The latest UN Monitoring Group report on Somalia is out. BBC News reports that Eritrea is accused of sending the ex-ICU large quantities of weapons aboard a chartered Boeing 707. Looking up the report, it turns out to be 9G-OAL, serial no. 19350, registered to a Ghanaian firm, Aerogem Aviation. Aerogem was contacted by the…
Read More Ex-Viktor Bout Aircraft Running Guns to SomaliaNot long ago, the European Union added a whole chunk of dodgy Moldovan airlines to its flight-safety blacklist after ramp checks showed their aircraft were unsafe. Now, we have reports that the Moldovans have taken the logical next step and drained the swamp, by revoking the AOCs of the companies in question. It’s bye bye…
Read More Firedumped: A Cast of ThousandsRussians demonstrate swarming UAVs down in sunny Aberporth. Which reminds me – I once met a man who lived near there and claimed to have seen numerous UFOs. Yup, just across the bay from the RAE/DERA/WhateverIt’sCalledNow missile range. Still, Flight doesn’t give much detail, but here’s the maker’s webpage. Damn, a swarm of those would…
Read More Flock: the social UAVThis is an image of the cockpit of the next-generation Russian air superiority fighter, the Sukhoi 35. (h/t Aviation Week) What strikes me about it is that user-interface design for combat aircraft has caught up with what computer-game programmers thought it was like in 1997. Sukhoi have clearly leapt ahead in the glass cockpit trend…
Read More GUI for JetsHas Dan Hardie actually infiltrated the Chief of the General Staff’s private office? Mick Smith reports that Dannatt is gagging to create another brigade or so of infantry, which is not only roughly Dan’s prescription, but would just about equal last year’s four battalion cut. Hell, there are some fine old colours laid up in…
Read More Just Who Is the 5’O Clock Blogger?I can’t help thinking that if this LA Times story is accurate, those BGIA planes need a searching. In one of the most troubling trends, U.S. officials said that Al Qaeda’s command base in Pakistan is increasingly being funded by cash coming out of Iraq, where the terrorist network’s operatives are raising substantial sums from…
Read More Just another planeload of cashFlying from Sharjah to Bagram AFB today is an aircraft operating for “British Gulf International Company” as opposed to British Gulf International Airlines, using the ICAO code BGI rather than BGK. Why should this be interesting? Well, back in the beginning in 2003, BGIA was supposed to be a company from Sao Tome that had…
Read More The airline that wasn’t is back“Whoever dared paint markings on a plane’s wing was a swine,” said one of Pierre Clostermann’s comrades the night of the 8th of May, 1945. Latest reports from Sudan suggest you can do pretty well painting them out, too. The Sudanese government has been caught using various Antonov-26 aircraft to bomb villages in Darfur, having…
Read More Desert ViktorySomeone decides to rake through the Elf-Aquitaine embers, with the result that 42 persons are sent for by the judge. Including a whole slew of politicians – carrier-grade rightwing thug Charles Pasqua, crooked prefect for the Var Jean-Charles Marchiani, professional president’s son Jean-Christophe “Papa M’a Dit” Mitterand, and slightly surprisingly, Mitterand’s right hand man and…
Read More More updates from the crime beatSome time ago, I got involved in a debate about the cost of unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs. I argued that the idea that they would supplant piloted aircraft was overambitious, and that, crucially, the high accident rate they experienced would make them rather more expensive than anyone thought. After all, if their biggest advantage was…
Read More The cost of UAVs