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Aviation History
1984
1984 - 0822.PDF
DEFENCE Austrian Airlines joins Austrian fighter search VIENNA Austrian Airlines might buy new fighters for the Austrian Air Force and lease them to the Service. The reasoning behind this novel idea is that Austrian Airlines has long wanted to set up its own maintenance base. At present, all mainte nance is carried out under contract by Swissair. The original idea was that 99 per cent Government-owned Austrian Airlines would set up a new company, the Austrian Aircraft Company, to service Austrian Airlines aircraft and, to make the AAC economically viable, Austrian military aircraft plus some co-ordination of offset work. But Austria's long search for a new fighter has come across a series of economic stumbling blocks, and it ap pears that Austrian Airlines, increasingly frustrated that its maintenance-base hopes are receding, has offered to buy the fighters and then lease or sell them to the Air Force, as one possible way around the economic problems. Austrian Airlines says that its plan to found AAC "has developed from the original concept, but nothing is yet concrete. There are several options, and we are talking with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Defence. The simplest arrangement is that the Government buys the fighters and AAC would maintain them, but there are several other options, includ ing the buy/lease idea." Flight asked how the new Icao legislation against shoot ing at aircraft owned by air lines would be affected should Austrian Airlines buy the fighters. A company spokes man said "These are obviously details that we must look into, we have not thought of that yet, it's not really that con crete you know, only one of several options that we and the Defence and Finance Ministries are currently exploring". The situation is further complicated by a threat from Defence Minister Friedhelm Frischenschlager to disband the Air Force should a decis ion to buy new fighters not be made this year. At present the air arm, which is a corps in the Army, operates 32 Saab 105OEs as front-line equip ment. In 1981 the Austrians came close to ordering the Mirage 50, but the deal fell through because of lack of money. Contenders in this second attempt at a Saab 105 replace ment include the Dassault Mirage III, Northrop F-5A/ E/F, Saab J35 Draken, and Sepecat Jaguar. Earlier plans to follow on the winning con tender with more advanced aircraft in 1995 (respectively the Mirage 2000, F-20 Tiger- shark, J37 Viggen or J39 Gripen, and Tornado or Efa) might now have foundered. # The Austrian Air Force will issue a Request for Proposals later this year for podded reconnaissance systems which will be fitted to the Saab 105OEs and, later, to the new fighter. Two systems will be needed, infrared linescan and long-range oblique photo graphy. Korea seeks new 0V- 10s COLUMBUS South Korea is negotiating the purchase of 24 new Rock well North American OV-10D Bronco light reconnaissance aircraft, and Rockwell says that several other nations have expressed interest in buying the aircraft. If the Korean deal goes through it will mean the re opening of the OV-10 pro duction line, closed since 1977. The aircraft will proba bly be built at Rockwell's Columbus, Ohio, facility, where all Bronco tooling has been stored since the close of production, but Rockwell has not ruled out the possiblity of the aircraft being built in Korea. Security precludes Rock; well revealing other interested nations, but the company sayl that it will step up its market' ing efforts if there is a re-start' of OV-10 production. Accord-' ing to Rockwell, Korea will incur the cost of a re-start if the OV-lOs are bought. Total j cost of a Korean contract has ( not, as yet, been decided. ' It is thought that Korean < Broncoes will have forward- looking infrared (Flir) sys tems, as in the US Marine Corps OV-lODs. Armament could include Hughes Mav- ' erick AGM-65 air-to-surface , missiles and General Dynamics Stinger air-to-air missiles. Boeing tests combat composites SEATTLE ~ Boeing has started on a $775,000, 39-month study for the US Air Force's Aero nautical Systems Division on survivability of combat aircraft composite compres sion structures. Boeing is tasked with pro viding survivability/vulnera- bility data for the design of composite structures under compression loading. Tests will <jj involve the design of flat plates | and box-beams made of vari- * ous composite materials. The ( items will be compressed, shot at, and then loaded to failure. * Sikorsky's S-75 advanced composite aircraft programme (Acap) demonstrator flight test vehicle has been rolled out at Stratford, Connecticut Both* Sikorsky and Bell were contracted by the US Army as part of the LHX light helicopter programme. The Army called for a weight reduction of 22 per ' cent, cost savings of at least 17 per cent, and 20 per cent improvement in reliability and maintainability 1248 FLIGHT International, 12 May 1984-
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