Navy

Footage has emerged taken from the cockpit of a Russian fighter jet, showing a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol plane fitted with a secretive radar pod during a mission over the Black Sea. The video underscores the growing importance of the P-8 for intelligence gathering in critical theaters such as the Black Sea, an active war zone, where a tense standoff continues between NATO and Russian assets, on the margins of the conflict in Ukraine.

The video in question was published on the Russian aviation-connected Fighterbomber channel on Telegram and shows a mission that reportedly took place today, August 27. Publicly available flight tracking data does show a Navy P-8 mission over the Black Sea today, although we can’t be sure it was the same aircraft involved.

A tweet with embedded flight tracking data shows a P-8 flight from today, out of Naval Air Station Sigonella, Italy, and flying for four hours over the Black Sea, including at a distance of around 50 nautical miles from Russian airspace, off the Black Sea city of Sochi:

It’s also unclear what Russian aircraft was involved, although it is certainly a fighter from the Flanker series, perhaps a Su-35S, a type that has been noted flying such interception missions in the past.

What’s most notable about the video, however, is the extended antenna for the AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor, or AAS, the elongated pod that is sometimes seen fitted under the P-8’s fuselage. As we have discussed in depth in the past, this is a powerful radar system that entered development in 2009 and began testing in 2014. This may even be the first time that the pod has been observed in the Black Sea. It’s also very rare to see the antenna extended, usually it is tucked tightly below the aircraft’s fuselage in its stowed position.

P-8A 169336 returns from a short flight, showing off a new kit.

It Is now equipped with the AN/APS-154 AAS, and the Lockheed Multi User Objective System. This is now the second P-8 in the Navy fleet with this setup. pic.twitter.com/0qxklubbvw

— 𝗦𝗥_𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 (@SR_Planespotter) April 28, 2025

The footage provides an especially good and very rare view of how the pod is deployed in flight, using the Special Mission Pod Deployment Mechanism (SMPDM). By extending the pod well below the fuselage while in flight, the radar’s fields of view are no longer obstructed by the P-8’s two engines.

Details about the AAS pod and its capabilities remain strictly limited. We know that it was developed by Raytheon and that it is based around an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. This has a moving target indicator (MTI) and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) functionality, making it suitable for tracking moving targets below at sea and on land. It is able to detect and make SAR imagery of ships at considerable distances and can also collect very high-quality radar imagery of objects of interest for further analysis, even at night and in poor weather.

In addition, the pod may well have secondary electronic warfare capabilities. You can read much more about this sensor and what it offers to the Navy’s Poseidon fleet here.

The Black Sea, with its combination of maritime activity and proximity to an intense ground war in Ukraine, is an ideal theater of operations for the AAS-equipped P-8.

As TWZ has observed in the past:

“The AAS is also specifically designed to work in littoral regions where it might have to scan both water and land areas simultaneously. Traditional surface search radars are typically optimized for one environment or the other, or have dedicated modes for each, and generally have difficulty covering both at the same time.”

Since before the full-scale Russian invasion, an armada of NATO intelligence-gathering aircraft has been patrolling over the Black Sea, as well as elsewhere in proximity to Russian and Ukrainian borders. RC-135 Rivet Joints and RQ-4 drones, to name just two, have long been staples in the airspace over the Black Sea.

As for the P-8, its value in the region, especially when equipped with the AAS pod, is obvious, providing the ability to monitor, with great acuity, various objects of interest, including moving ones, both in the water and on land.

Having the AAS-equipped P-8 in this area, combined with the aircraft’s existing electronic intelligence, networking and data-sharing capabilities, makes for a very powerful standoff targeting platform. Data can be fed to other assets in the air, at sea, or on land. It can detect ships moving from great distances, even small ones, and than ‘image’ them using its powerful radar. Detecting and cataloging enemy air defense emissions and radar mapping shore and inland targets is all in a day’s work for this highly unique aircraft.

The aircraft, outfitted in this way, also provides a partial replacement for the EP-3E Aeries II, which has now departed U.S. Navy service. The AN/APS-154 is also a direct successor to the equally secretive AN/APS-149 Littoral Surveillance Radar System, another podded Raytheon AESA radar that was carried by some P-3C Orions.

The latest encounter between a P-8 and a Russian Flanker seems to have passed without incident, although there is certainly a precedent for some more tense intercepts over the same waters.

In September 2022, a Russian Su-27 Flanker fighter fired an air-to-air missile toward a U.K. Royal Air Force RC-135W Rivet Joint over the Black Sea, although the details of exactly why that happened remain somewhat unclear.

According to one account, a Su-27 pilot misinterpreted an instruction from a radar operator on the ground and thought he had permission to fire on the RC-135. The Russian pilot achieved a missile lock on the British aircraft, then fired a missile that “did not launch properly.”

In March 2023, an encounter between a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone and two Russian Su-27 fighters over the Black Sea resulted in the drone being lost. A video released by the Pentagon soon after seems to confirm that one of the Su-27s struck the drone’s propeller, although it remains unclear to what degree that action was deliberate or a misjudgment.

U.S. Department of Defense video showing part of the encounter between a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 and two Russian Su-27 fighter jets over the Black Sea on March 14, 2023, that resulted in the drone being lost:

The video of the P-8 being intercepted by a Russian fighter once again highlights the relatively intense activity by surveillance aircraft and the fighters that monitor them in some of the tensest skies in Europe.

Contact the author: [email protected]

The U.S. Navy, together with 11 of America’s allies, is working to develop a follow-on to the Block 2 version of the RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM). The ESSM is an air defense staple on a wide array of American and foreign naval vessels, but concerns about an increasingly complex aerial threat ecosystem are now driving interest in a missile with improved capabilities.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) posted a notice online yesterday inviting prospective contractors to a meeting in October to discuss what is currently described as a “Next Significant Variant (NSV) missile system” to succeed the ESSM Block 2. NavalX, a technology incubator within ONR charged with fostering innovation for the Navy and Marine Corps, is currently partnered with the NATO SEASPARROW Project Office (NSPO) on this effort. The NSPO consortium, which dates back to 1968, currently includes the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey. Despite the name, Australia is not a member of NATO, but is one of America’s top allies. The U.S. arm of NSPO falls under Naval Sea Systems Command’s (NAVSEA) Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS).

The ESSM is a short-to-medium range surface-to-air missile primarily designed to offer an additional layer of defense against anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM), but that is also capable of engaging other aerial threats. The baseline semi-active radar-guided Block 1 ESSM, which evolved from the earlier RIM-7 Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missile, itself based on the AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile, was developed in the 1990s and entered service in the early 2000s. The Block 2 version, which began entering service in the early 2020s, features a much-improved seeker with semi-active and active modes, the latter of which does not require a radar on the launching ship to ‘illuminate’ the target. It also has a data link so the missile can receive targeting updates after launch, an especially useful capability for longer-range engagements.

“The NSPO is exploring technology to be incorporated into a Next Significant Variant (NSV) missile system,” yesterday’s notice says. “This successor to the ESSM Block 2 must be able to engage current and future threats while maintaining existing quad-pack sizing with a 10” missile diameter.”

The ESSM’s ability to be quad-packed into Mk 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells, giving ships valuable added magazine depth, is another one of the missile’s key features. Ships equipped with Mk 48, Mk 56, or Mk 57 VLS arrays, as well as deck-mounted Mk 29 box launchers, can also use them to fire ESSMs.

“To develop the NSV missile system, the NSPO will lean heavily on digital engineering and model-based systems engineering to communicate missile designs and requirements efficiently among consortium nations and industry partners in a shared development environment. These tools will be used to evaluate weapon systems and missile technologies through a design alternative evaluation process,” the ONR notice explains. “White papers are expected to include all aspects of the NSV missile including seeker technologies, autopilot, computing stack, internal communications, rocket motor alternatives, warhead design, missile to missile communications, data links, combat system integration, etc.”

No specific requirements are laid out in the notice. A multi-mode seeker that incorporates an imaging infrared (IIR) capability is one feature commonly discussed in the context of future anti-air missiles. An IIR mode would be immune to electronic warfare jamming and would not be impacted by a target’s radar-absorbing or deflecting stealth features. As a passive seeker mode, it would also not pump out signals that a threat could detect to alert them that they are being targeted. A new highly loaded grain rocket motor could also offer extended range without changing the missile’s form factor. These are just some of the possible features that could be included in a successor to the ESSM Block 2.

The notice about the NSV missile system does say that “potential industry partners,” as well as “existing” ones, are welcome at the upcoming meeting on the NSV missile system, which would seem to at least leave open the possibility of a follow-on to the ESSM Block 2 that has a substantially different design.

“Drivers for development include stressing simultaneous engagement scenarios, the need to develop fully releasable technologies using open architecture standards for all consortium partners to openly share, and the need to maintain capability with current consortium systems to the greatest extent possible while limiting ship support,” the notice also says, without further elaborating.

It is worth noting here that the Block 2 variant of the ESSM was itself developed in response to what the Navy described as a need for improved “capability against the most stressing ASCM threats in challenging environments.”

Navy warships, as well as those belonging to other members of the NSPO consortium, now face an aerial threat matrix that includes even more advanced supersonic, as well as hypersonic ASCMs. There is also the increasing likelihood that they could be layered in with anti-ship ballistic missiles and multiple tiers of drones, creating additional complexity for defenders. While an ESSM successor would not be tasked with ballistic missile defense, improved capability against other threats would give the crew of a ship greater flexibility to respond to an incoming complex attack. The Navy has been trying to accelerate work on high-power microwave directed energy weapons for the same general reasons.

The Navy and a number of other NSPO members are acutely aware of how the maritime threat ecosystem is evolving already from defending against cruise and ballistic missiles and drones launched by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen while sailing in and around the Red Sea in the past two years or so. Existing ESSM variants have been employed in the course of those operations, but their role has not been touted to any significant degree, unlike a number of other naval surface-to-air missiles.

