Fixed-wing – Page 1153
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Seattle landing
Messier-Dowty is to open a design office in Seattle. The world's leading landing gear specialist, which has extensive operations in France, Canada and the UK, is pushing to increase its links with Boeing's commercial and military operations. Apart from a small share of 777 work, the Snecma-owned company has failed ...
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Agile thinking
While the design emphasis was on air-to-air combat - both beyond and within visual range - the result is a capable multirole machine Acceleration is described as "tremendous" and agility is claimed to exceed that of today's best fighters, but pilots say the Typhoon is easy to fly. This is ...
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Autonomous operator
The fuel system is among Typhoon's technological innovationsEurofighter says it "pushed technology on several fronts" to package the required capability in an aircraft as small as the Typhoon. The task was made more challenging by customer demands that the Eurofighter be capable of autonomous operation and require minimum support in ...
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Lethal independence
New European weapons on the horizon will change the Typhoon from air-superiority machine to multirole strike fighter Shortly after it enters service, the Typhoon will be cleared to carry a range of advanced weaponry as the aircraft's full multirole capability begins to be exploited. At initial operational capability (IOC), the ...
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Heavy duty
There's only one Antonov An-70 and Flight International's test pilot was the first Westerner to fly Ukraine's four-engined military transportPeter Henley/KIEVThere are several persuasive reasons to fly the Antonov An-70. Little is widely known about it in the West. It is the product of a leading aircraft manufacturer from the ...
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Millennium force
Singapore's air force is raising its international profile through plans to host a global air forces' summit Andrzej Jeziorski/SINGAPORE The island republic of Singapore has a reputation as an oasis of relative calm in a region rocked by economic and political upheaval. With a population of 3 million and no ...
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Shuttle changes
New cockpits will bring the Shuttle into the space age Tim Furniss/LONDON Milliseconds can make a big difference during a Space Shuttle launch. The faster the crew can react to a problem, the greater possibility of avoiding disaster. That is where "glass cockpits" - cockpits with digital displays - come ...
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Discovery paves way for first crew to join the Space Station
Tim Furniss/LONDON The Space Shuttle Discovery landed at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on 6 June after the nine-day, 19h mission STS96 to prepare the International Space Station (ISS) for the first resident crew next March. This date depends on the successful launch in November of Russia's Zvezda ...
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Marconi goes on the prowl with Predator tie-up
Marconi Avionics has teamed with General Atomics and Bombardier Services to offer unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) capable of meeting future UK Ministry of Defence (MoD)surveillance and communications relay requirements. Proposals will be based around the General Atomics Predator UAV family and will offer a range of payloads to meet ...
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Italy/Russia agree on Yak-130
Aermacchi is pressing ahead with plans for certification by 2003 of a fully "Westernised" version of the Yakovlev Yak-130 advanced/lead-in fighter trainer (left), following the signing of an intergovernmental agreement between Italy and Russia.The deal should ensure that sufficient funding is available to complete development of the aircraft, known ...
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South Africa may trim shopping list
Jonathan Rosenthal/JOHANNESBURG The South African Government may drop one or more of six major aviation and naval weapon purchase programmes from its R30 billion ($4.9 billion) arms procurement package, announced last October, because of fiscal constraints. Defence ministry chief negotiator Jayendra Naidoo, who is heading talks with preferred suppliers, ...
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Boeing awaits go-ahead for extended range Globemaster
Boeing expects formal US Department of Defense approval this week to fit an extended range tank (ERT)to the C-17 Globemaster. The revised aircraft configuration could be delivered to the UK Royal Air Force (RAF) to meet its Short Term Strategic Airlift (STSA) requirement. The ERT boosts fuel capacity by ...
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AlliedSignal-Honeywell deal tops supplier merger trend
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Emma Kelly/LONDON The agreement by AlliedSignal and Honeywell to merge after a long on-off affair is testament to the growing urgency to consolidate the supplier industry following massive mergers among US aerospace and defence prime contractors. The move is also in line with a trend ...
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Embraer aims for more from military
Chris Jasper/SAO JOSE DOS CAMPOS Embraer hopes to increase the share of turnover contributed by the military side of its business to 30% within five years, although it says a long-term aim of achieving a 50:50 split between defence and commercial activities is unlikely due to the runaway success ...
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F-22 operational tests begin early
Operational tests of the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 have been integrated into the aircraft's initial developmental testing phase at Edwards AFB, California. "Rather than waiting until much later in the process of testing the F-22, we have started operational testing as early as possible," says Lt Col David Nelson, F-22 ...
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Racal presses UK on RN organic early warning
Radar company Racal has submitted a concept study to the UK Ministry of Defence to give the Royal Navy's proposed future organic airborne early warning aircraft (FOAEW) overland surveillance capability with a synthetic aperture radar and moving target indicator. The FOAEW aircraft is to replace Westland Sea King AEW ...
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Tests reveal new wing cracking problem for Japan's F-2 fighter
Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC The Mitsubishi F-2A/B fighter programme has run into development problems with the discovery of fresh cracks in the wing during renewed static load testing by the Japan Defence Agency's Technical Research and Development Institute (TRDI). TRDI flight testing of fourXF-2A/B prototypes has already slipped nine months ...
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Boeing Sikorsky waits on Comanche funds
Paul Derby Boeing Sikorsky should know by the end of June whether it will be able to ramp up the flight programme for its second prototype RAH-66 Comanche helicopter. Three of the four US congressional committees controlling the US defence budget have approved a $56 million funding increase, ...
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Demos show Eurojet's ease of maintenance
Even the best engine in the world is worse than useless if it can't be maintained simply and cost-effectively... and this is one good reason why Eurojet is demonstrating the maintainability of the EJ200, powerplant for Eurofighter, on its stand in Hall 4. The four-nation engine consortium has ...
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Military takes a trick from civil aviation
The secret to good business is finding new markets and Honeywell is doing just that by retrofitting its commercial avionics technology into military aircraft. It is putting colour liquid crystal displays, developed for civilian projects such as the Boeing 777, into the cockpits of a range of US ...