All news – Page 7509
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Budget reductions hit Germany's Huey fleet
The German army is being forced to retire one-third of its fleet of Bell UH-1D Iroquois fleet ahead of time because of budget shortages. Some 52 transport helicopters from the current fleet of 176 are to be grounded from 1997, and will be cannibalised for spares. The helicopters ...
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US GAO backs CH-60 Black Hawk over Huey upgrade
The US Department of Defense could save more than $700 million if it forces the US Marine Corps to scrap plans to upgrade 100 Bell Helicopter Textron UH-1N utility helicopters and buy new Sikorsky Aircraft CH-60 Black Hawk rotorcraft, say Congressional investigators. "In deciding to modernise its fleet ...
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Germans plan London visit to discuss air force missile plan
German defence officials will visit London later this month for exploratory discussions on the possibility of drawing together elements of the UK's Storm Shadow variant of the French Apache stand-off weapon with the German KEPD-350 to meet a German air force requirement for such a missile. The officials are from ...
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USAF safety
The US Air Force has achieved its second-best overall flight-safety year on record in fiscal year 1996, with a "Class A" accident rate of 1.26 accidents per 100,000 flying hours. Class A includes fatal accidents or "mishaps" involving destruction or damage worth more than $1 million. Rates for fighter and ...
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Pentagon funds air-launched decoys for SEAD mission
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical (TRA) a $24.4 million contract to develop and demonstrate a miniature air-launched decoy (MALD) designed to knock out air defences. The MALD advanced concept technology demonstration (ACTD) involves using a small, inexpensive air-launched decoy for ...
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Acceptable errors
The human-factors element in flight safety is now being taken seriously. David Learmount/WARSAW The world's flight-safety specialists have given up trying to eliminate human error. Now, the aim is to understand error and to control, or "manage" it. This strategy holds the key to improving airline flight ...
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Beyond-visual-range AAMs
The advent of extended beyond visual range (BVR) air-to-air requirements has inevitably led missile design houses to look at ramjet sustainers as a potential power plant solution, and the Royal Air Force's Future Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (FMRAAM) is, therefore, not the first to have a design solution built around ...
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Strategic Air to Surface Systems
Alone among the Western nations, France has continued to pursue the operational deployment of ramjet-powered air-launched stand-off missiles since the late 1940s. While the USA experimented with ramjet propulsion during the late 1940s and 1950s, with test vehicles such as Glenn Martin PTV-N-2 Gorgon, the preference was for turbojet, and ...
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Linear aerospike engine
Much of NASA's investment in the X-33 demonstrator will be in the development of its linear 'aerospike' engines. The aerospike "-is tremendously efficient because it is simpler than the current bell-nozzle rocket engine", says Micky Blackwell, president and chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. "It automatically adjusts itself to ...
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Terminal velocity
The push is on to provide ramjet propulsion for the Eurofighter EF2000's extended-range air-to-air missile. Douglas Barrie/LONDON Providing more than twice the punch for the same mass in comparison to solid rockets has inevitably made ramjet propulsion attractive to missile designers. In the air-to-air missile (AAM) arena, ...
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Surface-to-Air/Surface-to-Surface
It is generally believed that the USA's interest in ramjet propulsion was rekindled, at least at a research level, during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war when it gained access to Soviet technology in the shape of captured SA-6 Gainful surface-to-air missiles. The SA-6, like the SA-4 Ganef, uses a ramjet sustainer, ...
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Bombardier acquires Innotech for Global
Bombardier is to acquire the business-aircraft completion division of Innotech Aviation. The Canadian manufacturer plans to outfit its Global Express long-range business jet at Innotech, based at Montreal's Dorval airport. The deal to acquire Innotech from Halifax-based IMP International is expected to be completed at the end of ...
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Eurocopter leases EC135s to Bavarian police
Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH Eurocopter has won Government approval for a contract to supply nine EC135 light helicopters on a ten-year lease to police in the south German state of Bavaria. According to Eurocopter, the contract will be signed on 13 November, now that the Bavarian regional government ...
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Citation certification
Duncan Aviation of Lincoln, Nebraska, has certificated AlliedSignal's GNS-XLS global-positioning/flight-management system for primary- means over-water navigation in a Cessna Citation III. Source: Flight International
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Visionaire rolls out Vantage
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES VisionAire rolled out its Vantage six-seat, proof-of-concept business jet on 8 November from Scaled Composites' Mojave site in California. Firm orders for "nearly 50 Vantages, representing sales in excess of $75 million", have been booked to date, says VisionAire founder, chairman and chief ...
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GEC-Marconi struggles for Il-76 data
Paul Lewis/ZHUHAI GEC-Marconi is facing difficulty in obtaining the design specifications from Ilyushin needed to modify its Il-76 transport to take the Argus 2000 airborne early-warning (AEW) sys- tem, now being offered to China. There has been some "foot-dragging" on the part of the Russians to ...
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Thomson and Siemens discussions on air-traffic management venture make progress
Talks between Thomson-CSF and Siemens on a joint venture which would create the "biggest air-traffic management [ATM] enterprise in Europe and the second-biggest in the world" are expected to be concluded in "several months", says Siemens. The French and German concerns already have several joint industry programmes and ...
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UK considers laser weaponry for Royal Air Force and Navy
Douglas Barrie/London The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is exploring fielding advanced laser weaponry on Royal Navy ships and Royal Air Force fast jets for missile defence. The MoD is close to awarding one or more study contracts examine replacing the navy's Phalanx gun air-defence system ...
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Russia will privatise Domodedovo
The Russian Government has decided to privatise Domodedovo Commercial Aviation Enterprise, which runs Moscow's main domestic airport and the Domodedovo airline operation. Anew public company, Domodedovo Service, will be set up to run the airport, which handled close to 6 million passengers in 1995, although a majority 51% will stay ...
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MHS Aviation rigs up GPS on more aircraft
MHS Aviation, which primarily operates to oil and gas rigs in the South China Sea, is stepping up trials of the Swedavia-developed Global Positioning & Communications (GP&C) system and plans to use it on its entire helicopter fleet. MHS Aviation initially installed a system on a Sikorsky S-61 in September ...