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Aviation History
1990
1990 - 2843.PDF
TECHNICAL: D EFENCE 30% commonality with the P- 3C, but this was revised to 5% commonality after the new de sign criteria had been included. The company is now propos ing that these features should be "designed out" of the aircraft, allowing the Skunk Works to create an aircraft which will meet whatever cost limits the Navy specifies. A Lockheed executive says: "We have been trying to see if we can take advantage of the work that was done on the P-7 to reconstruct the design. We are exploring an alternative with the Navy that would allow us to re-work the P-7." A deci sion is expected in late October. The Navy has a requirement for up to 125 long-range mari time patrol aircraft to replace its ageing fleet of P-3As and Bs. Although the P-3C upgrade now under consideration would allow the aircraft to go some way towards meeting the P-7's increased range and payload tar gets, the aircraft would have a shorter fatigue life, and a com plete overhaul could cost up to 85% of an all-new design, ac cording to Navy studies. Details of the proposed up grade are still being finalised, but the programme could range from a simple re-engining with a derivative of the Allison T-56 to a complete overhaul, which would include new engines, Lucas Aerospace has been awarded a £500,000 con tract by the UK Ministry of Defence to examine the per formance of the military stan dard software language, Ada, in safety-critical environments. The contract, awarded under the High Order Language Dem onstrator (HOLD) programme, will see Lucas produce Ada Lockheed keeps the P-7 project flying wings, and a fuselage plug. The "remanufactured" P-3C would also be retrofitted with the P- 7A's Update IV avionics suite. Another industry source says: "The cost of re-working the P-3 fleet is totally dependant on the changes that are made. If you have a new wing, a plug in the fuselage, and new engines, it could cost as much as a new aeroplane." The aircraft pro posed by Lockheed would re tain all the range and payload goals of the P-7, and would take advantage of the price conces sions offered by General Electric programs for one of its digital engine control units (Decu). Question marks over the suit ability of the full Ada language's capability to meet real-time safety critical requirements still remain. In trying to address some of these Lucas will com pare the performance of the Ada code in the Decu with that of its proprietary language, Lucol. for the GE38 turboprops. The design would not include some of the more stringent design-life goals demanded by the Navy, such as the ability to withstand the stress of landing at its max imum allowable weight after every mission. The Lockheed source says: "There is an issue here about over-designing the aircraft. The question is whether the Navy will relax some of its require ments, so we can design some cost out of the aircraft, and meet the constraints of the pro gramme." • The assessment will take into account ease of coding and of validating the software. It will try to ensure that there are no anomalous performance charac teristics. It will also examine the comparative run-time efficien cies of the two languages and their memory requirements. Within the avionics commu nity there has in the past been considerable scepticism as to whether the full Ada language could, because of the design of some of its language features, meet the time and memory con straints imposed by digital avi onics, in particular full-author ity digital fly-by-wire. Rolls-Royce and software reli ability specialist Program Val idation are Lucas's partners on the HOLD programme. • Spain joins new missile project Spanish industry is now set to receive a stake of about 15% in the Future Surface-to-Air Family (FSAF) programme fol lowing its official notification to France and Italy of its intention to join the project. Involvement by Spain will ne cessitate reorganisation of the workshare as Italy and France were previously set to split the industrial involvement 50/50. A FrlO.2 billion ($1.9 billion) development contract for FSAF was awarded to Eurosam, the grouping of Aerospatiale, Th omson-CSF and Selenia earlier this year. Eurosam is developing three missile systems under the FSAF programme — the Surface-to- Air Anti-Missile, the Surface-to- Air Missile Platform/Naval, and the Surface-to-Air Missile Plat form/Terrain. FSAF will also be the basis of the Family of Anti- Air Missile Systems (FAMS) which will include UK involve ment in the naval area-defence missile variant. • Italy picks T700 power for EHlOls The Italian Ministry of De fence has selected the Alfa Romeo Avio/Fiat/GE T700/T6A engine for the Italian Navy's European Helicopters EH101. The eight prototypes of the EH101 have so far been flying with either the commercial ver sion of the military T700/T6A, the CT7-6/-6A, or the T700-GE- 401A engines. Commenting on the engine's chances of being selected by the Canadians for their naval EH101 requirement Alfa's man ager, strategic planning and marketing, Dr. Gianfranco Maglione, says, "You need a reliable engine to cope with new helicopter problems ... the Ca nadian navy would also like to have a similar engine to their US neighbours." The Canadians are expected to make their engine choice by early 1991. a NEWS IN EFA GEARS UP A Dowty-led consortium has won the contract to develop the accessory drive gearbox for the European Fighter Air craft (EFA), potentially worth £110 million. Fairey Hydraulics has won two- more EFA contracts, one for BRIEF the manufacture of the can opy accumulator and the other for the main housings and bowls for the filter pack unit. This brings the total value of EFA contracts awarded by Eurofighter to the company to more than £1 million. Lucas studies safety-critical Ada use FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 19 - 25 September. 1990 .23
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