U.S. lessons learned from naval operations against the Houthis, as well as in the defense of Israel from Iran on multiple occasions since April 2024, have underscored the importance of magazine depth, even in the face of attacks involving relatively modest volumes of threats. Those experiences have also highlighted the vital need for at-sea reloading capabilities. Navy ships would be subjected to a wider array of threats in substantially larger volumes, and would burn through interceptors at a higher rate, in any future high-end fight, such as one against China in the Pacific.

Overall, much remains to be learned about the plans for a follow-on to the Block 2 ESSM, but there are clear threat drivers that would prompt a desire for a successor.

Contact the author: [email protected]

A first-person view (FPV) type quadcopter drone controlled via a fiber optic cable was among the participants in a U.S. Navy-led exercise earlier this year focused on exploring new distributed electronic warfare capabilities. Fiber optic kamikaze FPVs, which Russia first began using in Ukraine last year and have now become a fixture on both sides of that conflict, are notably immune to jamming and many other forms of electronic warfare.

The Michigan National Guard released pictures yesterday of the fiber optic FPV and other uncrewed systems that took part in Exercise Silent Swarm 25. The event itself took place back in July at the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center (CRTC) in Alpena, Michigan. The Navy’s Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane) has been holding Silent Swarm events annually at the Alpena CRTC in cooperation with the Michigan National Guard and other elements of the U.S. military since 2022.

“During the series of technology experiments, private companies, academic institutions, and military organizations used swarms of unmanned systems to ‘attack’ and ‘defend’ locations in Thunder Bay, off the coast of Alpena in Lake Huron,” according to a press release on the exercise the Michigan National Guard put out today. “As the two forces conducted their operations, all parties collected data on which technologies offered the greatest advantages.”

“The hypothesis for Silent Swarm is to identify those systems that can outmatch and have an impact in the most challenging environments,” Rob Gamberg, project lead for Silent Swarm at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane), also said in a statement. “We are learning from each other with every iteration, which is exactly what we hope to see.”

“Silent Swarm is a series of events focused on experimentation with early development Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO) capabilities that can be employed on attritable, multi-domain Unmanned Systems (UxS),” NSWC Crane also said in call for participants in Silent Swarm 25 that it put out last year. “The Silent Swarm series provides a challenging and flexible experimentation environment to enable rapid development of emerging technology. Selected participants will be able to further develop their technologies while operating in an operationally relevant sandbox environment alongside subject matter experts (SMEs) from joint operational and technical communities.”

How many total fiber optic FPVs took part in Silent Swarm 25, and whether they were used as ‘attackers’ or ‘defenders,’ or both, is unclear. However, their inclusion in the exercise at all makes good sense. As noted, Russia first began using FPVs with this kind of control method last year, primarily in response to growing electronic warfare threats.

Fiber optic control offers additional benefits, including a more reliable, secure, and higher-speed link with lower latency (key for FPV operation) that is also immune to cyber intrusion. The hard link helps mitigate the effects of terrain that can interfere with radio control, something that is also a factor for operating drones inside buildings. Fiber optic drones also do not pump out radio frequency emissions that passive sensors can detect, making them harder to spot. The control scheme is not without its own disadvantages, including the potential for the cable to become tangled on or severed by various obstacles. The drones are also not invulnerable, including to laser and microwave directed energy weapons.

Still, Ukrainian forces followed suit in adopting fiber optic FPVs for the same general reasons. Fiber optic cables have also since emerged as a means to control small uncrewed ground vehicles.

“The idea is great, because you are operating in total radio silence, so you cannot be detected by any radar system [passive sensors]. And any electronic warfare means that later on, they are just inefficient,” the commander of the 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov of the Ukrainian National Guard’s Unmanned Systems Battalion, who uses the call sign Yas, told TWZ in an interview in May. “At the same time, the use of fiber optic cables, as with any FPV drone, has its own peculiarities of operation, and if the pilot is not skilled enough, that is going to lead to significant losses in such equipment and systems.”

“I would like to say that at the moment, Russian electronic warfare is undoubtedly one of the leading in the world,” he added. “So I do not want to underestimate the enemy. We need to accept, to acknowledge, the level of the enemy.”

The use of fiber optic FPV in Ukraine has become so commonplace that videos have begun to emerge showing dense, tangled webs of leftover cables littered on the ground.

There are also signs now that fiber optic FPVs may be starting to proliferate outside of Ukraine.

Wow, for the first time, fiber-optic drones have been spotted in use by the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) in Mali, who are fighting against both the Malian Armed Forces and Russia’s Africa Corps/Wagner Group. The drones and training were likely provided by Ukraine, with previous… pic.twitter.com/OxemaEbWwO

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) July 28, 2025

All of this makes them a threat that the U.S. military could be increasingly likely to encounter in various hot spots around the world. It is also a capability that America’s armed forces could itself be interested in employing. Seeing how they perform in an exercise like Silent Swarm could, in turn, be beneficial when it comes to exploring potential countermeasures, including different means of both detecting and defeating them, as well as gaining additional insights into the benefits they could offer in friendly hands.

“We are so far behind,” U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Ryan, the service’s deputy chief of staff for operations, plans, and training, said in March about the U.S. military’s response to the impact fiber optic drones are already having. Ryan’s comments came during a panel discussion at an Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) conference.

At the same time, “any Soldier paying attention to technological advances in warfare in Ukraine over the past three years undoubtedly notices a cat and mouse game of drone versus counter-drone scenarios being played out on the battlefield,” an unclassified paper on fiber optic drones that the Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) published in July, which also highlights Ryan’s comments, notes. “As one side develops a new drone capability giving it tactical advantage for a short period of time, inevitably the other side develops a counter technology to offset that advantage.”

All of this underscores the value of including fiber optic drones in an exercise like Silent Swarm.

“To build an agile, lethal and ready warfighter, we must continuously experiment with and adapt the best technologies the market has to offer,” Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Rogers, adjutant general and director of the Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, also said in a statement about Silent Swarm 25. “Events like Silent Swarm are critical for accelerating innovation, allowing the Joint Force to test, train with, and rapidly integrate emerging capabilities to stay ahead of evolving threats and maintain our strategic edge.”

It is worth noting here that Ryan’s comment back in March reflects broader criticism of how the U.S. military had continued to lag behind in the actual fielding of new uncrewed capabilities, in general, especially to smaller units. When it comes to drones, as well as counter-drone systems, America’s armed forces have long seemed mired in endless experimentation and demonstrations. In July, the Pentagon moved to try to finally break those cycles for good with a swath of major policy changes as part of a “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance” initiative, which you can read more about here.

“Drones are the biggest battlefield innovation in a generation, accounting for most of this year’s casualties in Ukraine. Our adversaries collectively produce millions of cheap drones each year,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote in a memo kicking off the initiative. “While global military drone production skyrocketed over the last three years, the previous administration deployed red tape. U.S. units are not outfitted with the lethal small drones the modern battlefield requires.”

“Drone technology is advancing so rapidly, our major risk is risk-avoidance,” that memo added. “The Department’s bureaucratic gloves are coming off.”

Silent Swarm separately remains an important part of broader efforts to develop and field new heavily networked electronic warfare capabilities, an area where the U.S. Navy has been making significant investments for years now. Years ago, the Navy outlined a vision for an advanced, multi-faceted, cooperative, and distributed electronic warfare ecosystem as part of an effort once referred to as Netted Emulation of Multi-Element Signature against Integrated Sensors, or NEMSIS, which TWZ was the first to report on. Drones, as well as drone-like decoys, are still seen as key elements of that overarching plan.

Overall, given their growing prominence, fiber optic drones are likely to become a feature in more U.S. military exercises going forward, both as threats and potential friendly assets.

Contact the author: [email protected]

U.S. President Donald Trump is deploying a flotilla of warships and other military assets to the waters off Venezuela in an operation aimed at Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The ominous move signals a growing frustration with the Venezuelan leader over the flow of illicit narcotics into the United States. Maduro remains a fugitive from a 2020 U.S. indictment on narco-terrorism and drug trafficking charges.

Trump last week ordered at least three Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyers, a submarine and other assets to head toward the South American nation, a source familiar with the operation confirmed to The War Zone on Wednesday. Earlier this week, Reuters reported that in addition to the destroyers, some 4,000 Marines aboard an Amphibious Ready Group made-up of three ships were also deploying to the region. If this ends up being the case, it would put a remarkably large, versatile, and powerful armada of U.S. ships off Venezuela’s coast.

While the exact nature of this movement remains unclear, it is part of Trump’s larger effort to get the military involved in the fight against drug traffickers. In response, Maduro on Monday announced the planned deployment of more than 4.5 million militia members around the country. They are volunteers designated to bolster the armed forces’ defense against external and domestic attacks.

“The empire has gone mad and has renewed its threats to Venezuela’s peace and tranquility,” Maduro said at an event in Caracas, without mentioning any specific action.

Trump, whose problems with Maduro date back to the American president’s first term, has accused the Venezuelan leader of being a key part of the international drug trade he targeted as a top priority to fight. The White House considers Maduro a “narco-terrorist.”

“President Trump has been very clear and consistent,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday when asked about the troop deployments and whether the U.S. will put boots on the ground in Venezuela. “He’s prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice. The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela. It is a narco-terror cartel led by Maduro. It is the view of this administration that he is not a legitimate president. He is a fugitive head of this cartel who has been indicted in the United States for trafficking drugs into the country.”

Exactly what the U.S. plans to do with its military assets in regards to Maduro remains murky.

Last week, U.S. officials told CNN that it had ordered naval movements in the region to contain the threat from drug trafficking groups. On Monday, Reuters reported that the USS Gravely, USS Jason Dunham and the USS Sampson and some 4,000 military personnel would arrive at the edge of Venezuela’s territorial waters within the next 36 hours.

