All Helicopters articles – Page 440
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Northrop offers partnership in pitch for Wedgetail
Northrop Grumman plans to create an Australian subsidiary, which will be known as Hawkeye Mission Systems Australia. The new company would form part of its joint bid with Lockheed Martin for the Royal Australian Air Force's Project Wedgetail airborne early warning and control requirement. The new subsidiary would ...
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Australia draws up shortlist for scout helicopter competition
The Australian Department of Defence is expected to release a shortlist for its armed reconnaissance helicopter project by the end of this month. Industry sources are widely tipping the Agusta Scorpion variant of the A129 (above), Eurocopter's Tiger and the Boeing AH-64 Apache as the final contenders. The project is ...
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Delays hit Nimrod 2000 update
Howard Gethin/LONDON Serious delays to the £2.4 billion ($3.9 billion) programme to update 21 British Aerospace Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft to MRA4 standard for the Royal Air Force have pushed back the aircraft's in-service date until at least 2005. Compensation payments are being negotiated by the Ministry of ...
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Predator Feed
Boeing has tested combined operations with an E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar system (JSTARS) battlefield surveillance aircraft and a Predator unmanned air vehicle (UAV) using the company's Aviation Information Service antenna. The system fed the video information from the UAV via a satellite to the E-8 to enhance JSTARS ...
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Escape route
Reducing the number of cabin exits to accelerate emergency passenger evacuation sounds like a contradiction in terms. That is, however, what Airbus Industrie is arguing as it tries to persuade European and US regulators to change the certification rules which affect the exit layout for its stretched A340, the -600 ...
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CFMI proposes engine refit for JSTARS
CFM International (CFMI) plans to submit proposals to the US Air Force by the end of this month for the re-engining of its 15 Boeing E-8 joint surveillance and target attack radar system (JSTARS) ground surveillance radar aircraft.The bid will include the first proposed use of the CFM56-3 on a ...
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Transparent benefits
PeterLaFranchi/CANBERRA Australian acquisition of strategic unmanned air vehicles may raise the stakes in South-East Asia, but could help develop military transparency in the region if surveillance data is shared A new study of how unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) might fit into the Australian Defence Force structure cautions that strategic ...
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CASA chosen for final assembly of Airbus Military transporter
Julian Moxon/TOULOUSECASA of Spain has been nominated to carry out final assembly of the seven-nation A400M transporter if Airbus Military Company (AMC) secures an order from European governments to develop and build the aircraft. The assembly decision is part of a series of workshare agreements surrounding the A400M, formerly the ...
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Northrop launches F/A-18 radar drive
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Northrop Grumman has begun flight testing a "fourth generation" active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar as it prepares to bid to develop an active-array radar for the Boeing F/A-18E/F. The technology demonstration, in the company's BAC One-Eleven avionics flying testbed, is in support of its ...
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Australia seeks a replacement for Rapier air defence missiles
Peter La Franchi/CANBERRA The Australian Department of Defence is to release a request for proposals late this year for purchase of a ground-based air defence system to replace the Australian Army's ageing Rapier missile batteries. The project, Joint 117, won the Australian defence committee's go-ahead, including funding approval, ...
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Aiming high
Andrew Doyle/MUNICH Aero Vodochody is upgrading its trainers and light attack aircraft to attract Eastern and Western customers With a 35% shareholding by Boeing, the world's biggest aerospace company, Aero Vodochody is no longer a poor cousin in the trainer/light attack aircraft market. Today, all of its products are ...
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Technology transfer hits Boeing AEW bid
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC Peter La Franchi/CANBERRA Boeing has been unable to give the required guarantee of technology releasability in its bid to supply Australia with airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft. Boeing and Northrop Grumman, supplier of the MESA phased-array radar to be carried by the 737-based ...
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Ariane launches the UK's military Skynet 4E with Arabsat 3A
The UK's Skynet 4E military communications satellite and the Arabsat 3A satellite were launched on board Ariane V116/44L from Kourou, French Guyana, on 26 February. Matra Marconi Space built the Skynet 4E, and the first of the new generation Arabsat 3A communications spacecraft was built by Aerospatiale's satellite division, ...
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EC-funded tiltrotor hits setback
Eurocopter's hopes of establishing a pan-European consortium to pursue a European Commission-funded tiltrotor demonstrator has suffered a setback, with Agusta instead pressing for aid to develop a compound helicopter. "We're proposing that Agusta and Westland study something that does not exist now, such as a compound helicopter. Money ...
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UTC goes back to core values with purchase of Sundstrand
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC United Technologies (UTC) has agreed to buy fellow US manufacturer Sundstrand for $4.3 billion in a move that reinforces UTC's commitment to the aerospace sector as a core business. Sundstrand will merge with UTC's Hamilton Standard subsidiary to form one of the world's leading suppliers ...
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RAAF reviews stand-off weapons
The Royal Australian Air Force is exploring the carriage of medium range stand-off missiles on board upgraded Boeing F/A-18 fighters as part of revised plans for developing its strike capability under the newly created Project Air 5418. The RAAF has also reiterated its desire for a family of missiles ...
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JASSM prepared for initial flight testing
Ramon Lopez/ORLANDO Lockheed Martin officials are preparing for the first flight test of the stealthy Joint Air-to-Surface Stand-off Missile (JASSM), planned for early March. The evaluation of the JASSM, which bears the US military designation AGM-158, will take place at an undisclosed US military test range, say project ...
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News in Brief
Drone nav upgrade The DaimlerChrysler Aerospace Dornier CL289 reconnaissance drone is undergoing a navigation systems upgrade by the addition of a Global Positioning System satellite navigation system, plus improved hardware and software for the onboard control computer. The new CL289 has just completed a successful first test flight, according ...
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Teams firm in attack helicopter contest
The six bidders in the Australian AIR 87 attack helicopter are firming up their industrial partnerships as the Australian Army prepares to draw up a shortlist of contenders. According to Hervé Moray, leader of the Franco-German Eurocopter's Tiger helicopter proposal, a shortlist is expected at the end of March. This ...
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Argos to test military systems
Tim Furniss/LONDON The US Air Force's latest satellite is a technology demonstrator for future space systems The US Air Force's Advanced Research and Global Observation Satellite (Argos), to be launched no earlier than 22 February, is a space version of the Swiss army knife. It carries an array ...