AirForces Monthly Magazine April 2017 Back Issue

Cover star for the April issue of AirForces Monthly is the AH-64 Apache, reflecting our continuing survey of NATO’s European attack helicopter fleets. This month, the gunships of Greece, Italy and the Netherlands are under the spotlight.

There’s more rotary-wing action with a spectacular report on the Royal Air Force’s Puma Force training detachment at El Centro in Southern California.

On the fighter side, we bring analysis from our reporters on the ground at Gando in the Canary Islands, where Spanish Hornets and Typhoons went head to head with Italian Typhoons, and from Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, where the latest edition of Red Flag saw the debut of the US Air Force’s F-35A Lightning II. While the F-35 represents the high-tech end of air power, in a new irregular feature, Flashpoint, we uncover the surprising story of the Air Tractor at war in Libya.

Alan Warnes was in Abu Dhabi to bring back the highlights of the International Defence Exhibition (IDEX), and we also examine the capabilities of the new Su-25SM3, which is likely to be in action in Syria before long.

Ukraine’s MiG-29 fleet has also been in combat of late, as recounted in a visit to the resurgent 40 brTA, the ‘defenders of Kiev’. This month’s Force Report travels to Bangladesh, for a timely review of the country’s modernising air force, and a base visit to Elefsis in Greece provides details of a Hellenic Air Force facility that’s home to no fewer than nine aircraft types.