All news – Page 7208
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Germany defers Helios II entry
Andrjez Jeziorski/MUNICH Germany has pushed back its entry into the joint Helios II/Horus reconnaissance-satellite programme with France by at least a year, but has committed to production of the Eurocopter Tiger and NH Industries NH90 military helicopters. The decisions were announced at the meeting of the ...
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Bell Boeing considers civil tilt-rotor as V-22 trainer
BELL BOEING PLANS to offer its Model 609 civil tilt-rotor to the US military as a trainer for crews destined to fly the V-22 tilt-rotor transport. Development of the nine-passenger 609 was launched in November, with a first flight planned for mid-1999 (Flight International, 27 November-3 December, ...
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High resolution
Space Imaging plans to launch its first high-resolution satellite. Tim Furniss/LONDON The race to market high-resolution satellite imagary is on, and the Lockheed Martin-led Space Imaging company, of Thornton, Colorado, aims to win it. With partners Raytheon E-Systems, Mitsubishi and Eastman Kodak, Lockheed Martin is ...
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Flying a legend
Despite being more than six decades old, the Junkers Ju-52 is still going strong. Herman De Wulf/BRUSSELS How long do aircraft last? The legendary Junkers Ju-52/3m tri-motor transport is 60 years old and still extremely popular - especially for pleasure-trips. One airworthy example is operated in Lufthansa ...
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Blindness in its sights
A McDonnell Douglas DC-10 has been made into a well-equipped eye hospital. Eryl Crump/MANCHESTER THE FATE OF AN AGEING airliner is usually either to decline towards the scrap yard via a series of increasingly lower level airlines, or to be turned into a freighter. For one McDonnell ...
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Supersonic resurrection
It seemed as if the Tupolev Tu-144was bound for the scrapheap, but things have now changed. Paul Duffy/MOSCOW When Marshal Boris Bugaev, the Soviet minister of civil aviation, ordered the termination of Aeroflot's Moscow-to-Alma Ata supersonic service in May 1978, it looked like the end of the line ...
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History
The Tu-144 programme was started only in 1963, when the Soviet Government had told Tupolev that, although the equivalent Aerospatiale/ British Aerospace Concorde programme had started earlier, the Soviet aircraft should be the first to be flown - and it was. To speed things up, the design team ...
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Learjet offers 31A-for-60 option
IN AN EFFORT to stimulate sales of its Learjet 31A light business jet, Bombardier is offering purchasers access to the larger Learjet 60 when they have the occasional need for a longer-range aircraft. The programme, called LearjetOptions, is available to North American customers who purchase aircraft before 15 January, 1997. ...
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Lufthansa/Bombardier prepare business-jet charter venture
Lufthansa's supervisory board has approved a new business-jet charter company, to be formed as a joint venture between Lufthansa City Line and Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier. The board gave its go-ahead to the plan at a meeting in early December, after the signing of a joint-venture agreement ...
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Visionaire may take Vantage assembly to Israel
Visionaire is evaluating the possibility of establishing an assembly line in Israel for its Vantage executive jet. A delegation from the US manufacturer arrived in Israel on 9 December to discuss the scheme with the Government. The plan is to build an assembly line in Arad, in southern ...
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Airbus achieves two firsts with delivery of A319 to Air Canada
Kevin O'Toole/Toulouse Airbus INDUSTRIE handed over the first A319 to Air Canada on 12 December, the first of the type to go into operation in North America and also the first Airbus aircraft to be delivered on a nine-month production lead time. Airbus and Boeing have ...
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US cargo airlines push for ADS-B as TCAS alternative
Two US labour organisations are calling for collision-avoidance systems to be compulsory on freighter aircraft. In a separate move, US freight carriers are promoting a change directly to global-positioning-system (GPS)-based automatic-dependent-surveillance- broadcast (ADS-B). The US Teamsters union, which represents many airline employees, including cabin crew, and the ...
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India unveils AEW demonstrator
India's technology demonstrator programme for airborne-early-warning (AEW) systems had its public debut at the Aero India '96 show earlier this month. The rotordome, built originally with German help, is mounted on the top of a British Aerospace 748, modified to carry the primary radar, along with avionics and identification-friend-or-foe. ...
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Oryx claim rejected
A Paris commercial court has rejected a claim against Eurocopter by a Portuguese businessman, who was claiming substantial commission relating to an estimated $2 billion sale of helicopter kits to South Africa during the period of the UN arms embargo against the country. The businessman claimed that Aerospatiale ( the ...
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GE and Airbus hold intense A340 engine negotiations
Julian Moxon/Paris General Electric and Airbus Industrie are in "intense" negotiations on a new, exclusive, very-high-bypass-ratio, power plant for the stretched, re-engined, A340-500/600. Airbus vice-president for strategic planning, Adam Brown, says that the US manufacturer is offering an "extremely exciting" power plant solution for the A340 involving ...
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Boeing targets Delta for stretched 767
Paul Lewis and Guy Norris/SEATTLE Boeing is close to launching the stretched 767-400ERX on the back of an anticipated order from Delta Airlines for a complete fleet of passenger aircraft. Interest in the 767 derivative has been revived after years of inactivity, during which time ...
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Teledyne Ryan plans first engine runs of Global Hawk reconnaissance UAV
The Global Hawk Tier II Plus high-altitude reconnaissance platform was expected to have its first engine runs in the week beginning 16 December, as part of final preparations for completion in January and roll-out in early February 1997. The Global Hawk, with its 35.4m wingspan, was originally scheduled ...
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MD-95 begins to take shape
McDonnell Douglas has re-affirmed its commitment to the MD-95 regional twinjet as the nose section for the first aircraft was delivered to its Long Beach assembly site on 12 December. Despite having received no new business since it was launched more than a year ago with an order ...
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Airbus studies A3XX production
Julian Moxon/Toulouse Airbus Industrie's Large Aircraft division is considering up to six potential sites in Europe for production of the 500- to 800-seat A3XX transport. "We're looking at either inland or coastal locations," says the division's senior vice-president, Jurgen Thomas. A major study launched in ...
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Harris' WINGS adds weather to flight-planning system
HARRIS HAS introduced a general-aviation flight-planning system, which allows routes to be overlaid on real-time weather graphics. The company's Weather Information and Navigational Graphics System (WINGS) consists of Windows-compatible software for Pentium-class personal computers (PCs). The system provides dial-up access to Melbourne, Florida-based Harris Information Systems' flight- and ...