Fixed-wing – Page 1339
-
News
RAF to test civil training methods
THE ROYAL AIR FORCE is to train its multi-engine crew in the civil sector in a trial to establish whether such a route will provide an adequate level of tuition for military-transport pilots. Some RAF pilots are now undergoing multi-engine training in the civil sector in Canada. ...
-
News
BAe offers Westland Tiger work
Douglas Barrie/LONDON BRITISH AEROSPACE is attempting to head off possible political pressure to select the Westland bid for the UK attack-helicopter programme by offering it a significant work package on the BAe-led Eurocopter Tiger contender, should it win. The move, which will be highlighted in ...
-
News
Northrop Grumman plans to shed 1,000 more jobs
NORTHROP GRUMMAN is to shed another 1,000 jobs, following the Pentagon's decision to abandon the Tri-Service Stand-off Attack Missile (TSSAM) programme. The group says that the cancellation of the troubled stealth-missile programme should have little impact on this year's financial results, however. The latest cuts ...
-
News
Forced landing ruins S African ACE
ATLAS AVIATION'S ACE trainer has been damaged, probably beyond repair, during a forced landing at Johannesburg's Jan Smuts Airport on 14 February. The accident rules out the South African-built all-composite trainer's participation at several international shows this year, and places a question mark over the future of the ...
-
News
USA refutes UK export appeal
Douglas Barrie/LONDON THE US DEFENCE Secretary William Perry has rebuffed concerns from his UK counterpart Malcolm Rifkind that the "two-way street" in defence procurement between the two countries heavily favours the USA. Rifkind raised the issue in a letter to Perry in the wake of ...
-
News
C-17 team wins Collier Trophy
THE US Air Force, McDonnell Douglas and industrial subcontractor team, which developed the C-17 transport, has won the 1994 Collier Trophy, the most prestigious US award for aeronautical achievement. The US National Aeronautic Association, which has presented the trophy since 1911, says that the award was bestowed "...for ...
-
News
Lockheed completes aerodynamic flight tests of modified extended-range F-16
LOCKHEED HAS completed aerodynamic flight tests of the proposed extended-range F-16ES (enhanced strategic) configuration. Modifications, including shapes representing upper-fuselage conformal fuel-tanks and nose-mounted infra-red sensor balls, have been removed from the F-16C testbed and the aircraft returned to the US Air Force. The 21-flight test programme ...
-
News
Looking at the thinking cockpit
How intelligent is the combat cockpit going to become? Douglas Barrie/LONDON Julian Moxon/PARIS Graham Warwick/ATLANTA A late 1980s' slice of Hollywood Cold War melodrama (Firefox) had film star Clint Eastwood stealing the Soviet Union's next-generation combat aircraft. In the ensuing chase, Eastwood has to ...
-
News
P&W to deliver nozzles for ACTIVE testing
PRATT & WHITNEY plans to ship axisymmetric thrust-vectoring nozzles for a McDonnell Douglas (MDC) F-15 to Edwards AFB, California, at the end of this month. A pitch/yaw balanced-beam nozzle (PYBBN) will be installed on each of the F-15's P&W F100-229 engines for flight-testing scheduled to begin in May. ...
-
News
Israel arrows in on defence defence
Israel's main defence against ballistic-missile attack, the Arrow, is at a critical stage. Arie Egozi/TEL AVIV In Hebrew, the Israeli missile-defence organisation is called HOMA - meaning wall. Although it is the incidental result of Hebrew abbreviations, it has a special connotation to its main purpose ...
-
News
Singapore negotiates with USA for additional F-16C/Ds
Douglas Barrie/LONDON SINGAPORE IS negotiating to purchase a further six Lockheed Block 52 F-16C/Ds. The deal would increase its total order to 24 aircraft, which is sufficient to equip two full squadrons. A foreign-military-sales (FMS) contract for the additional aircraft is expected to be concluded in ...
-
News
Germany opts for integrated INS/GPS on Tornado
THE GERMAN AIR FORCE is opting for an integrated laser inertial-navigation/global-positioning system (LINS/GPS) to replace the existing inertial- navigation system (INS) in its Panavia Tornados. The German defence ministry says that Honeywell, Litton and GEC-Marconi Defence Systems are expected to bid to replace the GEC-Marconi FIN 1010 three-axis ...
-
News
Dassault expects to keep combat-aircraft share
Gilbert Sedbon/PARIS DASSAULT AVIATION hopes to retain a share of at least 10% in combat-aircraft export markets, averaging sales of up to 30 aircraft a year over the next decade. The group also hopes to keep a 40% share of the business-jet market sector in which it is ...
-
News
US military spending continues to decline
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC US DEFENCE procurement expenditure will fall to its lowest level since 1950 in fiscal year 1996. Procurement should begin a slow rebound in 1997, however, if Congress passes the Clinton plan. The Administration's request for $246 billion for the Department of Defense (DoD) ...
-
News
New rotor reduces UH-60 vibration
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES INITIAL FLIGHT TESTS of a new wide-chord rotor blade on a Sikorsky UH-60L testbed show that the design produces substantially lower vibratory hub loads, in addition to other hoped-for improvements in payload, speed and manoeuvrability. The "growth" main-rotor blade now being tested on ...
-
News
Partners set date for FLA pre-development phase
Douglas Barrie/LONDON and Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH THE FUTURE Large Aircraft (FLA) partner nations are aiming to begin the pre-development phase of the military-transport aircraft project in 1996, with development of a production-standard model to start in 1999. Advancing the FLA project has been discussed by senior French, ...
-
News
US Navy to test BAe ASRAAM to meet AIM-9X
THE US NAVY has awarded British Aerospace an $11 million contract to provide Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (ASRAAMs) for US military evaluation. Under the Pentagon's foreign comparative-testing programme, the ASRAAM will be evaluated by the USN to determine its suitability as the next-generation Sidewinder air-to-air missile, the AIM-9X. ...
-
News
Funding shortfall hits Russian army plans
Alexander Velovich/MOSCOW SERIOUS FUNDING shortfalls are shackling the Russian army aviation corps' attempts to acquire an all-weather rotary-wing attack capability, according to its commander, Col Gen Vitaly Pavlov. The Russian army will receive only 46 billion roubles (about $11 million at market rates) for acquisition in ...
-
News
Dassault lays claim to fighter leadership
Gilbert Sedbon/PARIS SERGE DASSAULT HAS staked his company's claim for leadership of a next-generation European combat-aircraft programme, saying that Dassault would be willing to work with Germany on a programme beyond the Rafale multi-role fighter now in development. "Present indications," says Dassault, "point rather towards Germany, ...
-
News
Snecma woos India on trainer
A HIGH-LEVEL delegation from French engine-manufacturer Snecma has held discussions with the Indian Government in an attempt to win a lucrative order to meet the air force's New Jet Trainer (NJT) requirement. The Indian air force is considering purchasing either the Snecma-powered Dassault Alpha Jet or the Rolls-Royce/Turbom‚ca-powered ...