All news – Page 6746
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Ailing Tigers
Anyone still nursing hopes that the Asian downturn would prove to be a short, albeit sharp, shock to the region's once buoyant airline industry, will have struggled to retain their optimism in the face of the extraordinary news pouring out over the past fortnight. Perhaps most ominous was the ...
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Australian purchase
Australia is close to finalising its purchase of Lockheed Martin/Rafael AGM-142 medium range air-to-ground precision guided missiles. Canberra announced its intention to buy the weapon two years ago and Lockheed Martin expected that details on the scope and value of the sale would be worked out before the end of ...
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Israel develops new defence approach
Israel is developing a new multi-system approach to deal with the growing threat of long range ballistic missiles. A Ministry of Defence-funded team is working on new methods to detect and destroy ballistic and cruise missiles. The effort is a result of a recent assessment of the threat, mainly, ...
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Lockheed Martin faces last hurdle to C-130J certification
Lockheed Martin has dispatched a C-130J Hercules 2 to Argentina for natural icing tests, the last major hurdle before civil certification of the military transport. The US company plans to begin delayed deliveries of the upgraded Hercules "in the third quarter", but says the exact timing will depend on the ...
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Copper drop may tarnish Chile plans
Bidders are still hoping for a Chilean fighter decision by the end of June, despite the certainty of a cut in the armed forces' procurement budget because of falling copper prices. Boeing, Dassault, Lockheed Martin and Saab submitted best and final offers for between 12 and 24 aircraft in late ...
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Boeing begins early Apache upgrade work
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES The US Army has awarded Boeing a contract which could form the first element of a comprehensive upgrade to keep the AH-64 Apache competitive well into the 21st century. The company is to undertake a four-year, $15.9 million, project to design, build and flight test a ...
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Pratt & Whitney gets closer to ground testing F119 for JSF
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Pratt & Whitney has mounted the modified F119 engine for Lockheed Martin's X-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) concept demonstrator in a test stand at its West Palm Beach, Florida, site ready to begin ground testing. Ground testing of the modified F119 powerplant for Boeing's X-32 ...
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Bidders jostle for South Korean attack helicopter
South Korea's renewed drive to meet a longstanding army requirement for an attack helicopter has drawn responses from seven Russian, South African, US and Western European aerospace manufacturers. The South Korean defence ministry has given rival helicopter suppliers until 24 August to submit initial proposals. The Government expects to ...
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Meteor right
The UK Ministry of Defence has chosen the Meteor Mirach 100/5 Aerial Target System for its Replacement Aerial Subsonic Target (RAST) programme. Source: Flight International
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Belgium's air force receives F-16A pod
The Belgian air force has taken delivery of the first of eight modular reconnaissance pods for use on its Lockheed Martin F-16As, to restore the capability lost by the phasing out in 1993 of Dassault Mirage 5BRs. The first two pods are equipped for low altitude reconnaissance missions. The ...
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Russia lifts veil on plans for new generation combat aircraft
Alexander Velovich/MOSCOW The Russian air force has undertaken a review of its combat aircraft requirements and inventory specifications for the next century and will sell aircraft. New air force Commander-in-chief Col Gen Anatoly Kornukov says the work has allowed Moscow to determine its priorities on aircraft such as the next ...
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Aerospatiale continues work on long range UAV
Julian Moxon/Paris Aerospatiale is working on a follow-on to work on high altitude, long endurance unmanned air vehicle (UAV) in a programme, called SAROHALE. Delivery of the initial system is set for "around 2007-10", says project manager Philippe Matharan. The project aims to develop a fully automated twinjet-powered ...
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Ageing airliner census 1998
SUPERSONIC Aerospatiale/BAe (BAC) Concorde Of the 20 Concordes built, 14 were delivered to Air France and British Airways between 1975 and 1980, and 13 remain in service. The remaining six aircraft - two prototypes, two pre-production aircraft and two production aircraft - were used for testing and not ...
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Supersonic rising sun
Paul Lewis/MITIKA Japanese engineers have long displayed a distinctive flair for futuristic transportation thinking. While there may be a tendency in the West to confine many such notions to the realms of science fiction, it is worth remembering that Japan is the home of the Shinkansen "bullet train" and the ...
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New-entrant blues
Dave Higdon/WITCHITA, KANSAS It IS a long, arduous path from membership of the kitplane-producing community to becoming a certificate-holding member of the production-aircraft industry and not one of the three US companies travelling the route has actually reached its goal - yet. Although all three companies started their aircraft development ...
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Countdown to Sea Launch
Tim Furniss/LONDON Paul Duffy/MOSCOW A precise satellite launch service to all orbital inclinations from a single location is something that, until now, no launch site operator could claim. Payloads cannot be launched into polar orbits safely from Cape Canaveral in Florida, for example, without flying over the USA. Meanwhile, the ...
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UAVs on the horizon
Vertical take-off and landing unmanned air vehicles are just one class of pilotless aircraft capturing the imagination of military forces, entrepreneurs and scientists. UAV manufacturers hope that enthusiasm will be translated into an economic boom. Although primarily viewed as an instrument for the military, civil applications of UAVs are expected ...
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Ready for launch
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC Events taking place 10,000km (6,200 miles) apart could prove pivotal to the long-awaited deployment by military forces of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned air vehicles (UAVs). US Navy officials now believe that VTOLUAV technology is mature enough for the service to begin equipping its warships ...
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FTC bans Boeing sale to Bell
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES The US government's Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has blocked the sale of Boeing MD500/600 helicopters to Bell Helicopter Textron, forcing Boeing to put the two production lines back on the market. The MD500/600 lines were sold to Bell in March following Boeing's decision to opt ...
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New finance programmes developed for Cessna singles
Cessna Finance (CFC) has developed a new set of finance programmes to help boost slower than expected sales of the recently relaunched Cessna single products, including the 172R Skyhawk, 172S Skyhawk SP, 182 Skylane and 206/T206 Stationairs. CFC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Textron Financial, has developed the packages to ...