“That U.S. official, who was speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the additional commitment of military assets in the broader region would include several P-8 spy planes, warships and at least one attack submarine,” Reuters added. “The official said the process would be ongoing for several months and the plan was for them to operate in international airspace and international waters.” The P-8 is a maritime patrol aircraft, not primarily a spy plane, but it is capable of myriad surveillance tasks.

In addition, the official told Reuters that the naval assets “can be used to not just carry out intelligence and surveillance operations, but also as a launching pad for targeted strikes if a decision is made.”

On Tuesday, however, a US Department of Defense official told CNN there were no U.S. warships in the area, nor have the ships received orders to head there. We have reached out to the White House for clarification and will update this story with any pertinent details provided.

Meanwhile our friends at Task & Purpose (T&P) on Monday reported that the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) “set sail out of Naval Station Norfolk on Aug. 14. The force includes more than 4,500 sailors and Marines on three ships: The Wasp class amphibious assault ship, the USS Iwo Jima, and San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships the USS San Antonio and USS Fort Lauderdale.”

Though T&P noted that the Navy initially described the ARG/MEU movement as a “regularly scheduled deployment,” the outlet added that Reuters and CNN both reported that the Iwo Jima ARG was heading to the southern Caribbean as part of anti-drug trafficking efforts. 

“A defense official familiar with the situation confirmed those reports to Task & Purpose,” the outlet added.

The Iwo Jima ARG’s deployment was interrupted, however, when Hurricane Erin forced it back to Norfolk, USNI reported on Tuesday.

Maduro was indicted in a New York federal court in 2020, during the first Trump presidency. He and 14 others, including several close allies, were hit with federal charges of narco-terrorism and conspiracy with the Colombian FARC insurgent group to import cocaine. 

“For more than 20 years, Maduro and a number of high-ranking colleagues allegedly conspired with the FARC, causing tons of cocaine to enter and devastate American communities,” then-U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr said at the time.

Back then, the U.S. offered a $15 million reward for his arrest. It was later bumped up to $25 million and earlier this month, the Trump Justice Department announced it was increasing the reward to $50 million. In another action against Venezuelan cartels, Trump in February designated that nation’s Tren de Aragua, MS-13 in El Salvador and six groups based in Mexico as foreign terrorist organizations. His administration has also stepped up immigration enforcement against alleged gang members, including sending thousands of troops to the southern border.

While the nature of the U.S. military response is yet unknown, the deployment of an ARG and guided missile destroyers sends a very strong signal to Maduro. The Pentagon could carry out airstrikes, interdict shipments, or even put a limited number of boots on the ground from international waters in a hurry should Trump so decide.

Contact the author: [email protected]

The Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has shared new insights with TWZ into its proposal to replace the U.S. Navy’s T-45 Goshawk jet trainers. The company announced yesterday that it was putting forward its twin-engine Freedom jet, the only clean-sheet design currently known to be in the running, to meet the Navy’s future Undergraduate Jet Training System (UJTS) needs.

Our Jamie Hunter had a chance to talk in depth about the Freedom jet with Ray “Fitz” Fitzgerald, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Technology at SNC, and Derek Hess, Vice President of Strategy at SNC, at the Tailhook Association’s main annual symposium, which kicked off yesterday.

As part of its rollout yesterday, SNC had already highlighted the Freedom jet’s 16,000-hour airframe life and ability to perform 35,000 touch-and-goes and/or Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP) landings in that time, which we will come back to later on. The company also says Freedom has a 40-percent lower lifecycle cost than the existing T-45, as well as the ability to fly 30- to 40-percent longer sorties. In terms of performance, SNC says the jet is “representative” of 4th and 5th generation types, being able to pull down to -3 and up to +8 Gs, and reach an angle of attack up to 27 degrees.

“The advantages that we’re bringing to the table is that it’s a clean sheet design, which means that we are tailoring this exactly to the Navy’s needs. So, we talk about, train like you fight, zero compromises,” Fitzgerald said. “Every aircraft in the world has its compromises, but the Navy is special.”

“So, the three things that we’re trying to get across as a value proposition for the Navy, number one is over the entire life cycle of the of the aircraft, the entire life of the aircraft, is a significant cost savings,” he explained. “This plane was designed around two engines. These two engines have 20 million hours of flight time on them, well sustained out there in the world.”

The Freedom jet is designed around a pair of Williams FJ44-4M turbofan engines. FJ44 variants are in widespread use globally, especially on business jets, such as members of the popular Cessna Citation family. Having two engines also offers an additional margin of safety over single-engine types. The Navy’s existing T-45 jet trainer is notably a single-engine aircraft.

The “number two value proposition is that we are the only competitor right now, and this is very important, that can do field carrier landing practice, FCLP-to-touchdown,” he added. “Very important for the Navy. You have to train like you fight. And every time you land on an aircraft carrier, you’re flying it into the deck. You’re not flaring or pulling throttles back. FCLP-to-touchdown is critical.”

FCLP landings, which are part of the Navy’s current curriculum for training naval aviators, are conducted at bases on land, but are structured to mimic as closely as possible the experience of touching down on a real carrier. In March, the Navy publicly released new requirements for the UJTS effort, which axed the need for its future jet trainers to be capable of performing FCLP training. Years ago now, the service had already announced that it was eliminating the requirement for the jets to be able to actually land on or take off from carriers, as T-45s do now. If the Navy does not reverse course, these controversial changes are set to fundamentally alter how the service trains new naval aviators. They may not see a carrier until they reach the Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) in charge of the aircraft type they have been assigned to fly.

SNC’s Fitzgerald also took the time to point out here that the 16,000-hour airframe life SNC says the Freedom jet will offer is double the Navy’s current stated requirements for UJTS.

“The third point in the value [proposition] is the fact that when we designed this, and [if] we are selected by the Navy, we are handing the Navy the entire digital package for this aircraft,” he continued. “We want to have the ability to compete in the future for future changes, but the Navy will have the data. They can do upgrades, modifications, whatever. They’re going to own it [the data rights] on onset.”

Fitzgerald claimed that this is the first time in the history of U.S. defense contracting where an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) has offered this level of data rights, and described it as an “absolute game-changer.”

The core elements of SNC’s proposal are reflected in the basic design of the Freedom jet.

“I think it is a natural tendency to go, ‘how do you replace the T-45?’ That’s not the question we had ourselves,” Hess, the Vice President of Strategy at SNC, said. “We pride ourselves on delivering, solving tough problems for our customers, in this case, the U.S. Navy. So what we designed this aircraft around is better quality training for UJTS at a lower lifecycle cost than they’re currently paying.”

“The landing gear is a dead giveaway that this was always envisioned for the naval training mission,” he continued. For “FCLPs, using this trailing link landing gear is a huge design cycle.”

A trailing link or trailing arm landing gear is specifically designed to help smooth the impact of landing and/or operating from rougher fields.

One of “the other things that we did was put a cockpit in this that is a thoroughly modern cockpit that can display things like an F-35 or an F-18,” Hess continued. “And then we gave it an eight G capable platform and a 27 degree high AOA [angle of attack] maneuvering capability. And we did that because we just avoided the supersonic and transonic region.”

“If you try and do something that gets up into that transonic region, you compromise on what your wing is, and therefore you can’t get the performance,” he explained. “And so that’s why you need a giant engine that pushes you through the drag rise of what a normal, typical fighter wing is. This is a much higher aspect wing, and we get the G onset rate, the sustained turn rates, and maneuvers that you need to train young men and women to become naval fighter pilots.”

“So all of the modeling that we have done in the MBSE [model-based systems engineering] and fluid dynamics world has been borne out by our wind tunnel testing and all those kinds of things. And we’re always a degree or two conservative,” Hess also said. “For example, this is a 32-degree angle of attack capability that we tame down to 27 degrees to make sure that it has level one handling qualities. The other thing is, this aircraft, this wing, builds all the lift through conventional means. Where you have other aircraft that have large chines on them, and that is what you need when you get into the transonic region, because your wing can’t produce that lift, so you do vortex lift over those large chines, and that’s, frankly, where you end up with problems in handling qualities, is because you can’t control the shedding of the vortices and things of that nature.”

“And it becomes a watershed there, right? So when you start with the chines, that the drag coefficient on that becomes huge, which means you need a bigger motor to dig that out, which means higher fuel – you know, just boom, boom, boom. It just bespoke,” Fitzgerald also interjected. “We started with the motor, went with the wing, went with the training capability up front, and really thought this through.”

In addition to its core shaping, Freedom’s wing will feature leading-edge slats and flaperons, as well.

Hess and Fitzgerald were responding here to a specific question about the use of digital modeling in the Freedom’s design. While digital engineering has proven to be useful across the aerospace industry, there has been growing skepticism about the full extent of the benefits it offers in recent years. Boeing’s T-7A Redhawk jet trainer for the U.S. Air Force had been a notable poster child for digital engineering and design tools, but developmental troubles with that aircraft have added to a growing view that the technologies are not as revolutionary as many had hoped. A navalized version of the T-7 is also a contender to replace the Navy’s T-45s.

“I really think it is important to say you don’t need a fighter to learn how to fly a fighter,” Hess added. “You need something that gives you all the tools to practice everything you want to and then move the graduates who are more prepared to get into those gray jets after graduating in this airplane.”

“You can complete a lot more training in this jet at a much lower cost per hour,” Fitzgerald, the SNC Senior Vice President of Strategy and Technology, further noted. “And then as you step into the fleet, you’re not having to burn the very exquisite, expensive aircraft to do very mundane training tasks.”

