Military: November 2009 Archives

During the Dubai Air Show Flightglobal's Barbara Cockburn got to fly in an Alenia Aeronautica Spartan C-27J that was following a Eurofighter Typhoon over Dubai for an air-to-air photo shoot. Watch Barbara's video of the event here.

Recent wins for L-3 include a $68 million contract from the US Air Force in January for 20 four-ship F-16 mission training centre simulators for basic and advanced pilot mission training, tactics validation and mission rehearsal. L-3 also recently won upgrades to its Predator mission aircrew training system (PMATS) first ordered by the USAF in 2005. Enhancements to the Predator system include low-level light TV simulation, high-resolution databases of the Kabul and Bagram airfields in Afghanistan, as well as the addition of L-3's physics-based environment generator (PBEG) into the simulator. PBEG includes software from the gaming world that predicts human behaviour based on certain stimuli. Where the gaming industry pales compared with what is needed for military exercises is in the scale of the game, however. "We have to go across a city that might be 100 square miles large," says Rockwell Collins' Statler. Read more...

Airbus Military's A330-based multi-role tanker/transport (MRTT) has for the first time conducted the simultaneous in-flight refuelling of two aircraft, by hooking up with a pair of Spanish air force Boeing EF-18A fighters.

Conducted using the first of five tankers on order for the Royal Australian Air Force, the milestone follows other recent firsts with "wet" and night-time contacts involving the type. The modified airliner is equipped with a tail refuelling boom and two Cobham 905E under-wing hose-and-drogue pods. Read more...

Airbus Military's delayed A400M transport has been edged closer towards its planned flight debut before year-end, with the type having run all four of its engines simultaneously for the first time. Read more...

Pakistan's first of five Saab 2000-based airborne early warning and control aircraft has entered final system testing in Sweden, with the work having already demonstrated the capabilities of its integrated self-protection equipment.

Islamabad became the launch - and so far only - military customer for a Saab 2000 derivative when it signed a deal for the Saab Microwave Systems Erieye radar-equipped type in June 2006. Its first example made its flight debut from Saab's Linköping site in mid-2008. Read more...