The iconic Black Hawk helicopter to be replaced by a new-look aircraft.

The legendary American Black Hawk helicopter which featured in one of the US Army’s most disastrous counter-insurgency operations in Somalia nearly 30 years ago is finally to end its days and is to be replaced in a new multi-billion dollar programme awarded this week. Black Hawk Down, the title of a book and a Hollywood film, were the three words that summed up the incident on October 3-4, 1993. Nineteen members of US special forces units, Rangers and Delta Force, were killed when two of the helicopters were shot down over Mogadishu. Codenamed Super 61 and Super 64, they were both hit by rocket-propelled grenades fired by militia forces under the command of the Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The brutal images of the dead soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu became for ever linked to that disastrous moment in US military history. The twin-engined UH-60 Black Hawk, built by Sikorsky, has been one of the US Army’s primary combat troop-carrying helicopters since the 1970s and served extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, during the 1993 incident the helicopters became vulnerable to withering ground fire as Aidid’s militia targeted the Black Hawks which were packed with special forces soldiers. Operation Gothic Serpent, aimed at snatching two of Aidid’s most senior lieutenants from a three-storey stronghold in Mogadishu, was a high-risk mission involving around 160 troops. The plan ws to fast-rope down from the Black Hawks to enter the building and seize the two militia commanders. Hundreds of Somalis as well as the 19 American soldiers were killed in a battle which lasted two days. In another famous incident, a special forces-adapted Black Hawk , an MH-60, crashed when trying to land in the compound where Osama bin Laden was living. Black Hawks and Chinooks were used to ferry the US Navy’s Seal Team Six commandos to the compound n Abbottabad in Pakistan on May 3, 2011. No one was killed when one of the Black Hawks crashed. Now the veteran Black Hawk is to be replaced by a futuristic-looking V-280 helicopter built by the Bell company, beating a joint rival bid by Sikorsky and Boeing. Bell has been awarded an initial contract worth $232 million to develop the V-280 which will be a tilt-rotor helicopter, similar to the V-22 Osprey already in service. The tilt-rotor system allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically as normal but can fly at speeds equivalent to a fixed-wing aircraft. A prototype for the new helicopter is expected to be completed by 2025. The US army calls the new helicopter programme the “future long-range assault aircraft”. The project could be worth mor than $70 billion for Bell which is owned by Textron, based in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Meghan and Harry Netflix documentary will be the final straw

It's sad sad sad but Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex - Harry and Meghan - sound like they have produced a documentary which will alienate them for ever from both the royal family and the people of Britain. From the trailers it is clear both of them are consumed with a tremendous sense of bitterness, jealousy and, almost, hatred for everyone, accusing the royal family and the media of being racist and anti-Meghan. The documentary, so soon after the death of the Queen, seems monstrously untimely and disrespectful and aimed at damaging the family of whom Harry was once a beloved member. It is difficult to imagine there will be any way back for them. They could have been a wonderful part of the monarchy, playing their part and enjoying the same affection felt for many of the other members of the royal family. But they chose to leave it all behind and seek a fortune and a Hollywood style of living across the Atlantic. Now they want revenge and by all accounts it is going to be a horror show. I guess it's too late to stop the documentary and too late to stop Harry's book coming out next year. So that's it. Harry and Meghan will have sealed their fate, a future living abroad and increasingly irrelevant to the late Queen's and now King's subjects.

What does Putin want from the winter fighting?

Vladimir Putin must surely have given up any thought of winning the war in Ukraine. So what does he want from the winter months ahead? I suspect he will put much more effort into pursuing his political war with the US and Europe than with trying to make military advances against the Ukrainian army. There will be lots of talk of possible peace deals and Putin will try to give the impression that he is genuinely interested in settling the whole matter for the good of everyone. But as the Kremlin has already made clear there will be no peace deal unless Putin is given assurance that he can and will keep all the territory his troops have won in the Donbas region. And of course that is out of the question, not just in Ukraine's eyes but in the eyes of the whole of Nato. Putin cannot be rewarded for invading Ukraine. But I anticipate that Putin will find a form of words that some in the alliance might find more acceptable, especially those who are even now beginning to think that this war cannot go on for much longer because of the consequences for their economies. Macron and Scholz are already half way down this path. So watch out for some charm offensive from Putin.

Xi Zinping's refusal to accept the West's Covid vaccines is ideological madness

It's obviously a matter of national pride, or communist party pride I should say, that President Xi Zinping has refused so far to accept any of the western-developed Covid vaccines. The Chinese leader has done a Trump and has said that he only wants China-developed vaccines. But it's patently obvious that the Chinese vaccines are not as good as the western ones which have been fantastically successful in curbing the pandemic. BUt to admit that would be to lose face, so Xi has stuck to his China-only policy and as a result the pandemic is still raging throughout China and the for-ever president is in trouble with the mounting demonstrations across the country against his harsh lockdown strategy. The restrictions have been lifted a little but I wonder whether this will be enough to stem the tide of anger against his regime. Avril Haines, the US director of national intelligence, spoke out yesterday about the political risk Xi is facing over his Covid policy. She doesn't think this is going to lead to regime-change but there is no question that Xi's tough policy is beng viewed across China as unacceptable and unnecessary. The West is recovering well from the pandemic. Why not China? And why are the Chinese people being refused access to the West's superior vaccines? I can't see Xi buckling over this, he will stick with the Chinese vaccines. But what an important step it would be for West-China relations, let alone for the Chinese people, if Xi were to swallow his national pride and open his arms to western help.