It is important to reiterate here that SNC’s proposal, overall, stands in contrast with the Navy’s currently stated requirements, especially when it comes to the matter of FCLP capability. The requirements changes, which have notably come on the back of Navy investments in virtualized training and automated carrier landing capabilities like Magic Carpet, have significantly opened the field offerings based on existing land-based jet trainer designs. In addition to Boeing’s navalized T-7, Lockheed Martin and Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) have been offering the TF-50N, while Textron and Leonardo are pitching what is now branded as the Beechcraft M-346N. Both of those aircraft are based on in-production designs with significant global user bases already.

“You want … your – I call it your lizard brain – to be trained to do the things you are going to do when things go south on you, because the way a [former Air Force pilot] like me lands an airplane is 180 degrees different than a carrier guy,” Hess said in talking about why SNC has made FCLP capability a focus of its proposal. “I touch down, go to idle. He touches down, slams down, goes to MIL [maximum non-afterburner thrust], and is ready to take off again.”

“This is why FCLPs are so important,” Fitzgerlad, a former naval aviator himself, added. “On that dark, stormy night, and everything’s just going bad, you rely on muscle memory, right? So when you think about muscle memory, as a carrier aviator, you’re on speed, so you’re on the right AOA, so the hook and the gear are the right AOA to trap, and everything hits at the same time. If I’m at a slow AOA, it means my nose is up, which means the hook grabs first and slams you down. You can break a jet like that. If I’m at a fast AOA, the nose is lower, hook is up, you skip across, and you go flying again, which is not good either.”

“So every single time we’re doing an FCLP, as soon as you fly into the deck, you crash into that deck, he [the Air Force pilot] goes idle, and [says] ‘I want a nice flare, soft thing.’ We [naval aviators] fly it into the deck, and as soon as we touch it, it’s full power, 180 out,” he continued. “So that muscle memory, I mean, it’s what will save lives.”

SNC’s Hess also argued that if the Navy’s future jet trainers do not allow for FCLP landings, it will put additional more onus on FRSs and operational units to do that training. That, in turn, could take time away from other priorities and increase wear and tear on the Navy’s fighter fleets.

In addition, while SNC is a firmly established name when it comes to the special mission aircraft conversion and modification business, especially for U.S. government customers, Freedom is its only foray to date into actually building an aircraft from scratch. The jet first emerged from a partnership with Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI, and also abbreviated TUSAS in Turkish), but SNC has been working on it independently for some years now.

“The Navy hasn’t really put out hard requirements yet. We’re expecting a draft RFP [request for proposals] soon, this fall, with a hard RFP by winter. That’s the latest we’ve heard from the Navy,” Fitzgerald said. “I think they’re still trying to figure out what their hard requirements are, which is why we’re here, trying to say, ‘Hey, make sure the aperture is open enough so that we can compete,’ because that’s what we want to do. That’s all we’re asking for is a shot at the table.”

Altogether, the Navy’s forthcoming UJTS competition is shaping up to be hotly contested, as well as an important watershed moment for how the service trains new naval aviators going forward.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Naval aviators need to be able to trust any future drone wingmen as much as their human counterparts, a U.S. Navy strike fighter tactics instructor has told TWZ. This echoes past comments from members of the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Marine Corps, and is set to be a critical factor in turning the Navy’s still very nascent and evolving crewed-uncrewed teaming vision into a reality.

Navy Lt. Cdr. Mark “Tugboat” Jbeily talked about ‘loyal wingman’ type drones, now commonly called Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), and crewed-uncrewed teaming, and how they factor into his service’s plans for future carrier air wings, with our Jamie Hunter at the Tailhook Association’s annual symposium today. Jbeily is a career F/A-18 pilot and TOPGUN graduate currently assigned as an instructor to the Strike Fighter Weapons School, Pacific (SFWSPAC) at Naval Air Station Lemoore in California.

“I think, currently, we’re [the Navy] still figuring out exactly what the specific type of [CCA] platform is going to look like, how it’s going to integrate into the air wing, [and] how we’re going to use it for maximal advantage,” Jbeily explained. “But I think some common themes … are going to be consistent regardless of the specific platform, range, vendor, whatever it is.”

“You know, the wings on your chest are a sign of trust, ultimately, right? They represent that you’ve been through an established training pipeline. You’re going to behave in a predictable manner, in a standardized manner. We can trust you with this awesome power of an F-18 or F-35,” he continued. “How do we take that concept of trust and now bring it to collaborative autonomy, or manned-unmanned teaming? How do we train to get them comfortable so, in the same way that if you and I were flying, if you were my wingman, I would know you’re going to behave in a repeatable, consistent [manner]?”

“I can have insight on your behaviors. We can do a thorough debrief about why did you do this or why did you do that?” Jbeily added. “And the key, I think, is going to be, regardless of the specific platform, how do we build that element of trust, and how do we get folks comfortable to be able to use it in a combat scenario if we have to.”

The video below from Collins Aerospace offers a vision of what a future conflict involving U.S. CCAs, including ones launched from carriers, teamed up with crewed fighters might look like.

When it comes to advanced autonomous capabilities, whether they be integrated into drone wingman or another platform, the essential need for trust has now been a common refrain from members of the U.S. military for years. This trust will be just as critical during routine training and other day-to-day activities involving crewed-uncrewed teams as it will be during any future combat scenario, for exactly the kinds of reasons that Lt. Cdr. Jbeily cited today.

At a separate conference earlier this year, a U.S. Marine Corps aviation officer highlighted how just making sure that CCA-type drones do not collide with their crewed companions remains a challenge. TWZ noted at the time that this underscored the many basic problems still to be solved before CCAs can be regularly deployed, launched, recovered, supported, and otherwise operated at all, let alone employed tactically.

In speaking with TWZ today, Lt. Cdr. Jbeily further talked about how CCAs could be incorporated in training in the future using what are called live, virtual, constructive (LVC) concepts. As the name indicates, LVC training blends together real and simulated elements in real-world and virtualized settings using a mixture of systems networked together, as you can read about in more detail here. LVC concepts are already regularly used as part of research, development, test, and evaluation activities related to advanced uncrewed capabilities. In line with his comments on trust, Jbeily put particular emphasis on the need for the live component.

“We already, within the Navy, have an established process of, if you take, for example, live-fires for missiles, air-to-air missiles, folks will go down to our test and evaluation ranges and actually live employ a real missile against some sort of drone or something,” he said. “And that is meant to build that comfort, so, ultimately, when game day comes, you’re not going to rise to another level, you’re going to fall back to your basic level of training.”

“I think that when you think about the Live, Virtual, Constructive piece of this, there’s absolutely going to be a component, because you’re never going to see these collaborative combat aircraft, potentially, right? They may be dozens or hundreds of miles away, even,” he continued. “So, there’s got to be a constructive bit, but I think, ultimately, if we want to get that comfort level of having another piece of metal in the sky that you either join on, or you trust to employ weapons, or you trust to execute your mission command, there has to be some element of live flight. What the specific combination will be and where we can realize optimizations, I think, is still kind of to be determined, but it’s a place that I think we can realize gains on both ends, both the live and the sort of virtual, constructive piece.”

On a broader level, the Navy still has yet to settle on a clear vision for how it will incorporate CCAs into its future carrier air wings and what forms those drones might take, as a result. In the past, the service has put forward a concept for lower-cost carrier-capable drone wingmen in the past that envisions them being “consumable,” and expended as one-way kamikaze drones or aerial targets for training or testing use at the end of relatively short service lives. In recent years, the Navy has also openly talked about a more general goal to eventually see the aircraft in its carrier air wings become at least 60 percent uncrewed.

In addition, the Navy is party to a tri-service CCA agreement with the Air Force and the Marines, but, by its own admission, is trailing behind those services on all fronts. The Air Force currently has two CCAs – General Atomics YFQ-42A and Anduril’s YFQ-44A – under development, and is already looking toward future designs. The Marines are in the process of transforming their work with the XQ-58A Valkyrie into an operational capability.

The Navy’s current stated focus is on getting the MQ-25 Stingray tanker drone into service, which it hopes will lay the foundation for adding more uncrewed aircraft to its carrier air wings. The service has also expressed a strong interest in Boeing’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat, a loyal wingman-type drone.

“I think right now, within the experimental community, the VXs [air test and evaluation squadrons], there’s a lot of discussion there,” Lt. Cdr. Jbeily told TWZ today about what might be on the horizon drone-wise for the Navy. “I think that the Air Force has potentially taken the forefront on this with their Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.”

The Air Force’s CCA program does appear to be the leading effort in this vein across the services, as you can read about more in TWZ‘s past reporting.

“I think that those decisions about what we’re going to buy, when we’re going to buy it, are a little bit above my level, but I know that the Navy is still deeply interested in looking in terms of how we can, for the purpose of maintaining warfighter advantage, how we can keep the Navy and the Air Wing relevant with this sort of precision, mass and collaborative autonomy,” Jbeily added. “[The] Air Boss’s big initiative has been MQ-25 in ’25 to get sort of that specific aerial refueling platform, [to] lessen the burden on Super Hornets, which currently perform the aerial fueling role. So I think what that’ll end up being is a good model for how do we integrate autonomous systems into the air wing and ensure that we can get folks comfortable to accomplish these missions.”

The “Air Boss” that Jbeily is referring to here is Vice Adm. Daniel Cheever, head of Naval Air Forces. “MQ-25 in ’25” refers to the goal for the Stingray to fly for the first time before the end of this year, a milestone that has already been much delayed, reflecting larger schedule slips and cost growth for the program.

“There’s so much sense of urgency and purpose amongst our junior officers who recognize the peer competition that we’re in and recognize the role that the Navy will play in providing peace through deterrence, and we want to prepare for the future fight,” the strike fighter tactics instructor told TWZ today, speaking more generally. “That urgency that you see amongst the junior officers is focused on being the change and bringing the change, and not simply accepting business as usual.”

“We just want to keep the carrier relevant and effective, and that’s the energy that’s shared amongst junior officers.”

