Officials at the Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, dedicated a Royal Australian Air Force F-111C into the museum’s collection. Among the dignitaries at the Nov. 23 ceremony were Air Force Acting Secretary Eric Fanning, Pacific Air Forces Commander Gen. Hawk Carlisle, RAAF Air Marshal Geoffrey Brown, museum Board President Clint Churchill, and museum Executive Director Kenneth DeHoff. The Australians gifted the F-111, Australian serial number A8-130, to the museum. It bears Brown’s name—he formerly flew the airplane—and features the paint scheme and markings as when it entered service in 1973, according to the museum. The F-111 was Australia’s principal strike aircraft until its retirement in 2010. (Honolulu report by TSgt. Jerome S. Tayborn) (See also museum F-111 webpage.)
There is a new entrant in the highly competitive field of collaborative combat aircraft—semi-autonomous drones meant to fly alongside manned combat aircraft. Northrop Grumman unveiled its new Project Talon aircraft to a small group of reporters at the facilities of its subsidiary Scaled Composites.
