F-35 Pilots Able To Link With Other Aircraft | Israeli Defense Companies Sign Deal With UAE AI Firm | Australia To Receive 3 Tritons By 2025

Americas

An advance in aircraft simulators, allowing F-35 pilots to link with pilots of other aircraft, was announced on Wednesday by Lockheed Martin. For the first time, Lockheed, the F-35 Joint Program Office and the US Air Force successfully connected F-35, F-22, F-16 and E3 airborne warning planes in a simulated environment. Additional platforms, like the F-15, can also connect to the shared virtual environment. The success came during a Distributed Mission Training final acceptance test at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., the company said.

The number of cases of coronavirus among active-duty military personnel has more than doubled in the past three weeks, according to information published by the Department of Defense. As of Wednesday, 6,493 U.S. service members currently have the virus — up from 2,807 on June 10. The number of cumulative cases listed on the departments’s website Thursday was 12,521, up from 6,864 cumulative cases on June 3. The Army has surpassed the Navy in terms of the number of cases, with 3,836 as of Thursday, compared to 3,662. COVID-19 has claimed the lives of three service members since the pandemic began. According to Johns Hopkins University’s running totals, there have been at least 2.7 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States, with 128,651 deaths.

Middle East & Africa

Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) will cooperate with the United Arab Emirates’ Group 42 (G42) to research and develop equipment and solutions to tackle the coronavirus, according to media reports. G42 has previously been implicated in the development of ToTok, a messaging app the New York Times reported was “used by the government of the United Arab Emirates to try to track every conversation, movement, relationship, appointment, sound and image of those who install it on their phones”.

Europe

HMS Severn has returned to operational status after her crew completed the three-week Operational Sea Training assessment, according to the Royal Navy. The vessel was originally decommissioned in October 2017 as previously the plan was to replace the Batch 1 River class Offshore Patrol Vessels with the newer Batch 2 vessels. In 2018, it was announced that all vessels will be retained. A&P Defense recently delivered the reactivation refit of HMS Severn as part of an ongoing support contract with BAE Systems.

Asia-Pacific

US aircraft carriers carried out exercises in the South China Sea, US military officials said Saturday as China conducts its own drills in the disputed area. Rear Adm. George Wikoff, commander of the strike group, said the USS Ronald Reagan and USS Nimitz carriers navigated to an unspecified area of the South China Sea for the drills. The move comes days after China began its own exercises in the international waters. The show of force comes as China aggressively lays claim to the islands there, despite counterclaims by neighboring countries, officials said.

Australia will receive delivery of its first Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) UAV in 2023, and of the second and third aircraft by early 2025, Northrop Grumman Australia Chief Executive Chris Deeble has disclosed according to Jane’s. IFC-4 functionality will add a signals intelligence capability to the UAV’s baseline IFC-3 configuration. The production pause proposed in draft US budget papers for USN Triton UAVs in fiscal year 2021 (FY 2021) and FY 2022 provides Australia with an unprecedented opportunity to fill the LRIP-5 production gap with the remainder of its own Triton requirement, said Deeble.

Today’s Video

Watch: US Navy’s Freedom Class Littoral Combat Ship | Life On A Ship