As noted, the Navy does see drones as a key element of its future carrier air wings. Ensuring that there is trust in those uncrewed aircraft to perform, especially among the junior officers who will be flying alongside them, will be of vital importance.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Aug. 21 (UPI) — The U.S. Navy reported a fire aboard the amphibious docking ship USS New Orleans on Thursday. It was anchored near White Beach Naval Facility in Okinawa, Japan.

U.S. Navy crews and Japanese Coast Guard crews extinguished the fire about 4 a.m. Japan Standard Time, the Navy’s 7th Fleet said. The blaze began at about 4 p.m.Wednesday, and the cause is under investigation.

The crew of the amphibious transport dock ship USS San Diego helped New Orleans sailors fight the fire. The San Diego is moored at White Beach.

Two sailors suffered minor injuries and were treated aboard the New Orleans.

The New Orleans crew will stay aboard the ship, the Navy said.

The fire could further hurt the availability of amphibious warships while the Navy is struggling with readiness issues within the fleet, the Navy Times said. The readiness rate of amphibious ships critical to Marine missions has dropped to 41%, a defense official told Military Times earlier this week.

An investigation by the Government Accountability Office in 2024 found that half of the U.S. Navy’s 32 amphibious warfare ships were in poor material condition.

The New Orleans collided with submarine USS Hartford in the Strait of Hormuz in 2009.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – When four Chinese vessels joined with Russian ships earlier this month in joint naval drills in the Sea of Japan, few eyebrows were raised.

Moscow and Beijing have been reinforcing their military partnership in recent years as they seek to counterbalance what they see as the United States-led global order.

But what did raise eyebrows among defence analysts and regional governments had occurred several weeks earlier when China sent its aircraft carriers into the Pacific together for the first time.

Maritime expert and former United States Air Force Colonel Ray Powell described the “simultaneous deployment” of China’s two aircraft carriers east of the Philippines as a “historic” moment as the country races to realise Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambition of having a world-class navy by 2035.

“No nation except the US has operated dual carrier groups at such distances since [World War II],” said Powell, director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency project of the Gordian Knot Center at Stanford University.

“While it will take years for China’s still-nascent carrier capabilities to approach that of America’s, this wasn’t just a training exercise – it was China demonstrating it can now contest and even deny US access to crucial sea lanes,” Powell told Al Jazeera.

China’s state-run news agency Xinhua described the exercise by the aircraft carriers as a “far-sea combat-oriented training”, and the state-affiliated Global Times reported that China was soon poised to enter the “three-aircraft-carrier era”, when its Fujian carrier enters service later this year.

East Asia is a ‘home game’ for China

China currently has two operational aircraft carriers – the Liaoning and Shandong – and the Fujian is undergoing sea trials.

While the Chinese navy operates the world’s largest naval fleet with more than 370 ships compared with the US’s 251 active ships in commission, Beijing still lacks the global logistics network and advanced nuclear submarine technology required of a truly mature blue water force, Powell said.

Beijing’s three aircraft carriers run on diesel compared with Washington’s 11 carriers, all of which are nuclear powered.

But “gaps” in naval capabilities are closing between the US and China.

“[China] fully intends to close these gaps and is applying tremendous resources toward that end, and with its rapidly improving technical prowess and vastly superior shipbuilding capacity, it has demonstrated its potential to get there,” Powell said.

Beijing’s more immediate focus is not directed towards competing with the US globally, Powell added.

Rather, China is focused on changing the balance of power and convincing its allies and adversaries to accept China’s dominance within its chosen sphere of influence in East Asia.

The second option, if ever necessary, is to defeat them.

“East Asia is a ‘home game’ for China – a place where it can augment its small carrier force through its far larger land-based air and rocket forces – including so-called [aircraft] ‘carrier killer’ missile systems that can strike targets up to 4,000km [2,485 miles] away,” Powell said.

Regionally, while the Philippines engages in increasingly frequent high seas confrontations with the Chinese coastguard, it is Japan that is watching China’s naval build-up with concern, experts said.

Japan’s Defence Minister Gen Nakatani said in June – after confirming that China’s two carriers had operated simultaneously in the Pacific for the first time – that Beijing apparently aims “to advance its operational capability of the distant sea and airspace”.

With the US increasingly perceived as becoming more inward-looking under President Donald Trump, Japan is considered a growing force in the contested maritime terrain in the Asia Pacific region amid what Tokyo has called “the most severe and complex security environment since the end of World War II”.

‘Preparation for a more uncertain future’

Even before Trump’s second stint as US president, Japan had embarked on the most pivotal shift in post-World War II military spending.

Tokyo’s defence spending and related costs are expected to total 9.9 trillion yen (about $67bn) for fiscal year 2025, equivalent to 1.8 percent of Japan’s gross domestic product (GDP), and the government has committed to raising spending on defence to 2 percent of GDP by 2027, according to Japanese media reports.

“[Japan’s] naval capacity is growing steadily, not just in support of the US alliance but in quiet preparation for a more uncertain future – perhaps even one in which America withdraws from the Pacific,” said Mike Burke, lecturer at Tokyo-based Meiji University.

Collin Koh, senior fellow at the Singapore-based Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS), also said that China’s growing military might, assertiveness and proclivity to resort to coercive behaviour have “aggravated Japan’s threat perception”.

But Japan alone cannot guarantee security in such a regional hotspot as the South China Sea, said Burke.

Instead, Tokyo’s goal is to check Beijing’s growing power through a Japanese presence and building partnerships with other regional players.

This year alone so far, Japan has deployed two naval fleets to “realise” what Japanese officials describe as a free and open Asia Pacific region. The first fleet was deployed from January 4 to May 10 and docked in 12 countries, including Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman.

The second was deployed on April 21 and is ongoing until November, with port calls in some 23 countries, as well as roles in multilateral military exercises.

Japan aims to build trust with other allies, Burke said, noting that Japan has worked on its soft power by funding radar systems, investing in civil infrastructure from ports to rail networks in Southeast Asia, and supporting maritime domain awareness initiatives in the region.

Noriyuki Shikata, Japan’s ambassador to Malaysia, described Tokyo’s approach as a strength at home and reinforcing collaboration abroad with “like-minded countries and others with whom Japan cooperates”, in order to uphold and realise a free and open international order.

“Japan has been strengthening its defence capabilities to the point at which Japan can take the primary responsibility for dealing with invasions against Japan, and disrupt and defeat such threats while obtaining the support of its [US] ally and other security partners,” the ambassador told Al Jazeera.

Zachary Abuza, professor of Southeast Asia studies and security at Washington, DC-based National War College, said the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF) is a world-class navy that is focused on building the highest level of capabilities.

Abuza also described Japan’s submarine force as “exceptional”, while it is also building up its capabilities, including more high-end antiship missiles.

“All of these developments should give the Chinese some pause,” Abuza told Al Jazeera in a recent interview.

“That said, they [the Japanese] are nervous about Trump’s commitment to treaty obligations, and you can see the Japan Self-Defence Force is trying to strengthen its strategic autonomy,” he said.

‘Chinese assertiveness could result in an accident’

Geng Shuang, charge d’affaires of China’s permanent mission to the United Nations, said earlier this year that China was committed to working with the “countries concerned” to address conflicting claims in the South China Sea through peaceful dialogue.

He also lambasted the threat posed by the US navy’s freedom of navigation operations in the contested sea.

“The United States, under the banner of freedom of navigation, has frequently sent its military vessels to the South China Sea to flex its muscles and openly stir up confrontation between regional countries,” Geng was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea, a vast area spanning approximately 3.6 million square kilometres (1.38 million square miles) that is rich in hydrocarbons and one of the world’s major shipping routes.

Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei are claimants to various parts of the sea.

Ralph Cossa, chairman of the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum research institute, said “the challenge to freedom of navigation is a global one”.

But the challenges posed are particularly worrying when it comes to the rival superpowers China and the US.

“I don’t think anyone wants a direct conflict or is looking to start a fight,” Cossa said.

“But I worry that Chinese assertiveness could result in an accident that it would prove difficult for either side to walk away or back down from,” Cossa said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Institute of Strategic and International Studies’ Asia Pacific Roundtable 2025 summit in Kuala Lumpur earlier this year, Do Thanh Hai, deputy director-general at Vietnam’s East Sea Institute Diplomatic Academy, said no one will emerge unscathed from an incident in the disputed region.

“Any disruption in the South China Sea will affect all,” he told Al Jazeera.

July 31 (UPI) — A U.S. Navy F-35 fighter jet crashed following an “aviation incident” in California, authorities and officials said.

The incident occurred at about 6:30 p.m. PDT on Wednesday, Naval Air Station Lemoore said in a statement.

Specifics about the crash were not made public, but the Navy said the F-35C “went down” not far from Naval Air Station Lemoore, located about 38 miles southwest of Fresno.

“We can confirm the pilot successfully ejected and is safe,” it said.

The aircraft was attached to the Strike Fighter Squadron VFA-125, known as the Rough Riders.

It is the second crash involving an F-35 fighter jet so far this year in the United States.

In late January, an F-35 Lightning II aircraft crashed at Alaska’s Eielson Air Force Base.

The Air Force said the pilot was safe following the incident.

The F-35C is the fifth-generation of a long-rang stealth fighter jet used by the United States Navy, Marine Crops and Air Force. According to the Navy, it is used to perform air-to-air combat, air-to-ground strikes, reconnaissance and electronic warfare.

The Lockheed Martin-manufactured plane costs between $62.2 million and $77.2 million, according to a December Congressional Research Service report.

July 24 (UPI) — The U.S. Navy needs to complete its shipbuilding program and modernize its weapons systems to effectively address the nation’s defense needs, Adm. Daryl Caudle told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Committee members questioned Caudle on Thursday morning to consider his nomination for Chief of Naval Operations and reappointment to the grade of admiral.

“I view this nomination as a solemn opportunity to ensure the nation’s maritime dominance never is surpassed by competitors or adversaries,” Caudle told the committee during his opening comments.

