Fixed-wing – Page 1126
-
News
Global Hawk procedures changed
Flight procedures for the Northrop Grumman RQ-4A Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned air vehicle (UAV) have been modified following the US Air Force's investigation of the crash on 29 March last year that destroyed a $45 million Global Hawk. The accident occurred when the UAV inadvertently received a flight ...
-
News
USAF spotlights F-22 savings
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC The US Air Force has identified additional cost savings worth $200 million from the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor development programme. Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Pratt & Whitney have won contracts from the US Air Force to build six F-22 Raptor production-representative test vehicles (PRTVs) (Flight International, ...
-
News
Japan's F-2 service entry delayed again
The Japanese Defence Agency (JDA) has extended development of the Mitsubishi F-2A/B support fighter by another three months after the discovery of fresh structural load problems, this time at the base of the aircraft's fin. Recent XF-2 flight tests revealed excessive loads at the root of the tail while ...
-
News
Contracts
Raytheon has received a $44.3 million US Air Force contract to upgrade over 1,200 GBU-15 glide bombs with global positioning system guidance. Boeing Wichita has won a $109 million US Air Force contract for the B-52 Avionics Midlife Improvement programme. The inertial navigation system will be replaced by the laser-gyro ...
-
News
France sinks ANF supersonic anti-ship missile programme
Julian Moxon/PARIS The French Ministry of Defence has suspended the Aerospatiale Matra ANF supersonic anti-ship missile programme, citing threat studies that indicate such a missile is no longer needed. The decision was a surprise to Aerospatiale Matra. ANF development had been funded in the 2000 defence budget and ...
-
News
JSF programme aims for more countries as EMD stage nears
Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme will be open to wider international involvement once full-scale engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) is launched in April 2001. Meanwhile, efforts are being made to sign the nine nations participating in the concept demonstration phase up to EMD. "We're ...
-
News
Pentagon aims to speed up C-130J procurement
The US Department of Defense (DoD) plans to accelerate the procurement of Lockheed Martin C-130J Hercules transports for the US Air Force and Marine Corps, but has declined the company's offer of a substantial discount in return for buying more aircraft earlier. Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, has signed a contract ...
-
News
Stretching the limits
US restrictions are hampering the Australian Defence Force's electronic warfare plans Peter La Franchi/CANBERRAUS policy on technology release has become a sticking point in an Australian Defence Force (ADF) project to develop an integrated family of electronic warfare self-protection (EWSP) systems for its combat and support aircraft. The Australian Department ...
-
News
Blinding with science
Lasers have proved their ability to defeat infrared-guided missiles - but the war between aircraft and missiles continues Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC In October, at the White Sands Missile Test Range in New Mexico, a US Air Force Boeing F-15 fired two air-to-air missiles at a stationary cable car - and ...
-
News
JSF infrared sensor
Northrop Grumman is to demonstrate a conformal array imaging-infrared sensor for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The Multifunction Infrared Distributed Aperture System will be flight tested in a Boeing TAV-8B in 2001. On the JSF, the system would have six staring-array, infrared sensors, each with a 90° x 90° field ...
-
News
Germany shapes engine of the future
Germany is easing the way forward for its aero-engine companies to design cleaner, quieter, more efficient powerplants over the next decade Germany's Engine 3E (E3E) programme was launched to ensure that the country's aeroengine companies, BMW Rolls-Royce (now R-R GmbH) and MTU, are prepared for the demands that will ...
-
News
Designs for the future
Designs for tomorrow's unmanned vehicles will aim for light, affordable and almost silent aircraft If designers sat down at their computer screens on the first day of the 21st century and started work on a new combat aircraft - a follow-on to the Eurofighter or the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) ...
-
News
Attacking options
Unmanned air vehicles may not be ready - yet - to replace manned aircraft in combat, but they are close to being able to take on more of the riskier missions During its lifetime, the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will start operating routinely alongside unmanned combat aircraft. Unmanned vehicles will ...
-
News
Future Vision
Imagine taking a trip from New York to Tokyo in just 90min; boarding a scramjet-powered reusable launch vehicle to explore space; deploying unmanned vehicles to patrol our cities; travelling door-to-door via tiltrotor; or zapping an incoming missile with a high-energy laser. The boundaries of aviation are expanding. The aerospace industry ...
-
News
My view - John Farley, Former British Aerospace Harrier Test Pilot
The UK's Royal Air Force has been landing jet fighters vertically for the last 30 years. The US Marine Corps and five navies use Harriers as their only shipboard fixed-wing aircraft. Today five services are planning to co-operate on development of the Joint Strike Fighter, but only the Marines, ...
-
News
Intelligent hope
Intelligent spacecraft are still a few years away, but robots and automated systems can meanwhile play a large part in extending space exploration The spaceflight industry has just one year year left to emulate Arthur C Clarke's HAL, the spacecraft computer that became too intelligent in 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...
-
News
Research realities
The power of the marketplace rather than the promise of technological advances is tempering the ambition of designers As the 20th century closed, the airliner industry appeared to be dominated by derivatives, with few all-new designs on the drawing board or on the horizon. Researchers and engineers are not ...
-
News
Supersonic boom
The new century will see the first flight of a supersonic STOVL fighter, the JSF - but history is littered with other, failed, efforts It has been more than half a century since Chuck Yeager rocketed through the sound barrier and almost 40 years since the Hawker P1127, forerunner ...
-
News
Rotorcraft revivals
As helicopters near the edge of their performance envelope, radical designs such as tiltrotor and tiltwing are coming into their own What goes around comes around and that is the case for the rotorcraft industry, which is seeing the re-emergence of radical concepts from the 1950s and 1960s. With ...
-
News
Our wacky world
Innovation is alive in Australia but some unusual designs have been confined to the drawing board Australia, the nation which brought you a flying farm-tractor called the Airtruk and a stagger-wing trainer called the Eagle, is at it again. Innovation is alive and well down under, despite market conditions ...