Fixed-wing – Page 1232
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Maturing nicely
Graham Warwick/Fort Worth Risk will be a deciding factor in who wins the competition to develop the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). An unprecedented effort is under way, therefore, funded by government and industry, to reduce the risk attached to technologies judged critical to meeting the affordability and performance ...
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Klimov holds MiG-29 engine talks in Iran
Russian engine design bureau Klimov is in negotiations with Iran for a licence-production agreement for its RD-33 engine, which powers the MAPO MIG MiG-29 Fulcrum. Senior officials from MAPO MIG, of which Klimov now forms a part, confirm that "an RD-33 engine licence-manufacturing agreement in Iran" is being ...
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Aircraft makers join forces for worldwide software standards
Ian Sheppard/LONDON A collaborative project in concurrent engineering, involving some of Europe's leading aerospace companies, is about to expand into the global arena. The Advanced Information Technology (AIT) project is a wide-ranging attempt to combat the burgeoning costs of information technology (IT) and to work with ...
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Allison goes hunting
Hunting Airmotive of the UK has beaten international competition to extend for a further five years its UK Ministry of Defence contract under which it maintains the Allison T56 engines, which power the RAF's Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules transport fleet. Source: Flight International
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Thomson/Fakel tie-up
France's Thomson-CSF Airsys and Russian air-defence missile specialist Fakel are collaborating in adapting Fakel's cold-gas ejection system for the former's VL-VT1 naval short-range anti-air missile system. The cold-gas ejection system is used in various Russian navy and army surface-to-air missile systems. Source: Flight International
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Singapore Technologies builds on 1996 recovery
Singapore Technologies Aerospace (STAe) turned in a solid performance for the first half of 1997, boosted in part by a return to profitability of its Commercial Business Group (CBG) on the back of firmer civil-aircraft maintenance markets. STAe showed a net profit of S$28 million ($19 million ) ...
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Three bid for Australia's Wedgetail
Three consortia, led by Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon E-Systems, are expecting Initial Design Activity (IDA) contracts for Project Wedgetail, Australia's competition for an airborne early-warning and control aircraft, before the end of this year. The Royal Australian Air Force is expected to pick the Project Wedgetail winner ...
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Eurofighter partners agree on worldwide marketing/sales deal
Paul Lewis/SINGAPORE The four Eurofighter consortium partners have reached an internal agreement on dividing up areas of responsibility for worldwide marketing and sales of the EF2000 combat aircraft. According to senior sources within the consortium, the agreement was approved in May by member companies Alenia, British ...
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Lockheed tests F-22
Lockheed Martin has begun taxi trials in preparation for the first flight of the F-22, possibly by the end of this month, after testing the fighter's 156kN (35,000lb)-thrust Pratt & Whitney F119 powerplants at full afterburner, with the aircraft tied down. A series of minor software problems, including over-sensitive sensors ...
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GE details F110 programme for F-15/F-16
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES General Electric plans to run a signiÌcantly upgraded version of its F110-129 engine as early as the last quarter of 1998 if the United Arab Emirates (UAE) selects the proposed Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 60 with its engine rather than the competing Pratt & Whitney F100-229. The ...
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Northrop Grumman hawks advanced radars for fighters
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC NORTHROP GRUMMAN is taking orders for improved versions of the APG-66 and APG-68 fire-control radars, according to vice-president for avionics systems James Pitts. The advanced systems include the APG-68 Agile Beam Radar (ABR), the active electronically scanned-array variant of the radar installed in ...
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Singapore studies bases
The Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) is considering a shortlist of locations on offer from the Australian government as permanent advanced jet-training bases. The RSAF study is running concurrently with a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) review of airfield requirements, and the Australian Defence Force (ADF), while ...
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Boeing studies composite primary-wing technology
Guy Norris/Los Angeles Boeing Commercial Airplane Group is drawing on expertise at the former McDonnell Douglas (MDC) Phantom Works to study composite primary wing structures. Before the recent merger, Boeing and MDC were separately involved in NASA's $130million Advanced Composites Technology (ACT) effort. MDC focused on ...
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B-2 stealth bomber suffers housing problems
The Northrop Grumman B-2 bomber has been declared fit to fight, but forward deployments are not possible because of problems in maintaining the stealth aircraft. The US Air Force announced in April that the B-2 had achieved its initial operational capability with delivery of the thirteenth aircraft to ...
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Dassault keeps low-key profile on Taiwan sales
Dassault has adopted a wait-and-see approach to the politically sensitive issue of possible further fighter sales to Taiwan, in spite of French Government assurances to China that no more arms will be sold to the island. "We've developed a relationship with Taiwan and we think we have a ...
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Antonov ascending
The An-38 marks the comeback of one of the oldest aircraft manufacturers in the CIS. Will it survive in the modern world? Paul Duffy/Novosibirsk As one of the major Soviet aviation design bureaux, and the only one based outside Russia, Antonov has developed two specialities in ...
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Circuit-card cloning beats avionics obsolescence
Lockheed Martin has "cloned" a circuit card in the F-16 stores-management system to demonstrate a method of solving the problem of out-of-production parts in military avionics. The technique involves developing a software model of the card's behaviour, then programming a current-technology replacement board. The US Air Force awarded ...
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Sukhoi starts radar tests with Flanker
Sukhoi is about to begin flight testing of an Su-27 Flanker fitted with a Phazotron multi-mode pulse-Doppler radar which could be fitted to future batches of Su-27s and, possibly, two-seat Su-30s for China. Phazotron says that it has already delivered the radar, effectively the Zhuk-27, to the Komsolosk-on-Amur ...
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Level playing field?
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Canada's quest for a new search-and-rescue (SAR) helicopter has attracted the usual bidders - with a twist. One candidate helicopter used to be operated by Canada, until all examples were sold; two were considered in a previous competition, but rejected; and one was ordered by ...
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K-MAX TBO extension
Kaman Aerospace hopes to increase time between overhauls (TBOs) on the transmission and rotors of the K-MAX external-lift helicopter, following intensive analytical overhauls. Present 1,800h TBOs are planned to be increased to 2,500h by the end of the year. Source: Flight International