“Our sailors are the Navy’s most enduring competitive advantage,” Caudle said. “A stronger Navy means a more effective fleet.”

He said his father was an Army veteran who served in the Korean War and passed on the importance of service to protect American families and their way of life from harm.

Recruitment standards, shipbuilding

Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said the Navy has lowered its recruitment standards in recent years to enable more people to join its ranks.

He asked how Caudle might ensure the Navy does not permanently rely on lowered standards.

Caudle said the Navy has not lowered its standards but instead has increased access.

“All that graduate from boot camp meet the rigorous standards of that course to the letter,” he told Wicker.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said the Navy has an “overdue” 30-year shipbuilding plan that has not been followed and asked if Caudle would undertake a shipbuilding program to increase the Navy’s size and visibility.

Caudle said King has his “complete commitment” to the Navy shipbuilding program.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., also raised the matter of the 30-year shipbuilding program and asked if Caudle would commit to completing the program in a timely manner and on budget.

Caudle affirmed he would do so and cited the Navy’s nuclear submarine program as especially important for ensuring the nation does its part to fulfill strategic agreements with other nations.

Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., raised concerns about the Navy’s force structure design to deter other nuclear powers that are threatening the United States and the world.

Caudle called the matter a “math problem” and said he will work closely with Strategic Command to address growing threats from China and other nations to maximize the Navy’s effectiveness.

Munitions and maintenance

Fischer also asked what the Navy could do to ensure it has an ample supply of munitions to quickly replace those that are expended during naval operations.

King said the Navy has “way too many sole-source vendors that are underproducing” munitions due to difficulties with obtaining the materials needed to make them.

“We need to work through that,” King said, adding that the Navy needs to streamline production for greater efficiency.

“We roll a Ford F-150 off the assembly line every 20 hours, but it takes greater than a year to build an SM-6” missile, he added. “It’s just unacceptable.”

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, asked about drydock construction in Hawaii and what Caudle would do to complete an under-construction drydock there on time to ensure Naval vessels can use it for maintenance and repairs.

Caudle called the drydock a national asset and said he shares Hirono’s concern regarding the importance of the drydock and getting it completed for as close to its budget as possible.

Weapons systems modernization

Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., asked how Caudle might incorporate unmanned weapons systems to counter naval growth among the nation’s potential adversaries.

“There is no question that unmanned robotic autonomous systems will be part of any modern warfare going forward,” Caudle answered.

He said they are used in the Russia-Ukraine war, in space and Middle East conflicts.

“We’re all learning from this,” he said. “Everyone is, including our adversaries.”

He said the Navy must invest in robotic autonomous weapons systems and ensure the command structure and operational systems are in place to maximize their effectiveness.

During his questioning, King suggested directed-energy weapons are the “future” of naval warfare and asked Caudle what his position might be regarding their development and use.

“A directed-energy shot is much cheaper than a $4 million missile,” but the Biden administration “grossly underfunded” development of the weapons system, King said.

Caudle responded that his master’s degree is in directed energy and his thesis was on high-powered lasers.

“I’ve not seen the Navy do an adequate amount of effort translating the research and development into shipboard use,” he said.

“If confirmed, I will make that a priority because it is the infinite magazine, especially against certain targets,” Caudle said.

“Admiral, you just got my vote,” King responded.

The morning confirmation hearing lasted for more than two hours.

Before the confirmation hearing, Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., met with Caudle and in a news release said the admiral “knows a stronger Navy means a safer America.”

Caudle is a four-star admiral and would replace former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti.

If confirmed, Caudle would control a naval fleet that is 14 times smaller than the Chinese fleet and has experienced costly shipbuilding delays, according to Politico.

The former head of the Royal Navy has had his service terminated following an investigation into his behaviour, the Ministry of Defence has said.

Admiral Sir Ben Key’s behaviour was found to have “fallen far short of the values and standards expected of service personnel” a statement said.

In response, Adm Key said: “I deeply regret my conduct in the spring of last year, which fell well below the standard I set for myself and that which I set for the Royal Navy.”

He added that he fully accepted the decision and was “very sorry to those I have hurt personally”.

At the end of his statement, Adm Key said he was “very grateful” for the support of his wife, family and friends during what he described as “a very difficult time”.

Adm Key was due to retire from his position this summer, after serving as the head of the Royal Navy since 2021.

He was removed from his duties in May because of the investigation into allegations of misconduct.

Reports in the Sun at the time suggested Adm Key had been having an affair with a more junior female colleague.

Such relationships are frowned upon and seen as a potential abuse of power and contrary to the military service code of conduct.

Chief of Defence Staff, Adm Sir Tony Radakin, said: “We expect the highest standards of behaviour from our service personnel and our civil servants.

“We investigate all allegations of inappropriate behaviour and will take robust action against anyone found to have fallen short of our standards, regardless of their seniority.”

Adm Key joined the navy as a university cadet in 1984 where he later qualified as both helicopter aircrew and as a principal warfare officer. As a junior officer he saw service around the world in a variety of frigates and destroyers.

He was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2016 and a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2021 New Years Honours List.

He was appointed to first sea lord in November 2021 and is succeeded by Gen Sir Gwyn Jenkins of the Royal Marines.

SAN DIEGO — When Marines came to his door a year ago to tell him that his eldest son had been killed in Iraq, Bill Krissoff reacted like any father: with confusion, devastation, then numbness.

Nathan Krissoff was so young, a lover of poetry, a champion athlete, a leader whose maturity and selflessness had impressed fellow Marines.

The father in Krissoff found no resolution to his grief. The physician in him did.

At an age when many people think about retirement, Krissoff decided earlier this year that he would enlist as a doctor. He was 60 years old, decades above the military’s preferred demographic.

Still, with a medical degree from the University of Colorado and specialty training at San Francisco General Hospital and UC Davis, Krissoff seemed easily qualified for a reserve commission in the Navy medical corps, which tends to Marines.

Krissoff had a flourishing private practice in Truckee, Calif. After a lifetime of swimming, kayaking and skiing, he was lean and fit.

But his age was a sticking point. His application bogged down in the military bureaucracy. He thought things might be hopeless.

Then, in late August, Krissoff and his wife, Christine, were invited to meet with President Bush after his speech to the American Legion convention in Reno.

At the end of the hourlong meeting, Bush asked Krissoff and other relatives of service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan whether there was anything he could do for them. Krissoff mentioned his desire to enlist.

Karl Rove, then the president’s top political advisor, took notes. Once back at the White House, he turned the matter over to Marine Gen. Peter Pace, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A few days later, Krissoff got a call from Lt. Cmdr. Ken Hopkins, a Navy nurse now on medical recruiting duty. With a push from the top, Krissoff’s enlistment application began to speed through the process of interviews and background checks.

“Suddenly, I got all the support I needed from the bureaucracy to get this done,” Hopkins said.

On Nov. 17, Krissoff, now 61, was commissioned a lieutenant commander in the Navy reserves, assigned to the medical corps. Rove sent flowers and a note of congratulations.

Because of the need for doctors and other health professionals, the military offers reserve commissions to qualified applicants.

It is not uncommon, Hopkins said, for civilian doctors at the top of the profession to look to the military for a new challenge. The commitment is light: a weekend a month and two weeks every summer.

But if a reservist wants to do more, the Navy is more than willing to put him or her on active duty at a base, a military hospital or a combat zone.

Several weeks of training in military-style medicine lie ahead, but Krissoff believes he is on his way to honoring his late son, 1st Lt. Nathan Krissoff, by deploying to a field hospital in Iraq.

He is closing up his orthopedic medicine practice in Truckee. He and his wife are moving to San Diego to be close to the Marine Corps 4th Medical Battalion.

They also will be near their other son, Austin, 24, a Marine officer at Camp Pendleton.

“I’m just a doctor who wants to help Marines; I’m not trying to change the world,” Krissoff said in a telephone interview. “I’m inspired by both my sons’ dedication to service.”

Nathan Krissoff, 25, an intelligence officer with the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, was killed Dec. 9, 2006, by a roadside bomb while riding in a Humvee outside Fallouja, west of Baghdad.

Hundreds of Marines, soldiers and sailors attended a memorial service for him in the auditorium at Camp Fallouja.

Even by the mournful standards of such events, the memorial was emotional. Marines hugged one another, and many had tears in their eyes. Officers and enlisted personnel eulogized Krissoff, a graduate of Williams College, as a natural leader, charismatic but humble.

Lt. Col. William Seely, the battalion commander, said the young officer had shown “great courage and steadfast dedication” against “oppression, tyranny and extremism.”

Sgt. Maj. Kenneth Pickering barked out the “Final Roll Call,” calling Krissoff’s name three times. With no response, a lone bugler played taps.

The difference between practicing medicine in Truckee and tending the wounded in Iraq is lost on no one involved in the enlistment. Krissoff will get refresher training in trauma medicine.

“Operating in a well-lighted surgical theater with air-conditioning is different than operating in a tent in a field,” said Hopkins, who served in Iraq during the assault on Baghdad in 2003.

Krissoff concedes a kind of role-reversal is at play. “Usually it’s the father who tries to lead the sons by example,” he said. “In this case, my sons led me.”

And what would his son Nathan think of his desire to enlist and deploy to a war zone?

“He’d just say, ‘Way to go, Pops,’ ” said Krissoff, a slight quaver edging into his voice.

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WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday that the USNS Harvey Milk will be renamed after a World War II sailor who received the Medal of Honor, stripping the ship of the name of a slain gay rights activist who served during the Korean War.

In a video posted to social media, Hegseth said he was “taking the politics out of ship naming.”

The ship’s new name will honor Navy Chief Petty Officer Oscar V. Peterson, who was awarded the highest military decoration posthumously for his actions during the 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea in the Pacific.

