Good Bye F-22s, We'll Miss You

The final F-22 Raptor rolled off the production line on December 13th. The tail number is 4195, and it is the 187th Raptor. The F-22 was conceived at the end of the Cold War as an air superiority fighter, that included stealth. The F-35 is going to replace it, as it will almost all other fighters including the F-16, F-18, and other fighters.

Here is a video of the final F-22 by Lockheed Martin:

More Info On X-47B

Here are more links with more info on the X-47B:

http://www.as.northropgrumman.com/products/nucasx47b/assets/X-47B_Navy_UCAS_FactSheet.pdf
http://www.as.northropgrumman.com/products/nucasx47b/assets/UCAS-D_DataSheet_final.pdf

F-35, See You 2018

The F-35, which was originally supposed to be ready by 2016, has been moved to 2018. Budget cuts and additional testing have pushed production back to that date. Due to this, the military is asking for money to upgrade their already operational F-16 fleet.

X-47 Takes Flight

On Tuesday, the actual X-47B took flight. It was conducted at Edwards Air Force Base, and helped validate the hardware and programming to land on a moving deck. Northrop Grumman is hoping to have the first carrier based take off in 2013, and air-to-air refueling. Check out my other story here.

Boeing Wins $11.7 billion Deal

The Department of Defense gave boeing a contract of $11.7 billion to service and for maintenance of their C-17 aircraft. On Sept. 28 the DOD gave a contract of $469 million for similar service for C-17s in the Indian Air Force.

Drone Kills 6

A us drone killed 6 civilians in Somalia. It is said that the drone's target was an al-Shabab base in the nearby area. Instead, 6 civilians died, with 20 wounded.

Model Planes = Weapon?

People always have fun fly model planes. But a man was recently arrested flying a model plane near the pentagon. The FBI said that Rezwan Ferdaus was going to attack the Pentagon and Capital building using F-4 and F-86 replicas loaded with 5 lbs. of plastic explosives. People say that it would be possible, but extremely hard to inflict a lot of damage.