It’s hot. Humidity is near one hundred pc, and you’re in full combat gear — including chemical-biological protection. Between your helmet and mask, all of your head is roofed, leaving a sensation of suffocating heat. Sweat pours as you run, climb and crawl through enemy territory. How will you get through it? A fan blows soothing air across your face, under the tight-fitted mask. Technology brings this relief to a Soldier through a powered air purifying respirator, which is composed of a hose connected to the face mask from a blower unit and battery pack hanging off the hip or... Read More »
Blood flowing from a bullet wound, the gray-haired man lies in the course of the roadblock waving weakly for help as shots ring out nearby and thick black smoke from burning tires curls into the sky. “I’ve called an ambulance. They must come, they need to come,” a guy screams, ducking for canopy behind a concrete breezeblock. A hundred meters (yards) away, a column of Ukrainian army armored vehicles opens fire again. The sound in their mounted machine guns and the soldiers’ automatic rifles echoes as they move in on one of the vital remaining pro-Russian rebel checkpoints just south... Read More »
The deafening roar of the Mikoyan-Gurevich Mig-21 FL afterburner, an iconic delta-wing fighter aircraft that heralded the ‘supersonic era’ in Indian Air Force (IAF) will not be heard after December 11, 2013, the day it really is set to fly into the annals of military aviation history. Four Mig-21 FL aircraft flown by pilots from the Operational Conversion Unit (OCU), last abode of the venerable jets, will fly a ‘box formation’ as Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne takes salute on the ceremonial parade to bid them adieu. Formations of Mig-27 ML and Sukhoi-30 MKI may... Read More »