The stealthiest new bomber is unveiled in the dark

As seemed fitting for the stealthiest bomber ever designed, America’s B-21 Raider was rolled out for the first time from its 200ft-wide hangar at Palmdale, California about 20 minutes after dusk had fallen. The Raider was making its debut on the public stage but it was sufficiently dark for hostile prying eyes in space to have to peer through the gloom to get first sighting of the exotically-shaped bomber. Lloyd Austin, US defence secretary, and assorted Pentagon heavyweights had gathered for the long-awaited moment at 5pm on Friday (1am UK time). Photographers and camera crews were corralled into an area from where only authorised glimpses of the “flying-wing” bomber could be snatched. The $550 million aircraft was created in secrecy in Northrop Grumman’s “skunkworks” at Palmdale, designed with stealth in mind, and has yet to fly. When it does take off for the first time, perhaps early next year, it will head to Edwards air force base in California, and every plane spotter, friendly and unfriendly, will try to pinpoint its flight. The first US stealth bomber programme in three decades began in 2015 when the contract was awarded to Northrop Grumman. The US has led the way in stealth technology for military aircraft, but China and Russia are catching up. China’s H-20 stealth bomber and Russia’s Tupolev PAK DA, codenamed Poslannik, both look like they come from the same family as the American B-2 Spirit bomber, in service since 1997, with the familiar flying-wing shape. “The B-21 is bound to be significantly more stealthy than the B-2 but also, crucially, it will be easier to maintain,” Douglas Barrie, aerospace expert at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said. “As part of the development process the aim was to make maintenance less onerous,” he said. Barrie believes a number of classified projects have found their way into the B-21 programme, including developing an “uninhabited” version. Northop Grumman was contracted to design a pilot-flown and unmanned version of the Raider. “For all fighter aircraft and bombers the future is about getting the balance right between stealth and speed,” Barrie said. “The B-21 is subsonic although it will be at the high end of subsonic [close to Mach 1 or 761 mph] and the reason for this is that you have to make a trade-off, stealth for speed,” he said. “If an aircraft flies at supersonic speeds, twice the speed of sound, then other factors come into play, such as the surface heat of the aircraft frame and the cost of fuel. If it glows in the dark it can more easily be spotted. For the B-21 the key was to have a very low radar sgnature,” Barrie said. The first American military aircraft built with stealth technology – shape, size , contours and materials all developed to evade enemy radar – was the F-117 Nighthawk which first flew in 1981 and was retired in 2008. The new bomber was rolled out on Friday in front of the VIPs next to an array of other aircraft including an F-35 joint strike fighter, an F/A-18, a B-2 bomber and a B-25 Mitchell. The B-21 Raider was named after the Doolittle Raiders, a squadron of B-25 Mitchells which flew the first raid on Tokyo after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. The raid was led by Lieutenant-Colonel James “Jimmy” Doolittle.

Putin falls down the stairs. Really?

Ever since the war in Ukraine began, the stories of Vladimir Putin being ill with cancer or Parkinon's disease or both have proliferated in the West. Every time he coughs or his hand shakes or he appears to stumble, media reports suggest he is on his way out and that he is prosecuting the war in Ukraine as his final fling of hatred towards his neighbour in particular and towards the West in general. It may all be true. Some pictures of him in recent months have certainly shown him looking very puffy and shakey. But no one truly knows. Now there are new reports that he has fallen down the stairs at his residence and had to be picked up by his ever-watchful bodyguards. Again I have no idea whether this is true or someone having a laugh. But the one thing that may give it authenticity is that the report appeared on the Telegram social media platform and was allegedly sourced to one of Putin's bodyguards. If a bodyguard is rushing to Telegram every time Putin blows his nose then this shows one thing - that his bodyguards are not all 100 per cent loyal to him. This must be worrying for Putin who has enough troubles to face right now. The falling-down-the-stairs report has added to the general image of Putin as a leader in a state of desperation. If this is the case then there are two possible outcomes in the next few months: Putin facing total humiliation sues for peace, or he struggles on and continues to batter Ukraine to extinction. Knowing Putin's background and his paranoia I fear the second option is the most likely, especially if he makes a habit of falling down the stairs.

Sergei Lavrov justifies the attack on Ukraine's infrastructure

See this link for my new spy thriller, Shadow Lives, out yesterday: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63238389-shadow-lives ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, had already sunk low in the world's estimation following his oft-repeated backing for Putin's war in Ukraine. Not so much the diplomat, more the Kremlin propagandist. Now he has sunk even lower if that is possible by claiming that the missile and artillery strikes against Ukraine's infrastructure which have destroyed the country's heating and water supplies are legitimate acts in a legitimate war. He clearly has no understanding of the international rules of armed conflict which ban the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure. But Lavrov dismisses that and says the attacks are justified because Ukraine has been aided with arms by the West and that Russians are being killed as a result. In war of course, rules generally get forgotten, so it's hardly the first time that civilians have faced power blackouts and water shortages when rockets and artillery shells are being launched every day. But the Russians are doing this as a deliberate war campaign. Putin believes/hopes that the Ukrainian people will demand their government ends the conflict. But this is never going to happen. So Putin will just go on destroying Ukraine's power stations and other facilities upon which the Ukrainian people depend for their existence until it has all gone. President Macron of France told Biden today at the White House that he planned to phone Putin in the coming days. But to what end? Putin will hear what the French leader has to say but he won't listen. Putin stopped listening to appeals a long time ago. What he wants is what he is doing right now, making the lives of Ukrainians as miserable and as desperate as possible. And he has Sergei Lavrov behind him all the way.