Defence Helicopters news – Page 446
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Typhoon is the ultimate, says test pilot
Geoff Thomas It was a visit to an air display at RAF Wattisham in the late Fifties that whetted Eurofighter Typhoon test pilot John Turner's appetite for aviation. "I was only five or six, but Triple One Squadron's famous Royal Air Force display team - the Black Arrows ...
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Flaps away for Dowty
Dowty Aerospace has won a multi-million-pound contract from British Aerospace Military Aircraft to design and develop the complete flap actuation system and other flight control equipment for the BAe Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft. The precise value of the contract has not been revealed. The MRA4 is a virtually ...
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Soul-searching time at Airbus and Boeing
Mike Martin Air show history was made yesterday when both Airbus Industrie and Boeing leaders held press conferences and made almost no reference to each other. Both companies are looking inwards and the emerging picture is fascinating. Boeing president Harry Stonecipher made what amounted to a gracious and ...
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Osprey touted for military competitions
Karen Walker Most people have heard about the phoenix that rose from the ashes - but what about the Osprey? Salesmen for the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor admit that one of the most common reactions they come across as they market the aircraft outside the US is ...
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Storming the skies
Geoff Thomas Weather's always a problem for display pilots, especially when the remnants of a hurricane - now demoted to a tropical storm - head across the Atlantic towards Europe- and Farnborough. Maybe the best-prepared will be Dassault's chief test pilot Yves Kerherve who says that the Dassault Rafale ...
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Mergers on cards for small aviation firms?
Alan Dron The wave of consolidation that has swept the upper echelons of the US aviation industry will be repeated among second-tier and smaller, specialist, companies over the next few years, believes Frank Lanza, chairman and chief executive officer of L-3 Communications. New to Farnborough,L-3 Communications was formed ...
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Eurofighter contract delay 'no problem'
Tim Ripley Eurofighter chiefs have played down a last minute hitch in negotiations over the first batch of 148 production EF2000s. "In next few weeks we will sign fixed price contracts for first production batch of 148 aircraft [for Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK]," declares ...
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Helicopters square up for battle on contracts
Paul Derby As the world's helicopter manufacturers descend on Farnborough this week, they will be training their sights on a series of potentially lucrative contracts for attack helicopters. Top of the agenda will be the Turkish air force's requirement for up to 150 combat helicopters - a deal ...
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'Stealth' Comanche is out to collect a few scalps
Karen Walker Hitching a ride on a Boeing C-17, the Boeing Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche scout/attack helicopter has arrived at Farnborough to make its worldwide airshow debut. The Comanche prototype 2 will be on static display throughout the show. It is the first time the aircraft has been taken ...
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Atlantic Research develops new Agena engine
Tim Furniss Atlantic Research has released details at the Show of its new Agena 2000 rocket engine for the Lockheed Martin fleet of US Air Force Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELVs). The 15,000lb thrust nitrogen tetroxide-monomethyl hydrazine engine will power a storable upper stage that can be fitted as ...
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Japan lines up ramjet-powered ASM launch
The Japan Defence Agency (JDA) is planning to launch initial development of a new integrated ramjet-powered supersonic air-to-surface missile (ASM) as a successor to the Mitsubishi Type 93 ASM-2. Tentatively designated the ASM-3, the new missile will be powered by a combined-cycle rocket motor during launch and acceleration, and ...
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Bidders revise AEW offers as South Korea delays
A revised line-up is emerging for the stalled South Korean airborne early warning (AEW) competition, reflecting developments in contests now under way in Australia, Greece and Turkey. Before the programme was delayed by the country's economic crisis, South Korea had shortlisted three contenders for its AEW requirement: Boeing's 767 ...
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V-22 carries record load at speed during trials
A Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor unofficially broke a rotorcraft record on 20 August by carrying a 4,550kg (10,000lb) external load at 220kt (410km/h) in trials . The maximum payload lift, by a Marine Helicopter Support Team, was made on the V-22's aft external cargo hook. "This is the ...
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Take your partners
Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH While Western Europe moves towards an integrated European aerospace and defence company, manufacturers in former Communist Eastern Europe must decide how they will survive in a market dominated by giants. Clearly, the companies cannot continue in their present form, and they cannot survive alone. In Poland ...
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Affordable AEW
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Guy Norris/SEATTLE Boeing's Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) with its distinctive rotodome, whether mounted on a 707 or 767 based airframe, is likely to be the last of the large, expensive surveillance platforms. While the USA is looking towards space-based surveillance in the long term, ...
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Too much, too late
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC The US government's unexpected opposition to Lockheed Martin's planned $12 billion acquisition of Northrop Grumman led to the deal's demise, but the so-called "merger mania" evident since the end of the Cold War is now expected to produce a wave of consolidation among smaller, second-tier US ...
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Lean on the line
Industry may never see World War II production rates again - but the lessons live onGuy Norris/Seattle Ian Sheppard/London Graham Warwick/Fort WorthFor Boeing, it was back to the future when it began implementing lean manufacturing in 1993, as many of the real lessons were taught back in the Second World ...
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Virtual fighters
Lockheed Martin is redefining what it costs to develop and produce a new combat aircraftGraham Warwick/Fort WorthTwo imperatives drive almost every operation at Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems: keeping the F-16 in production, and winning the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) competition. Both goals share one prerequisite - affordability. Of all ...
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S Korean air force considers stopgap fighter
The South Korean air force is considering leasing interim fighter aircraft to make up for a two-year delay in its future F-X programme. Samsung Aerospace is lobbying to sell more Lockheed Martin F-16C/Ds to make up the shortfall and keep its Sachon licence production line open beyond 2000. South ...
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Lean machines
BAe is relying on lean manufacturing to meet cost goals for the Eurofighter Ian Sheppard/Samlesbury Recession and restructuring can have their benefits, as is the case for British Aerospace's Samlesbury site in the north of England. With the closure in the early 1990s of the nearby Preston plant, then the ...