Malaysia likely to pick KAI FA-50, HAL concedes defeat in fighter tender

HAL Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) CB Ananthakrishnan has acknowledged that Malaysia has not chosen his company’s Tejas fighter for its Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) program despite being among the two shortlisted out of eight companies that participated. Malaysia is now expected to select the South Korean supersonic fighter KAI FA-50 for the contract, dealing a blow to HAL’s hopes.

KH-2013 IAF Tejas 2 (33026195996)
Venkat Mangudi [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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Asylum-seeking Russian engineer offers access to Tu-160 program

A Russian aerospace engineer approached the U.S. authorities in late December seeking asylum and offering to share information on Russia’s Tu-160 bomber program. The offer, if genuine, could provide an insight into Russia’s most advanced strategic bomber, a plane that has been used in the Ukrainian conflict, Yahoo News reports.

Tupolev Tu-160 Pichugin-2
Dmitriy Pichugin (GFDL 1.2 or GFDL 1.2), via Wikimedia Commons
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X-62A flown by an artificial intelligence agent for more than 17 hours

The X-62A has been flown by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms developed under DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program for 17 hours during test flights at the Air Force Test Pilot School (TPS) at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

Roger Tanner and Bill Gray pilot the Variable Stability In-Flight Simulator Test Aircraft (VISTA) from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, to Edwards AFB on Jan. 30, 2019 after receiving modifications and a new paint scheme. The aircraft was resdesignated from NF-16D to the X-62A, June 14, 2021 (U.S. Air Force photo by Christian Turner)

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