Fixed-wing – Page 1249
-
News
Israelis impressed by MiG-29 combat trials
The Israeli air force has borrowed three MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter aircraft from an unidentified eastern European state. Israel test-flew the aircraft against its Lockheed Martin F-16 and McDonnell Doulgas F-15s. The aircraft , flown out from an Israeli air force base in the Negev desert, were evaluated over ...
-
News
NH Industries gets plans ready for NH90 production
NH Industries (NHI) will meet armaments directors from partner countries of the four -nation NH90 transport-helicopter programme during the Paris air show in June to begin negotiations on tooling and production for up to 240 helicopters. "We're preparing our proposals now," says NHI president Jean-Pierre Barthelemy. "We have ...
-
News
Hercules crash mystifies investigators
The crash of a US Air Force Reserve Lockheed Martin HC-130P into the Pacific Ocean on 22 November 1996 was caused by fuel starvation, but the official investigation could not determine why all four engines had shut down. One of 11 crew members survived when the aircraft crashed ...
-
News
JPATS contract
Raytheon Aircraft has selected FlightSafety Services to develop the ground-based training system (GBTS) for the US Air Force/Navy Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS). The company cites "superior systems engineering and software management" as reasons for selecting FlightSafety over Hughes Training for the $500 million contract. The GBTS is to ...
-
News
Philippines details fighter and weapons requirement
The Philippine air force has issued its first request for proposals (RFP) for 24 new multi-role fighter aircraft and six air-defence radars to manufacturers , initiating a 15-year, 164.5 billion peso ($6.23 billion) defence-modernisation programme. The RFP has been sent to six competing European, Israeli, Russian and US ...
-
News
Yakovlev begins high angle-of-attack trials with Yak-130D
Yakovlev has begun high angle-of-attack (AoA) trials with the prototype of its Yak-130D advanced jet trainer, with the company confident that it has been able to resolve earlier problems with the aircraft's winglets. Andrei Sinitsin, chief test pilot at Yakovlev, says: "A big part of the test programme ...
-
News
Gunships for peace
Camouflaged in the forest, looking down on the River Danube, is a Belgian army tactical air-control party (TACP) practising its skills at calling in air strikes. There are no NATO aircraft on this exercise, however. Instead, two white-painted Mil Mi-24 helicopters can be seen flying along a wood line into ...
-
News
CMS eyes Australian stand-off contest
CMS DEFENSE SYSTEMS has fit-checked its AFDS-T-powered submunitions dispenser on a Royal Australian Air Force General Dynamics F-111C, in preparation for a possible bid to meet Australia's Air 5398 requirement for a stand-off weapon. Fit checks have also been conducted by Texas Instruments, with its Joint Stand-Off ...
-
News
Shorts faces penalty over C-23 delays
Short Brothers faces penalty charges because of continuing delays in delivering the C-23B variant of the Shorts Sherpa to the US Army. The company is behind schedule in delivering C-23B Plus transport aircraft to the Army, and further delays are expected because of nagging technical problems. ...
-
News
Royal Navy begins process to replace Sea King Commando
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is considering a replacement for the Royal Navy Westland Sea King HC4 Commando assault helicopter under the auspices of the Future Amphibious Support Helicopter (FASH) project. The MoD is looking to introduce a replacement for the HC4 into service around 2008, according ...
-
News
Training contracts
British Aerospace Flight Training Australia (BAFTA) has announced new pilot training contracts worth A$3 million ($2.3 million). The Australian Army will now contract all its basic flying training to BAFTA. The move follows criticism of the Army's recruiting and training, and a current tri-service review in the wake of a ...
-
News
Airservices/RAAF team
Airservices Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) have signed a new agreement to establish joint civil and military air-traffic-control-tower training courses. The joint courses will be conducted at the RAAF's School of Air Traffic Control at East Sale, which has an advanced visual tower-simulator. Under the new arrangement, ...
-
News
USAF F-16c to get strike upgrade
The US Air Force is to upgrade some of its Lockheed Martin F-16Cs, to provide the aircraft with a more-capable targeting and strike capability. Aircraft based at Aviano in Italy, with the 31st Fighter Wing, are to be modified to allow the F-16's improved data modem (IDM) to ...
-
News
BAe plans negotiations for Canadian Hawk trainer deal
British Aerospace is to begin formal negotiations to provide up to 25 Hawk 100 trainers to Canada, following the latter's decision to proceed with the NATO Flying Training in Canada (NFTC) programme. Canadian defence minister Douglas Young announced the approval for the NFTC on 23 April, saying that ...
-
News
Kamov flies modified Ka-50
Russian helicopter manufacturer Kamov has begun flight testing an all-weather attack variant of the Ka-50 Hokum, the Ka-50N, fitted with a more capable sensor suite. The Ka-50N prototype has been equipped with a nose-mounted forward-looking infra-red (FLIR) sensor, understood to have been supplied by Thomson-CSF. The ...
-
News
Evergreen has to switch VERTREP demonstrators
The US Navy's USS Saturn is due to depart at the end of April for five months at sea with different aircraft from those originally envisioned to be operated by commercial operator Evergreen Helicopters. The Military Sealift Command (MSC) sea trial marks the third in a series of ...
-
News
Participation in JSF gathers momentum
THE Netherlands and Norway have formally joined the US Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) project, but Denmark has yet to decide on participation. On 16 April, the two countries signed a JSF requirements-validation memorandum of agreement (MoA), which commits them to the JSF. The US Department of Defense says ...
-
News
Direct to target
INTERNATIONAL INTEREST in the US Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) is growing as flight testing continues to demonstrate an accuracy better than the 13m (40ft) requirement. McDonnell Douglas (MDC) has already proposed the JDAM to at least one foreign country. JDAMs have been dropped from the Lockheed Martin ...
-
News
Germans choose Elisra
The German army will equip its Sikorsky CH-53 helicopters with the Israeli Elisra SPS-65(V) integrated airborne self-protection system. A limited number of systems was rushed to Germany and installed on CH-53s which were flown on missions in Bosnia. The German army is now negotiating a deal to purchase the Israeli-developed ...
-
News
Resolving contradictions
One down, one to go - or, at least, that would appear to be the case, following the US Department of Defense's recent decision on its Hughes AIM-9 Sidewinder replacement, which ended the battle for the air-to-air missile's succession. The next decision to be made is over which ...