield.

2010 -- Defense IG: U.S. Navy failed to validate contractor bills for unmanned systems program

2010 -- Doubt cast on U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s 2009 prediction that China would not have an operational stealth aircraft before 2020.¹

Gates claimed that in support of his decision to stop production of the Lockheed Martin F-22.China must not have gotten the memo: China's J-20 stealth fighter was announced in a November 2009 interview on Chinese TV by Gen. He Weirong, deputy commander of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. The general said a “fourth-generation” fighter (Chinese terminology for a stealth fighter) would be flown in 2010-11 and be operational in 2017-19. On schedule it was undergoing high-speed taxi tests late last week at Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute’s airfield. The J-20 is a single-seat, twin-engine aircraft, bigger and heavier than the Sukhoi T-50 and the F-22. A little tech and tell comparison with ground-service vehicles points to an overall length of 75 feet and a wingspan of 45 feet or more. Bigger than predicted, the overall length is close to that of the 1960s General Dynamics F-111. Or the FB 22? The question still is whether the J-20 is a true prototype or a technology demonstrator. Latest photos on China Defense Blog.

2010 -- The three world records that QinetiQ applied for after its Zephyr High-Altitude Long-Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle completed a successful 14-day flight in July 2010, have been confirmed by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.

The aircraft has now officially been ratified as staying in the air longer and achieving the highest altitude of any surveillance craft in its class, and setting the absolute duration record of 14 days and 21 minutes. The ultra-lightweight carbon-fiber aircraft trounced the duration record set by Global Hawk in 2001 by a factor of 11, and managed to rise a good 5,000 feet (1,524 meters) higher

1997 -- Crews from five Air National Guard C-130s airdropped 50,000 pounds of hay to cattle stranded by blizzards² in southeastern New Mexico.

Typically, cattle can survive only five to 10 days without food or water in good conditions

1994 -- The Air Force's fifth B-2, the Spirit of South Carolina, joined the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman AFB, Missouri.

1987 -- President Reagan signed into U.S. law the Airport and Airway Safety and Capacity Expansion Act of 1987, extending authority for the Airport Improvement Program for five years.

1985 -- WW I French Air Service Ace Capitaine Alfred Marie Joseph Heurtaux died at Chantilly, France.

1981 -- Secretary of Defense Casper W. Weinberger ordered the U.S. Air Force to deploy 40 M-X missiles in existing Minuteman silos by 1986 and to study other basing modes.

1972 -- President Richard Nixon halts aerial bombing of North Vietnam and announces peace talks.

1964 -- The U.S. Air Force accepted the last of 732 KC-135 aircraft produced at Boeing-Seattle, Washington.

1964 -- Hermann Frommherz, WW I German Ace (32 victories) died at Waldshut in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

1955 -- BOAC took delivery of its first two Bristol Britannia 102 aircraft when G-ANBC and G-ANBD were delivered from Filton to London Airport.

1947 -- The prototype of the second Mikoyan Type S fighter, an early version of the MiG-15, makes its first flight; it has an imported Rolls-Royce Nene 2 jet engine.



1945 -- Republic Aviation revealed its four-engine XF-12 Rainbow. This flying photo laboratory could carry five crewmen at 425 mph. The Army Training Support Center later cancelled its order for six aircraft.



1935 - Italian bombers destroy Swedish Red Cross unit in Ethiopia during the  Second Italo–Abyssinian War.

1930 -- A photograph showing the curvature of the Earth was exhibited in Cleveland, Ohio, at a joint session of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, holding its annual convention, and the Society of Sigma XI.

According to the New York Times report, it was the first photograph to show the Earth's curvature. The picture, taken from an airplane flying over South America by Capt. A.W. Stevens of the U.S. Army, used super-sensitive panchromatic photographic film to record an image of an area larger than some States. It showed the distant horizon of the pampas over 300 miles ahead as bent slightly downward toward one end. The speaker, Dr. C.E.K. Mees, research director at Eastman Kodak Company said it was taken with a 1/50 sec. exposure

1914 -- The U.S. Army Signal Corps accepted the first Burgess-Dunne inherently stable armored airplane, for use at North Island, San Diego, California. A 100 h.p. Curtiss O-X engine was the standard powerplant, but the Signal Corps machine was powered by a 135 h.p. Salmson radial engine.

The Burgess-Dunne Aeroplane of 1914 was an inherently stable tailless biplane designed by John W. Dunne of England. The Burgess Company of Massachusetts bought the U.S. manufacturing rights. The ailerons were rigged to allow independent operation, thus permitting the ailerons to also function as elevators.

1905 -- The Wright brothers sign a contract for one million francs with Frenchman Arnold Fordyce for the sale of a powered flying machine capable of flying a nonstop distance of 31 miles.

When contingent of French government officials come to Dayton in April 1906 to change the agreement by seeking exclusivity for one year, the idea is dropped; for their trouble, the Wrights received 25,000 francs (then about U.S. $5,000), the first money they earn from flying.
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¹ Justifying his decision to halt F-22 Raptor production at 187 airframes—less than half the Air Force's stated need—Gates said in June 2009 that, in 2020, the United States would have "roughly 1,200" stealth combat aircraft while "the Chinese will have zero." Gates went on to say that five years later, in 2025, China would have "a few hundred" stealth aircraft, while the U.S. would have 1,700. Just two months earlier, in April 2009, Gates reported seeing intelligence that Russia would achieve initial operating capability with a fifth generation fighter in 2016, while China would lag by four more years.

Gates apparently ignored PLAAF Deputy Commander Lieutenant General He Weirong when he told the November 8, 2009 CCTV program "Face to Face" that China's fourth generation fighter (known as the 5th generation in the West) would be flying "soon" and that it would enter units in "about eight to ten years," or as early as 2017 to 2019.

The most recent official U.S. multi-agency report on Chinese military capabilities, the annual report to Congress issued in August, was utterly silent on the subject of a stealth capability for China, speaking only in broad terms about how China is pursuing "anti access" and "area denial" capabilities.

Aviation experts say the Shenyang design bureau in Liaoning province is working on its own stealth project, possibly designated J-12 or J-13, which might be more of a true air superiority fighter than Chengdu's J-20.

² The 1997 blizzard that killed 30,000 cattle and cost $28 million in agriculture losses.