Tag: Marine Corps

On Monday, six F-35B Lightning IIs arrived aboard the USS Wasp for two weeks of sea trials. The two-week operational test mission fulfills a Marine Corps requirement before its first squadron of 10 F-35s reaches IOC, or Initial Operational Capability, later this summer. Two of the jets come from MCAS Beaufort, South Carolina, and the […]

This week we look at a pair of General Electric F404 engines in afterburner in a VMFA(AW)-224 F/A-18D, brought to you courtesy of the USMC.

The F-35 will never be able to take away one thing from the venerable AV-8B Harrier II – it will never be the aircraft that perfected V/STOL.

This week marks the anniversary of the first flight of the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey when, on March 19, 1989, the prototype tiltrotor briefly bested gravity for the first time at Bell’s facility in Arlington, Texas.

For any aviator, military or civilian, one of the most dangerous – or shall we say, incident prone – phases of flight is the approach and landing phase. Even though aircraft spend little time in this regime compared to cruising at altitude, it accounts for a large percentage of aircraft accidents or incidents. It’s rightfully named […]

There has been a fair amount of talk lately about Gen Amos’ “Reawakening” initiative, and how it impacts the Marine Corps.  The blow to morale as well as the apparent concerted effort to force good Marines out in favor of poster-boy “yes men” have been extensively discussed elsewhere.  But there is a facet of the […]

For most of its institutional life, the Marine Corps has prided itself on being the poor bastard child of the US military.  For decades, its equipment was the Army’s castoffs.  Marines were still using bolt-action Springfield 1903s into 1942, and still using the M1 Garand after the Army had adopted the M14.  Marine helicopters are […]