Briefings : 6 squadron, Anti-piracy, Talent

• The RAF has unveiled its newly reformed 6 Squadron which is equipped with Typhoons. 6 Squadron's job will be to provide quick reaction alert cover for the north of the UK from next year.
• 820 Naval Air Squadron has deployed to East Africa. The squadron's Merlin helicopters are embarked aboard RFA Fort Victoria and will carry out anti-piracy operations.
• Royal Navy submarine HMS Talent has returned home following an extended spell East of Suez.
• A rare German bomber from WW2 is to be restored by the RAF Museum after being recovered from the Goodwin Sands. The Dornier Do 17 had lain in the sands for 70 years after being shot down in 1940 and is said to be in good condition, the tyres are even still inflated!
• France is still confident it can sell helicopter carriers to Russia despite the Russians throwing the tender open.
• The Chinese media is calling for more anti-carrier weapons like the DF-21D though there are doubts being raised as to the effectiveness of weapons like these.
• Making sense of Anglo-French defence rumours.

Haig World War 1 Collection on Flickr

The National Library of Scotland have added 2000 photographs to Flickr's public Commons collection. The most interesting photographs are probably the ones from the papers of the papers of Field Marshal Haig, an extraordinary set of photos from the fighting in World War 1.

Operation Dynamo 70 years on

It is 70 years since Operation Dynamo, the "miracle" when thousands of allied troops were evacuated from France at Dunkirk (and other ports) back to Britain as the Germans pressed irresistibly into France. The BBC website has created a nice selection of maps and infographics to try and explain exactly did go on at Dunkirk.

A fleet of boats, some survivors from the original operation, will re-enact the journey over to Dunkirk today. They will be escorted across by HMS Monmouth.

The Telegraph have a video report. The Daily Mail looks at some of the soldiers who didn't manage to be evacuated and their terrible fate.

The Guardian has meanwhile gone back into it's archives to 1936 to find a report complaining about the state of the British Army and how so many recruits were rejected as they were unfit. Similiar things are often said about recruits nowadays, the more things change the more things stay the same.

Retro Tucanos

The RAF have repainted two of it's Tucano T1 trainers in a "retro" WW2 camouflage style (the red in the roundels looks too small to me though) as part of it's effort to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. They flew in formation with one of the RAF's heritage flight's Spitfires a few days ago. I'd love to see a Typhoon repainted like this too.

Photo © Geoffrey Lee/Planefocus

Briefings : CMWS support, SSBN(X), Cold War exhibits

BAE Systems has won a £16 million contract to support and service countermeasures systems currently operated by UK fixed and rotary wing assets over Afghanistan. For the next 5 years they will support the AAR-57 Common Missile Warning Systems fitted to 120 UK aircraft.

Nimrod MR2 XV250 has made it's final flight into retirement and will now live at the Yorkshire Air Museum.

The US have started looking at their next generation ballistic missile submarines to replace the Ohio class in the late 2020s. Some commentators are already considering the SSBN(X). The US and UK (who will be replacing their Vanguards in a similar time frame with the Successor submarine) are already working on some joint measures. Meanwhile the US has revealed they have, or are close to having, conventionally armed ICBMs.

In Lithuania you can have a taste of the cold war, or rather a Soviet concentration camp in a new tourist attraction.

Upgrading RAF ...er... Spitfires

Upgrading military aircraft is of course a never ending process but you may think the Spitfire and other aircraft from that time would be long off the upgrades list. However the aircraft of the Battle Of Britain Flight have just received an avionics upgrade so they can continue flying in the 21st century. The upgrade to the 70 year old Spitfires, Hurricane, Lancaster and Dakota was needed because of mandated airspace policies in place in the UK and Europe.



Increasing amounts of airspace require aircraft to carry transponders with identification friend or foe Mode S (mode select) transponders that allow an airframe to be interrogated automatically (reporting back identity, intent, capability location and altitude) using an unique address. Without this equipment the BBMF aircraft would be restricted as to where they could fly.



Luckily fitting the equipment to the old aircraft wasn't too difficult, the fittings for the old IFF system were able to be reused so no changes were required to the aircraft's structures.

Republished from my general tech blog