Defence`s Feeds

The only dedicated European exercise for the C-27J Spartan military transport aircraft launches today for two weeks of intensive joint training. Now in its seventh edition, the ‘European Spartan Exercise’ will take place at 90th airlift base - Otopeni, Romania with four participating nations: Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, and Lithuania. In this edition, the European Spartan Exercise will be tailored to the Tactical air transport including air Medevac.

The European Spartan Exercise brings together three C-27J’s and around 150 personnel and will run from 2-12 October and marking the second time Romania has hosted the exercise. The core planning team composed of personnel from participating nations and the EDA already began work on 27 September for final preparations of the exercise. All planning cells include a representative of the participating nations, while medical personnel will plan dedicated missions for medical evacuation.

Tactical training

The C-27J Spartan transport aircraft is designed to perform tactical missions in peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, providing direct air transport to the theatre, day and night. The Spartan Exercise is also focused on peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, training C-27J crews to fly low level tactical navigation in different scenarios. The second week of the exercise will be dedicated to Tactical Medevac activities. Several airfields in Romania have been chosen for training with crews due to perform tactical approaches, material (CDS) and personnel airdrops, also using unprepared runway and short airfield for take-off and landing.

European C-27J community

This annual flying exercise, which is part of the EDA’s dedicated C-27J project that gathers five participating Member States that are C-27J users (the four afore-mentioned countries plus Slovakia), works to identify and develop common projects in the domains of operations, training, logistics, procurement, airworthiness and Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR) to achieve a high level of interoperability and cost-efficient operating and maintenance models.

EDA’s wider role 

EDA supports all EU Member States in improving their defence capabilities through European cooperation. Acting as an enabler and facilitator for Ministries of Defence willing to engage in collaborative capability projects, the Agency has become the hub for European defence cooperation with expertise and networks spanning the whole spectrum of defence capabilities. 

Member States use EDA as an intergovernmental expert platform where their collaborative projects are supported, facilitated, and implemented. For more details, please see here. 

JB McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst’s KC-135R Final Salute. We knew this day would finally come but that did not make it any easier to fathom the significance and history of the event taking place this bright, sunny morning [...]

The post New Jersey National Guard 108th Wing Bid Farewell to the KC-135R appeared first on The Aviationist.

Americas Honeywell International won a $95 million deal by the US Army for maintenance and overhaul of UH-60 Black Hawk starters. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of September 28, 2028. The US Air Force tapped Raytheon […]

In an email sent on the evening of Thursday, 28 September to employees and others close to the company, K2

With five judges due to be elected to the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 9 November, the re-election of Russia's Kirill Gevorgian is far from certain because of the long legal shadow cast by the war in

Should Jean-Francois Lhuillier, a now retired lieutenant-colonel in the army's transportation corps, prepare himself for a dawn call from the

The French defence ministry is focusing on the security aspects of President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Stockholm in a few

The campaign launched on the WeChat platform by the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS, or Guoanbu, IO, 18/11/22) calling

France - DGSE monitors battle for chair of French Senate foreign affairs and defence commissionAt least three right-wing senators are

Horse racing enthusiast Conservative Lord Daniel Hannan, Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, kept up with the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe,

NATO has just launched consultations with a view to potentially acquiring tailored cyber threat intelligence (CTI) products. The solution will

Everything you need to know about Ostrava NATO Days 2023. On Sep. 15 -17, 2023, we attended the annual NATO Days in Ostrava. The organizers pronounced the event to be a tremendous success, with a [...]

The post Czech Air Force In The Spotlight At NATO Days 2023 In Ostrava appeared first on The Aviationist.

ROKAF rehearsed a massive flypast for South Korea’s 75th Armed Forces Day. On Sept. 26, 2023, the South Korean military conducted its first Armed Forces Day parade in ten years through the streets of Seoul. [...]

The post Here Are The Formations That Rehearsed The Flypast For South Korea’s Armed Forces Day appeared first on The Aviationist.

