Spanish Navy frigate Reina Sofia saved 121 migrants on July 12 and another 120 just the day after. The migrant rubber boats were spotted by the EUNAVFOR MED operation Sophia air assets, the Luxemburg aircraft SW3 Merlin III and the Spanish VIGMA D-4. According to EUNVAFOR, two pregnant women were am
Royal Navy’s 700X Naval Air Squadron have taken delivery of their first Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) mini unmanned aerial systems (UAS). The navy explained this move with the fact that these systems presented a cheap but able “eye in the sky” capability, meaning they may have utility in the Royal
Lynx Defender returned home to Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) Yeovilton following a nine-month deployment to the Middle East. During their 263 days away from the UK, 239 Lynx Flight from 815 Naval Air Squadron home base Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) Yeovilton, Somerset has been deployed in HMS Defe
European naval units on Saturday apprehended three persons off the coast of Libya suspected of organizing migrant crossings in the Mediterranean Sea. In an Operation Sophia action which took place in the morning hours of July 9, German tender Werra was assisted by Italian Navy ship Borsini and other
The British Ministry of Defence has confirmed that it signed a deal to purchase nine P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) for the Royal Air Force (RAF). Boeing’s P-8A MPA are being purchased from the US Government via a Foreign Military Sale. According to the MoD, the cost of developing and
Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship RFA Cardigan Bay has returned from her Arabian Gulf deployment which kept the ship away from home for four years and two months. The ship supported mine warfare operations in the Middle East – not just by the Royal Navy’s four minehunters in the region, but by US counterpa
Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyer HMS Defender is set to return home to Portsmouth on July 8 following her nine-month deployment to the Middle East where the ship worked with American and French Carrier strike groups as part of on-going operations against Daesh in Iraq and Syria. During her 263 days aw
A submarine hunting helicopter from Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose has been supporting mine warfare training in the English Channel. The airborne anti-submarine Merlin from 824 Naval Air Squadron teamed up with its surface counter-part for a series exercises to familiarise HMS Hurworth, a Hunt-cla
Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Fredericton returned home in Halifax on July 5, following a six-month deployment to the Mediterranean and Black Seas on Operation Reassurance. The ship departed Halifax on January 5, 2016, and began Operation Reassuranceduties on January 8, 2016. It served with Sta
American global aerospace and defense company Lockeed Martin, which is in charge of manufacturing the next-generation F-35B stealth fighter jet, recently explained how the new aircraft will be taking off from the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers using the ski jump. For more t
Two BMT Defense Services chiefs recently expressed their views on the fleet support vessels delivered to the world’s navies and on the potential for future vessels to be less single-role specific and more multi-role in their functionality. Looking into the future, Andy Kimber, chief naval architect
Everything is ready for the Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton International Air Day 2016 to take to the skies on Saturday, July 2. In its seventieth anniversary (the first event was staged in 1947), Air Day is one of the Royal Navy’s premier annual events and among the South West’s key single-day sh
Three teams of shipbuilders are competing for the contract to build the German Navy’s new Multi-role Combat Ship 180 (Mehrzweckkampfschiff – MKS 180) – previously designated as ‘Korvette 131’. German Naval Yards Kiel has teamed up with British BAE Systems to submit a construction offer thereby joini
A Royal Navy Merlin Mk 2 helicopter from 814 Naval Air Squadron – ‘The Flying Tigers’ – has spent a weekend on show to the German public at the annual Kiel Week, after a multinational exercise in the Baltic. Embarked in HMS Ocean for Exercise Baltic Operations 2016 (BALTOPS), the Grey Maritime Merli
