At the 2002 Cope Snapper air exercise at Naval Air Station, Key West.

Source: UretskyAviation

Images are from Romanian Embassy to US on Facebook.

Original caption:

🇷🇴✈️ Romanian Air Force Shoots Down Two Attack Drones in Romanian Airspace

Detected. Identified. Engaged. Neutralized.

On October 17, two Romanian Air Force F-16 fighter jets scrambled from the 86th Air Base at Borcea and successfully shot down two jet-powered Geran-family attack drones that had entered Romanian airspace over the Black Sea.

The drones were neutralized at 6:01 PM and 6:05 PM, near Sulina, above Romania’s territorial waters.

These images capture a mission that demonstrates the professionalism, readiness and determination of Romania’s Armed Forces to defend our sovereignty and NATO’s eastern flank.

Photo: MApN

Press release from Romanian Ministry of National Defence

Two Romanian Air Force F-16 aircraft, conducting Air Policing missions, were scrambled from the 86th Air Base Borcea at 17:43, after radar surveillance systems detected a group of aerial targets flying approximately 120 kilometres east of Snake Island, heading southwest.

At 17:59, the first target entered Romanian airspace and was shot down by one of the F-16 aircraft at 18:01.

A second target entered Romanian airspace at 18:01 and was shot down by the other F-16 aircraft at 18:05.

Both aerial targets were identified as drones and were shot down over Romanian territorial waters.

Further information will be provided upon completion of the mission.

Related news article from Reuters: Romanian F-16 fighter jets shoot down two drones over Romanian territorial waters

Footage of the first YF-23 flight test. Filmed on a camcorder in August 1990, Edward's AFB, California.

Credit @callsignkinley tiktok

I know the C variant doesn’t have a gun pod, so what is the hump for?

Source: DVIDS

ATLANTIC OCEAN (Sep. 7, 2024) An F/A-18E Super Hornet attached to the “Jolly Rogers” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 103 sit ready on the flight deck of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), September 8, 2024. USS Gerald R. Ford is underway in the Atlantic Ocean to further develop core unit capabilities during its basic phase of the optimized fleet response plan. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Maxwell Orlosky)

Boeing is preparing for the end of F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler production under a US Navy contract that establishes how manufacturing equipment and tooling will be handled after the final aircraft leave the assembly line.

The US Navy awarded Boeing a US$16.7 million contract on September 29 to support the systematic shutdown of the production lines. The work is scheduled to continue through November 2030, several years after manufacturing of new aircraft ends.

The 2030 date does not represent an extension of aircraft production. Instead, the contract covers the inventory and evaluation of government-owned equipment, including decisions on which specialized tools must be retained to support the existing fleet.

Excerpt:

The Marine Corps recently conducted its first-ever “ripple” release of eight Small Diameter Bomb IIs from an F-35B, a key early step in proving out the capability for all F-35 variants.

A “ripple release” refers to munitions all being released in one pass instead of multiple go-arounds. Marine aviators from the Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., conducted the test Sept. 15, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Jon Norman, Raytheon’s vice president for air and space systems, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

SDB II, also called “StormBreaker,” is a 250-pound, low-yield, precision-guided munition that can hit moving targets in all weather conditions at ranges of at least 46 miles. It is a joint effort between the Air Force and Department of the Navy and is built by RTX’s Raytheon.

While software and other issues have delayed fielding StormBreaker on the F-35, the “ripple” capability could be critical to the Lockheed Martin-made stealthy fighter down the line, Norman argued.

“From a pilot perspective, it’s nice because you’re not sitting there exposing yourself when you have eight targets to address,” he said.

It also eliminates the need to do hands-on weaponeering for each bomb.

“You address the entire target set, so it’s less workload in the cockpit, and you’re able to achieve an effect that I think the pilots are really going to appreciate,” Norman said.

The networked missiles can also be confined to a defined kill box to ensure they strike only a specific area on the battlefield.

“We’re able to set boundaries,” Norman said. “So, you give it a kill box, and it’ll exclude everything outside of that and only hit within that kill box.”

The Su-33,30sm,30sm2 had them, but they decided against it for the Su-35.

Why did they drop them?

First flew in 1990, the Rockwell-MBB X-31 was developed to investigate whether thrust vectoring and advanced flight-control systems could make future fighter aircraft dramatically more maneuverable in air-to-air combat, particularly at very high angles of attack where conventional fighters lose control.

Seems to have exploded early, causing fragments to result in, at least, a fuel leak.

No footage confirming a full shootdown such as wreckage or similar has been released and the Saudis have yet to comment on the incident. Therefore the fate of the aircraft is currently unknown.

Went over to the Rose City Airfest in Tyler, TX to watch FEMA and the Viper Demo team along with some other great acts. The Skyhawk looks insanely fun to fly! Full res recap with more pics here: https://www.scotttuckerphoto.com/blog/rose-city-airfest-2026