Gioia del Colle Air Base will host 80 aircraft from 13 countries which will perform Large Force Employment training events from October 2 to 13. One of the largest European exercises, the NATO Tiger Meet, [...]

The post NATO Tiger Meet Returns To Italy After 35 Years appeared first on The Aviationist.

We have obtained a photo of one of the two Su-30 Flankers intercepted by the Italian F-35 jets over the Baltic Sea last week. On Sept. 21, 2023, two F-35A jets of the Italian Air [...]

The post Here’s One Of Two Russian Su-30s Intercepted By Italian F-35s Deployed To Poland appeared first on The Aviationist.

The European Defence Agency (EDA) and the European Commission’s DG Environment have signed a EUR 3-million Contribution Agreement to implement work on the circular economy in defence. The EDA’s “Incubation Forum for Circular Economy in European Defence” enters its project implementation phase (“IF CEED 2”). The EDA has managed the Incubation Forum for Circular Economy in European Defence (IF CEED) over the last 2 years, which has successfully  aimed at implementing circularity principles of the EU Green Deal to contribute to the operational efficiency of the armed forces.

Project ideas were built within 9 transnational incubation groups (“Project Circles”) by 300 experts from 28 Ministries of Defence in Europe, other national or international public bodies, as well as defence-related industry, research-and-technology organisations and universities.

Project Ideas

• Mining critical raw materials (CRM) from end-of-life military devices;
• Sustainable replacement of hard chrome/chromates solutions with CRM free coatings;
• Circularity of titanium via Additive Manufacturing (AM);
• Energy-efficient polymer AM; Circular deployable AM;
• Military (smart) Textile waste recycling and valorisation;
• Recycling / re-use / recovery of high value fibres from soldier personal protective equipment;
• Development of smart modular protective clothing systems for military applications using safe-and-sustainable by design principles;
• Guidelines for Environmental evaluation in defence applications;
• EMAS Certification uptake at experimental test ranges;
• EMAS training course and monitoring;
• Green Procurement Training for Defence;
• Defence Green Procurement Knowledge Platform;
• Digital Product Passport for armour components;
• Circular management of spare parts from decommissioned assets.

Since 1 October 2023, the DG Environment of the European Commission delegates EDA with the management of the “IF CEED 2” programme, to assist and ignite the concrete implementation of the aforesaid 15 collaborative projects ideas. This initiative receives a contribution of EUR 1.8 million from the EU LIFE Programme over a period of 4 years, to be supplemented by the Agency’s own resources and possible additional revenues, for an initial minimum budget of EUR 3 million.

EDA’s work on green defence

Moreover, IF CEED 2 will remain the key European forum to develop new project ideas on circular economy in Defence, thereby enhancing the contribution of the Agency to a sustainable and resilient defence sector, as already developed under e.g. the EDA’s Capability Technology Group Energy and Environment (CapTech E&E), the Environment Social Governance Network (ESG-N), the Consultation Forum for Sustainable Energy in the Defence and Security Sector (CF SEDSS), the REACH Network,  the courses on energy management in defence (DEMC) and the project Offshore Renewable Energy For Defence (Symbiosis).

EDA’s wider role 

EDA supports all EU Member States in improving their defence capabilities through European cooperation. Acting as an enabler and facilitator for Ministries of Defence willing to engage in collaborative capability projects, the Agency has become the hub for European defence cooperation with expertise and networks spanning the whole spectrum of defence capabilities. 

Member States use EDA as an intergovernmental expert platform where their collaborative projects are supported, facilitated, and implemented. For more details, please see here. 

For any further info: circular.economy@eda.europa.eu.

• How IF CEED works - video

The US Air Force's (USAF's) research division is looking to develop advanced cyber and signals intelligence (SIGINT) processing capabilities, which once developed and...

According to our information, Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) in Ningbo and Jiao-tong University in Shanghai will be the next to

France's Défense Conseil International (DCI) recently sent a group of trainers to Taiwan to teach Republic of China Air Force

Far from disagreements in Washington, the private sector in traditionally conservative Arizona is increasingly involved with Ukraine, signing deals with