The decision is the latest move by Hegseth to wipe away names of ships and military bases that were given by President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, which in many cases chose to honor service members who were women, minorities, from the LBGTQ community and more.

It follows earlier actions by Hegseth and President Donald Trump, a Republican, to purge all programs, policies, books and social media mentions of references to diversity, equity and inclusion in the military and elsewhere.

Hegseth’s announcement comes during Pride Month — the same timing as the Pentagon’s campaign to force transgender troops out of the U.S. military.

“We’re not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists,” said Hegseth, who earlier this month ordered Navy Secretary John Phelan to put together a small team to rename the USNS Harvey Milk replenishment oiler.

He said Peterson’s “spirit of self-sacrifice and concern for his crewmates was in keeping with the finest traditions of the Navy.”

When Hegseth announced the decision to rename the ship, officials defended it as an effort to align with Trump and Hegseth’s objectives to “re-establish the warrior culture.”

Peterson served on the USS Neosho, which also was an oiler. The ship was damaged during the Battle of the Coral Sea, and even though Peterson was injured, he managed to close the bulkhead stop valves to keep the ship operational. He died of his wounds.

The Navy in 1943 named an escort ship after Peterson. The USS Peterson served for more than two decades and was decommissioned in June 1965.

The USNS Harvey Milk was named in 2016 by then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who said at the time that the John Lewis-class of oilers would be named after leaders who fought for civil and human rights.

Harvey Milk, who was portrayed by Sean Penn in an Oscar-winning 2008 movie, served for four years in the Navy before he was forced out for being gay. He later became one of the first openly gay candidates elected to public office, in San Francisco. He was assassinated in 1978 by a disgruntled former city supervisor.

Baldor writes for the Associated Press.

Of course, Trump’s Secretary of Defense wants the name of Harvey Milk, the murdered gay rights pioneer, stripped from a ship.

Never mind that Milk served in the Korean War as a diving instructor, eventually discharged because of his sexual orientation. Or that he had exhibited courage in facing down haters as the nation’s first publicly out elected official. After all, when Pete Hegseth’s not sending confidential war plans via Signal to people who shouldn’t be privy to them, he’s busy bloviating about the “warrior ethos.”

Hegseth is a military veteran, a National Guardsman who did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he’s also someone who has made a career out of telling Americans he, above everyone else, knows what our veterans need and what our armed forces need to defend the U.S. in an increasingly volatile world. So Hegseth may know something about warriors and fighting. So did Milk.

But Hegseth is too busy playing Rambo to recognize it. Instead, he’s weaponizing bigotry to remake the U.S. military as a scorched-earth, hetero-Christian outfit ready to stamp out liberal heretics here and abroad. That’s not befitting anyone who calls themselves a warrior, no matter how many pseudo-patriotic tattoos and American flag items of clothing Hegseth loves to sport.

A true warrior follows a code of honor that allows respect to those they disagree with and sometimes even combat. For Hegseth to specifically ask that the USNS Harvey Milk have its name changed during Pride Month — the same month that he’s requiring all trans service people to out themselves and voluntarily leave their positions or be discharged against their will — does not represent the “reestablishing [of] the warrior culture” that the Navy is citing as the reason for the moves.

Instead, it reveals Hegseth’s Achilles heel, one he shares with Trump: a fundamental insecurity about their place in a country that diversified long ago.

CBS News is also reporting the Navy is recommending the renaming of ships named after civil rights icons Medgar Evers, Cesar Chavez, Sojourner Truth and Lucy Stone along with ships that haven’t yet been built but are scheduled to bear the names of Dolores Huerta, Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Harriet Tubman.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell gave my colleague Kevin Rector the same malarkey he’s giving the rest of the media when asked for comment about this matter: That Hegseth is “committed” to making sure all named military assets “are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos.”

Marine Col. Alison Thompson, left, talks with Jenn Onofrio, center, a White House Fellow to the secretary of the Navy and Patrik Gallineaux, right, of the Richmond/Ermet Aid Foundation prior to the launching of the USNS Harvey Milk, a fleet replenishment oiler ship named after the first openly gay elected official in 2021 in San Diego.

(Alex Gallardo / Associated Press)

I can understand the argument can be made that naval ships should be named only after those who served, which would eliminate people like Huerta, Ginsburg and Truth. But there was a beauty in the idea of having the names of civil rights heroes adorn ships in the so-called John Lewis class, oilers named after the late congressman. It was a reminder that wars don’t just happen on the front lines but also on the home front. That those who serve to defend our democracy don’t just do it through the military. That winning doesn’t just happen with bullets and bombs.

That sometimes, the biggest threat to our nation hasn’t been the enemy abroad, but the enemy within. It’s not just my wokoso opinion, either — the oath that all Navy newcomers and newly minted officers must take have them swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

You might not associate Huerta, Truth, and Marshall with the military — indeed, I was surprised the Navy had honored them, period. But I and millions of Americans do remember them for fierceness in their respective battlegrounds, a steeliness any sailor should aspire to. For anyone in Hegseth’s world to even think about erasing their name is a disgrace to the Stars and Stripes — but what else should we expect from a department whose boss evaded military service by claiming to have debilitating bone spurs?

The striking of Milk’s name from an oiler, and proposed renaming of dry cargo ships named for Evers and Chavez, is particularly vile.

Milk joined the Navy in the footsteps of his parents. He was so proud of his military background that he was wearing a belt buckle with his Navy diver’s insignia the night he was assassinated. Evers was inspired to fight Jim Crow after serving in a segregated Army unit during World War II. Chavez, meanwhile, was stationed in the western Pacific shortly after the Good War during his two-year Navy stint.

I called up Andres Chavez, executive director of the National Chavez Center and grandson of Cesar, to hear how he was feeling about this mess. Andres was there in 2012 when the USNS Cesar Chavez was launched in San Diego, christened with a champagne bottle by Helen Chavez, Cesar’s widow and Andres’ grandmother. He said “it was probably the second-most memorable commemoration I’ve seen of my Tata after Obama” dedicated the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in the Central Valley that year.

The USNS Cesar Chavez was the last of the Navy’s Lewis and Clark class of boats, all named after pioneers and explorers. Andres said his family was initially “hesitant” to have a naval ship named in honor of their patriarch “because so much of Cesar’s identity is wrapped up in nonviolence” but accepted when they found out the push came from shipyard workers from San Diego’s Barrio Logan.

“And there’s been so many Latinos who have served in the military in this country, so we accepted on behalf of them as well,” he said.

The Chavez family found out about the possibility of the USNS Cesar Chavez losing its name from reporters.

“We’re just gonna wait and see what’s next, but we’re not surprised by this administration anymore,” Andres said. “It’s just not an affront to Cesar; it’s an affront to all the Latino veterans of this country.”

He pushed back on Hegseth’s definition of what a warrior is by bringing up the work of his grandfather and Milk. The two supported each other’s causes in the 1970s and met “numerous” times, according to Andres.

“They served by creating more opportunities for other people and fighting for their respect,” he concluded. “That’s the definition of a warrior.”

For all the push-ups completed, for all the running drills endured and for all the yelling received during his days playing high school football at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame High in the 1990s, Dan Keeler is getting the last laugh later this month when he takes command of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in Coronado.

“Now I’m going to have to salute him,” former Notre Dame coach Kevin Rooney quipped.

Keeler, who graduated from high school in 1994 and went on to the Naval Academy, is taking command of one of the Navy’s most prominent ships.

The USS Abraham Lincoln arrives San Diego in 2020.

(Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

“It is incredible that he has earned this responsibility,” Rooney said.

Keeler was a defensive back and track athlete for the Knights and is one of five siblings who attended Notre Dame. Track coach Joe McNab, who just won his 11th Southern Section championship, was his defensive backs coach.

“Good kid,” McNab said.

“He’s a guy who fit all the boxes in terms of being a great kid and doing things right,” Rooney said.

Rooney, McNab and former football assistant Jeff Kraemer will make the trip to the San Diego area for the change-of-command ceremony. For some reason, Keeler invited his former high school coaches after all those days of sweat and tears in Sherman Oaks.

“If I had known he was going to be so powerful, I wouldn’t have made him run so much,” Kraemer said.

Keeler isn’t the first Notre Dame graduate to rise in the Navy ranks. Retired Adm. Mike Mullen was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2007 to 2011 and graduated from Notre Dame in 1964. Mullen once came back to his alma mater to address the student body.

Rooney, who retired in 2019 after 40 years as football coach, said his goal was always to “help kids become great people and do things right.”

Coaches know that the best day of all is when a graduate comes back to campus and tells them how they are doing and explains how lessons learned as teenagers really made a difference in their life.

As summer begins and graduates move on with their lives and the class of 2029 arrives, it’s a good reminder to everyone that it’s not wins and losses that matter most in high school. It’s teaching life lessons and preparing students to become adults, good people and good community members.

To see a former Los Angeles-area high school football player take charge of an aircraft carrier is proof that all that running to gain stamina, all that preaching to work together as a team, all those lectures that practice makes perfect … it’s true.

You only need to listen, learn and dedicate yourself to reaching a goal.

A salute to all the coaches and teachers who understand their real job is to create opportunities for their students to succeed through wisdom and inspiration.

Capt. Keeler, Bravo Zulu and Anchors Aweigh. Be safe.

California leaders denounced reports Tuesday that the Trump administration is preparing to strip the name of slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk from a naval ship honoring his legacy, calling it a slap in the face for the LGBTQ+ community just as Pride month begins.

Milk was elected as a San Francisco supervisor in the 1970s, becoming one of the first openly gay elected officials in the country. After he was assassinated in San Francisco City Hall in 1978, he became an icon of the gay rights movement, with images of his face becoming synonymous with the struggle for gay rights.

Milk had served in the Navy prior to becoming an activist and political figure, and LGBTQ+ advocates and service members fought for years to have his legacy formally recognized by the Navy.

