Fixed-wing – Page 1306
-
News
Next Hubble service mission will also repair insulation blankets
The next planned Space Shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope in orbit, in December 1999, will involve repairs to damaged insulation blankets over the telescope's central equipment bays. The damage was probably caused by ultraviolet radiation and atomic oxygen. The damage to the area of the ...
-
News
F-22 cost overruns 'higher than US Air Force estimated'
A REVIEW BY THE US Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) has concluded that cost overruns on the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 programme could exceed US Air Force projections by $2 billion. An Air Force Joint Cost Estimating Team (JET) reported in December 1996 that the F-22 programme ...
-
News
PNG hides Hinds
The Papua New Guinea (PNG) Government seems to have acquired a small number of armed helicopters, possibly Mil Mi-24 Hinds, from an Eastern European source for use in the Bougainville secessionist insurrection. It is reported that the aircraft were delivered about two weeks ago in an unidentified large freighter of ...
-
News
Rolls-Royce aims to clinch RAAF Hawk deal with Adour power
Rolls-Royce is offering Australia a full-authority digital electronic-control (FADEC) version of the Adour Mk871, in a last-ditch effort to swing a deal to power the air force's recently selected British Aerospace Hawk 100 lead-in fighter trainer. The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is to make a decision shortly ...
-
News
Australia starts AEW&C evaluation programme
Australia has embarked on a 30-month programme to evaluate and select an airborne early-warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, following the submission of preliminary tenders by three competing consortia led by Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon E-Systems. The Royal Australian Air Force's (RAAF) Project Wedgetail calls for initial design-activity ...
-
News
The Australian International Airshow Down...
The Australian International Airshow Down Under 97 was held atAvalon Airport in Victoria from 18-23 February. Despite a marked drop-off in the number of display aircraft over earlier shows, the event attracted a wide range of defence and general-aviation exhibitors. There was particular interest in Australia's pending requirement for an ...
-
News
Norway narrows fighter choice to EF2000/F-16
The Norwegian defence ministry has confirmed that it has shortlisted the Eurofighter consortium and Lockheed Martin to begin negotiations to select a winner to meet its KFA-96 fighter requirement to replace its obsolescent Northrop F-5s. The decision, first revealed in Flight International (12-18 February), will eventually lead to ...
-
News
Netherlands defence ministry advises Slovenia on choice of fighter aircraft
THE ROYAL Netherlands Air Force is conducting force structure and procurement studies for Slovenia as part of the ex-Yugoslavian republic's attempts to establish an independent air force. Slovenia began talks with the Netherlands Government in the third quarter of 1996 for assistance in establishing its air force, viewing ...
-
News
Today tackles tomorrow
DESIGNERS OF TOMORROW'S fighters are already wrestling with an unusual problem - obsolescence. Not of the aircraft as weapon systems, but of key components, principally in the avionics. The problem is being made worse by the protracted development and production timescales caused by reduced defence budgets, and by the decline ...
-
News
Belgian police receives first MD Explorer
Belgium's national police force, the Gendarmerie, has taken delivery of its first McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems MD Explorer helicopter. A second will be delivered in June, and the force also has an option on a third. The Explorer will replace four ageing Sud-Aviation Alouette IIs and an Aerospatiale Puma. The ...
-
News
Boeing picks Hughes maintenance trainers for F-22 programme
HUGHES TRAINING (HTI) is to provide maintenance-training devices for the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 fighter. The $22 million development award from Boeing follows receipt of a $28 million contract to supply the initial suite of F-22 pilot-training devices (Flight International, 19-25 February). The maintenance-trainer contract covers the supply of ...
-
News
Tayside success
Tayside Aviation has landed a ú6 million ($9.7 million)contract from the UK Ministry of Defence to provide flying scholarship training for up to 520 people a year. The five-year deal, which includes an option for a two-year extension, starts on 1 April. The Dundee, Scotland-based flying school has been conducting ...
-
News
TTS moves Heathrow into its Orbit
THOMSON TRAINING & Simulation (TTS) is to relocate its Orbit Flight Training subsidiary from East Midlands Airport to a site near London Heathrow. As part of the move, planned for early 1998, the independent pilot-training centre has sold its two Boeing 737 simulators to Continental and Southwest Airlines. ...
-
News
Reflectone wins deal
REFLECTONE HAS won a $34 million contract to supply the South Korean army with flight simulators for the Bell AH-1F Cobra attack and Sikorsky UH-60P Black Hawk transport helicopters. The simulators will be installed in a new army-aviation training centre. Each will have a five-channel Evans & Sutherland ESIG-4500 visual ...
-
News
Things Fall Apart
If the USA remains the last political superpower, then it must be seen, also, as the last aerospace superpower. Just as the Byzantine Soviet empire has been torn apart by centrifugal forces, so has its aerospace industry been shattered, perhaps beyond hope of repair, by the collapse of the old-style ...
-
News
F-22 makes progress towards first flight
PREPARATIONS FOR THE 29 May first flight of the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 have moved ahead with delivery of the initial avionics software. Endurance testing of the Pratt & Whitney F119 engine, required for initial flight release, has also been completed successfully. Fort Worth, Texas-based Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft ...
-
News
Lack of flying hours may force Russia to ground MiG-31s
Russia is considering grounding its entire fleet of Mikoyan MiG-31 Foxhound interceptors because a lack of pilot flight hours is making the aircraft dangerous to fly. Col Gen Victor Prudnikov, chief of Russia's air-defence force, says that, at the present level of annual flying, it is "shameful and ...
-
News
General Electric-led JSF team pushes ahead
General Electric has received $96 million from the US Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)programme office to carry out further development of the core of its YF120-FX advanced fighter powerplant, as part of the JSF Alternate Engine Programme. GE, which is teamed with Rolls-Royce and the UK company's Allison Engine ...
-
News
Hungary for business
Lockheed Martin and the Hungarian Government signed a protocol at the end of January, "paving the way for expanded, long-term, industrial co-operation". The US company has presented a preliminary plan offering 100% offset in exchange for Lockheed Martin products. The agreement comes in the middle of active marketing of the ...
-
News
ARINC Skydoc puts maintenance data on the Internet
ARINC HAS LAUNCHED a system for the on-line distribution of maintenance documentation. The Skydoc service provides secure access, via the Internet, to ARINC's maintenance-information database, which is updated continuously with the latest manufacturers' bulletins and regulatory authorities' directives. Atrial of the system involving Airbus aircraft is under way at Lufthansa. ...