Fixed-wing – Page 1298
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Wiring hitch hits F-16 MLU plans
Graham Warwick/ATLANTA WORKMANSHIP problems with wire harnesses in five F-16A/B Mid-Life Update (MLU) flight-test aircraft modified by Lockheed Martin are seriously threatening plans to begin operational test and evaluation in Europe in May. Fort Worth, Texas-based Lockheed Martin says that below-specification solder joints on some ...
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USAF invites offers for new bomb-dispenser
PLANNING FOR A NEW dispenser-weapon programme is under way within the US Air Force. The service has issued a request for information on captive-dispenser technology and plans to award competitive advanced-development contracts in the fourth quarter of 1997. The captive dispenser is intended to be carried internally in ...
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Win some, lose some
The US DoD's 1997 budget request represents a 6% decline in defence spending. Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC THE US Department of Defense (DoD) has sent to Capitol Hill a fiscal year 1997 budget request which represents a 6% decline in Pentagon spending from the previous year's ...
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Upgrade RAF F3s in service life until 2010
Douglas Barrie/LONDON THE ROYAL AIR FORCE is to keep its Panavia Tornado F3 air-defence aircraft in service until 2010. Previous plans had envisaged the aircraft being replaced by the Eurofighter EF2000 in the first few years after the turn of the century. The Ministry of ...
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Accidents prompt F-14 upgrade
THREE ACCIDENTS within a month have prompted the US Navy to proceed with an upgrade to the flight-control system of the Grumman F-14. Funds had previously not been available for the $80 million programme to install a digital flight-control system (DFCS) in the F-14 to prevent flat spins and improve ...
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Disconnected ailerons are blamed for RAF Hawk crash
Douglas Barrie/LONDON THE BRITISH Aerospace Hawk, which crashed at the Royal Air Force training base at Valley, North Wales, in February took off with its ailerons disconnected after maintenance. This was one of a series of human errors contributing to the crash, according to initial investigations. ...
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Dassault demands control of Aerospatiale merger
Gilbert Sedbon/PARIS FRENCH GOVERNMENT plans to merge state-owned Aerospatiale with privately owned Dassault Aviation appear to have run into difficulty just two weeks after the proposal was unveiled. Dassault, the fiercely independent combat-aircraft and corporate-jet manufacturer led by chairman Serge Dassault, is refusing to be ...
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Just bad luck?
THE FIRST TWO months of 1996 have proved bleak for the Royal Air Force. It has lost more combat aircraft so far this year than it did in the whole of 1995. A total of nine aircraft have crashed: two Panavia Tornado F3s, two Tornado GR1s, one Sepecat Jaguar GR1, ...
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Dedicated test
Guy Norris/MOJAVE CFM International's latest engine, the CFM56-7, is being put through its paces on General Electric's Boeing 747 test-bed. According to Phil Schultz, General Electric flight-test organisation (FTO) chief pilot, everything you see on GE's Boeing 747-100 test-bed - all the subtle changes - "represent ten years ...
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Coming round again
Colombia's Gavilan programme is recovering from the loss of the first prototype aircraft. Brian Homewood/BOGOTA AFTER TEN YEARS of development, Colombia's first indigenous aircraft is poised to enter production. The second prototype of the El Gavilan 358 (the Sparrowhawk) was due to have its maiden flight in ...
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Australia starts search for Rapier replacement
THE AUSTRALIAN Army has begun a study to define its requirements for an enhanced air-defence missile system to replace the British Aerospace Rapier. Expressions of interest are now being sought from Australian-based (or registered) consultant companies to conduct a study of costs and technical trade-offs. The study forms ...
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Buses to Bosnia
As USAF McDonnell Douglas C-17s are withdrawn from Bosnia, assessment of the transport aircraft begins Tim Ripley/BOSNIA WHEN THE HARSH Balkan winter halted US Army efforts to bridge the River Sava and troop trains became backed-up in Hungarian marshalling yards, US military planners began to ...
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Polish air force MiG-21 Fishbeds Fs will be gone by end of 1996
THE POLISH AIR force is to retire 30 Mikoyan MiG-21PFM Fishbed Fs by the end of 1996, although its 60 MiG-21M Fishbed Js are to be retained until replacement fighters are purchased. The Fishbed Fs have been in service for 30 years and are now flown by the ...
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EMB-120 cleared for flight in icing
EMBRAER'S EMB-120 Brasilia regional turboprop has been cleared for flight in super-cooled large-droplet (SLD) icing, without modification, following a series of ground and flight tests. The tests were required by the US Federal Aviation Administration following the October 1994 crash of an ATR 72, caused by SLD icing. ...
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Spain follows US C-130 update lead
SPAIN IS TO update its 12 Lockheed Martin C/KC-130Hs with new avionics developed for the US Air Force's programme to upgrade C-130s and Lockheed C-141s. CASA is managing the programme, with Lockheed Martin responsible for integration and AlliedSignal Aerospace supplying the avionics. The first Spanish ...
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US Navy recovers 757 recorders from sea
THE US NAVY has found the cockpit-voice and flight-data recorders of the chartered Boeing 757, which plunged into the sea north of the Dominican Republic on 6 February. An USN recovery vessel retrieved the critical components from the aircraft, operated by a Turkish aircraft charter company, Birgenair, which ...
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UK Ministry of Defence clips Pegasus wings
GEC-MARCONI'S PEGASUS bid for the Royal Air Force's conventional stand-off missile (CASOM) requirement, has become the first casualty in the competition, having been effectively eliminated by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). Although the company has received no formal notification from the MoD, senior-level unofficial channels appear ...
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Fokker given two more weeks to secure its survival
THE DUTCH Government has allowed Fokker a two-week stay of execution until 15 March, to give the ailing aircraft manufacturer time to talk with potential rescuers. The decision to extend Fokker's credit for another two weeks followed the announcement by the Bombardier group that it would not be ...
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USAF to outline upgrade plans
INDUSTRY IS TO be briefed this month on US Air Force proposals to upgrade its Fairchild A-10s, Lockheed Martin F-16s and F-117s and McDonnell Douglas F-15s, under its fighter-configuration plan (FICOP). The FICOP has been revised for 1996. An earlier plan was deemed to be unaffordable within the ...
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Surplus European F-16s may go to eastern Europe
Douglas Barrie/LONDON Andrzej Jeziorski/WARSAW LOCKHEED MARTIN is examining the use of surplus F-16A/Bs drawn from stocks in Belgium and the Netherlands to offer in fighter competitions in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Belgium has around 32 early-model F-16s, and the Netherlands up to ...