The outlet Military.com first reported Tuesday afternoon that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered the Navy to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, an oiler built in San Diego as part of a series of vessels named for civil rights leaders. It was launched in 2021.

The Pentagon would not confirm or deny that the ship would be renamed.

In a statement to The Times, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Hegseth “is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all [Department of Defense] installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos,” and that “any potential renaming(s) will be announced after internal reviews are complete.”

The Pentagon would not say whether such a review had been launched for the USNS Harvey Milk. The Navy referred questions to the Pentagon.

The removal of Milk’s name would be in line with a broader push by Hegseth and other leaders in the Trump administration to remove formal acknowledgments of queer rights and other programs or messages promoting diversity, equity and inclusion across the federal government.

Leaders in California — where Milk is often hailed as a hero — were quick to denounce the idea of stripping his name from the vessel.

Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on the social media platform X that Trump’s “assault on veterans has hit a new low.”

San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk speaks to reporters in October 1978, weeks before he was assassinated.

(James Palmer / Associated Press)

Trump and Hegseth have also issued a sweeping ban on transgender people serving in the military.

“Harvey Milk wasn’t just a civil rights icon — he was a Korean War combat veteran whose commander called him ‘outstanding,’” Newsom said. “Stripping his name from a Navy ship won’t erase his legacy as an American icon, but it does reveal Trump’s contempt for the very values our veterans fight to protect.”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) echoed Newsom with her own comment on X.

“Our military is the most powerful in the world — but this spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the ‘warrior’ ethos,” she wrote. “It is a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener, who is gay and once represented the same district as Milk on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said in an interview with The Times that the move was all “part of Trump’s systematic campaign to eliminate LGBTQ people from public life.”

“They want us to go away, to go back in the closet, not to be part of public life,” Wiener said. “And we’re not going anywhere.”

After graduating from college, Milk enlisted in the Navy in 1951 and was stationed in San Diego. According to the Harvey Milk Foundation, he resigned at the rank of lieutenant junior grade in 1955 “after being officially questioned about his sexual orientation.”

He moved to San Francisco in 1972, opened a camera shop on Castro Street, and quickly got into politics — rallying the growing local gay community to fight for rights and build strategic alliances with other groups, including organized labor and the city’s large Asian and Pacific Islander community.

Milk was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1977, and helped lead efforts to defeat a 1978 ballot initiative that would have barred gay and lesbian people from teaching in public schools statewide — a major political win for the LGBTQ+ community.

That same year, Milk was assassinated alongside Mayor George Moscone at City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White. His killing cemented his status as an icon of the gay rights movement.

Wiener called Milk “an absolute hero” who “died for our community” and deserves the honor of having a naval vessel named after him.

“A group of LGBTQ veterans worked for years and years to achieve this goal of naming a ship for Harvey, and to have that taken away so casually, right during Pride month, is heartbreaking and painful,” Wiener said.

Removing his name would mean more than scrubbing a stenciling off the side of a ship, Wiener said, “especially now with the attacks on our community, and so many young LGBTQ people [seeing] so much negativity towards our community.”

Milk was a “very visible role model for young queer people, and he gave people hope in a way that hadn’t happened before from any high-profile queer leader, and he was murdered because of his visibility and leadership for our community,” Wiener said, and for young queer people today “to see the name of a gay man on the side of a military vessel, it’s very, very powerful.”

U.S. officials first announced in 2016 that a ship would be named for Milk, as well as for abolitionist Sojourner Truth, Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren, Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, suffragist Lucy Stone and U.S. Rep. John Lewis.

At an event marking the start of construction on the ship in 2019, Milk’s nephew Stuart Milk said the naming of the ship after his uncle “sends a global message of inclusion” that did not just say the U.S. will “tolerate everyone,” but that “we celebrate everyone.”

China’s drills near the Scarborough Shoal came as South Korea announced finding new Chinese buoys in the Yellow Sea.

China’s navy has conducted “combat readiness patrols” near the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, while South Korean officials separately announced the discovery of more Chinese buoys in contested waters in the Yellow Sea.

The Southern Theatre Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted the drills in the “territorial waters and airspace of China’s Huangyan Island and surrounding areas”, state-run news outlet Xinhua reported on Saturday, using China’s name for the Scarborough Shoal.

The report said the PLA had been conducting drills in the area throughout May to “further strengthen the control of relevant sea and air areas, resolutely defend national sovereignty and security, and resolutely maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea”.

The Scarborough Shoal is a rocky islet claimed by The Philippines, located 220km (119 miles) west of Luzon, the nearest landmass. Beijing blockaded and seized the territory, a traditional fishing ground, from Manila in 2012.

The Chinese navy regularly carries out provocative military drills in the area as part of its claims of sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea, despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling that Beijing’s claims had no legal basis under international law.

In late April, Manila accused Beijing of carrying out “dangerous manoeuvres and obstruction” after a Chinese naval ship damaged a Philippine coastguard ship with a water cannon near the shoal.

Tension in the Yellow Sea

Also on Saturday, South Korean officials announced they had recorded three new Chinese buoys installed near overlapping waters with South Korea, bringing the total number of such devices installed by China in the Yellow Sea to 13.

“[We] are closely monitoring activities within the provisional maritime zone [PMZ], including China’s unauthorised installation of structures, and will closely [cooperate] with relevant agencies to protect our maritime sovereignty,” a Ministry of Defence official said, according to South Korea’s official Yonhap news agency.

Two of the Chinese buoys – first detected in May 2023, but only announced this week – have been installed near the zone, according to Yonhap.

The third buoy is located inside the maritime zone, a contested area where the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) claims of South Korea and China overlap, Yonhap added.

China asserts its maritime boundary is based on a 1962 agreement signed with North Korea which cuts into waters South Korea considers part of its economic zone.

The Yellow Sea PMZ allows joint management of marine resources and prohibits activities beyond navigation and fishing.

However, tensions have grown between Beijing and Seoul as China has repeatedly erected installations in the waters, including 10 three-metre-wide and six-metre-tall observation buoys since 2018 and a fixed steel structure in 2022.

Last week, China declared three no-sail zones within the zone, in a move “believed to be for military training purposes”, according to the Korea Joongang Daily newspaper.

The no-sail declarations caused concern in Seoul over a potential uptick in Chinese military activity in the area.

Videos show the moment a Mexican Navy training ship crashed into New York’s Brooklyn Bridge, resulting in the deaths of two crew members and injuring dozens more. Eyewitnesses describe seeing people dangling from the snapped masts of the sailing vessel, the ARM Cuauhtémoc.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams says 19 people were injured in the collision, four of them seriously.

A Mexican Navy sailing ship has crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, injuring at least 19 people, including four who are in critical condition, according to officials.

The incident took place on Saturday.

Videos posted online show the ship sailing underneath the bridge, connecting the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan, as the top of its three masts collide with the iconic structure.

The masts can be seen snapping and partially collapsing as they crash into the deck of the bridge.

The vessel, which was flying a giant green, white and red Mexican flag, then drifted towards the edge of the river as onlookers scrambled away from the shore.

Sailors can be seen aloft in the rigging on the damaged masts.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said 19 people were injured in the crash, four seriously, but the 142-year-old bridge was spared major damage.

The cause of the collision is under investigation.

Sydney Neidell and Lily Katz told The Associated Press news agency they were sitting outside to watch the sunset when they saw the vessel strike the bridge and one of its masts snap. Looking closer, they saw someone dangling from high on the ship.

“We saw someone dangling, and I couldn’t tell if it was just blurry or my eyes, and we were able to zoom in on our phone and there was someone dangling from the harness from the top for, like, at least like 15 minutes before they were able to rescue them,” Katz said.

They said they saw two people removed from the ship on stretchers into smaller boats.

The Mexican Navy said in a post on X that the Cuauhtemoc, an academy training vessel, was damaged in an accident with the Brooklyn Bridge, which prevented it from continuing its voyage.

It added that the status of personnel and material was under review by naval and local authorities, who were providing assistance.

Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on X that its ambassador to the US and officials from the Mexican consulate in New York were in contact with local authorities to provide assistance to “the affected cadets”, but it did not mention injuries.

The Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883, has a nearly 1,600-foot (490-meter) main span supported by two masonry towers.

More than 100,000 vehicles and an estimated 32,000 pedestrians cross the bridge every day, according to the city’s transportation department, and its walkway is a major tourist attraction.

At least 22 people have been injured and three remain in a serious condition after a tall Mexican Navy training ship crashed into New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge, the Mexican Navy says.

Footage has emerged showing towering masts of the Cuauhtémoc clipping the bridge as the sailing vessel was passing under the famous structure on Saturday evening.

Parts of the masts reportedly fell on the deck, with US media reporting multiple injuries as members of the crew were standing on the masts at the time of collision.

New York City’s Emergency Management (NYCEM) said it was “responding to an incident”, without giving any further details. Brooklyn Bridge has not sustained any damage, the mayor of New York said,

The Mexican Navy confirmed that the ship was damaged, saying the incident was being investigated.

Crowds who were watching the ship’s trajectory fled from the water’s edge as the masts collided with the bridge.

New York City’s Fire Department confirmed that authorities were responding to injuries, reports CBS, BBC’s US partner.

The department said it had no details about how many people might have been hurt or whether they were on the vessel or on the bridge.

In a statement on X, NYCEM said “the situation is developing and details are not confirmed at this time”.

The mayor of New York Eric Adams is at the scene and has been briefed on the situation, CBS reported.

NYPD told residents to avoid the area of Brooklyn Bridge, South Street Seaport in Manhattan, and Dumbo in Brooklyn.

“Expect heavy traffic and a large presence of emergency vehicles in the surrounding area,” police said on X.

Media reports say the Cuauhtémoc had more than 200 crew on board.

It was in New York City on a goodwill visit.