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Aviation History
1991
1991 - 0006.PDF
T-45A gets extended slatted wing for flight testing USN reduces initial T45A production The US Navy favours stretch ing out the initial produc tion run of the T-45A Goshawk jet trainer, allowing it to address concerns over concurrency ini tially outlined in a report from Congressional watchdog, the General Accounting Office (GAO). The Navy is looking to keep initial production of the T-45 to around 15% of the total full production run. It now wants to produce only 48 aircraft, rather than the planned 72, before entering full-rate production. The USN moves came as a General Accounting Office re port, released at the end of last month, criticised changes made in the programme in 1989 to try and reduce the risk. The report says that in some areas the changes actually exacerbated the risk. It was particularly crit ical of the decision to raise the initial production run to 72 aircraft. Capt Richard Koehler, the US Navy's programme chief said that it was stretching "...produc tion out to the right to mini mise all of the concurrency we possibly can". The Navy is now testing a modified Goshawk, nearly two years behind schedule, incorpo rating a number of fixes to the aircraft. Included among these is the fitting of a more powerful turbofan, the Rolls-Royce Mk. 871, full leading- edge slats, redesigned speed brake and ex tended tail. • SJ-30 prepares for first flight The prototype Swearingen-Jaffe SJ-30 business jet has started engine runs and taxi tests in preparation for a first flight early this month. Designer Ed Swearingen says that the company will not an nounce the date of the maiden flight in advance, and that the first few flights will be private, saying: "If we forecast the date, we have to put in a two-week cushion to make sure that everything is working. We would rather fly it when we're ready." Swearingen has so far in vested around $25 million in developing and building the first SJ-30 prototype, and esti mates that he will need a fur ther $200 million to put the aircraft into production, includ ing the construction of a new assembly line. Financing has not been com pleted, but Swearingen says: "Some of the commitments are in place and we are progressing in a way that makes me confi dent. We will certainly have the financing in place to begin a full-scale programme during the second quarter of this year." The production line location will be announced in January. The SJ-30 has been designed as an alternative to turboprops for the corporate market, and Swearingen says that the aircraft will be cheaper to purchase and operate than turboprops. D Israelis fire secon anti-ballistic missi Israel has undertaken its sec ond test firing of the Arrow anti-ballistic missile. A missile trajectory, spotted by US intelligence gathering systems over the eastern Medi terranean on 21 December, 1990, was from a new test of the Arrow intercepting a derivative of a Jericho surface-to-surface ballistic missile. Allied forces in Saudi Arabia went to higher alert until the nature of the launch was clear. In the test, the unarmed Arrow is claimed to have "de stroyed" the other missile with a simulated explosion of the warhead, activated by proximity fuze. The Jericho derivative was launched from the test site at Pahnachim, 20km south of Tel Aviv. Seconds later, while the missile was over the eastern Mediterranean, a prototype of the Arrow was launched and intercepted it. Telemetry data showed that the Arrow locked on to the Jericho and passed at a range considered to be within killing distance. The intercept was undertaken to check a number of Arrow subsystems. The future test pro gramme includes at least two firings of armed Arrows against other Arrow missiles. The Arrow, developed by Israel Air craft Industries, is much faster than the Jericho derivative used in the last test. Arrow development is funded by the US Strategic Defence Initiative programme — al though the USA appears to have been surprised by the launch. Hughes' lawyers attack GEC Hughes Aircraft has filed a $600 million lawsuit against GEC and four of its subsidiaries, claiming that the UK company "sabotaged" a joint bid for the European Fighter Aircraft (EFA) radar contract. The $400 million contract was awarded to the rival Euro- radar consortium last year (Flight International, 16-22 May, 1990), shortly after GEC- Marconi purchased Euroradar consortium leader Ferranti De fence Systems. Until then, GEC- Marconi had supported Hughes in a competing proposal based on the US company's APG-65. GEC-Marconi says it "...does not believe there is any truth in the claims which have been issued and consequently they will be vigorously defended". The lawsuit, filed last month in a US district court in Los Angeles, claims that GEC- Marconi's takeover of Ferranti breached its contract with Hughes, and made the outcome of the EFA competition a fore gone conclusion. The suit also claims that "confidential techni cal information" made available to Marconi for the MSD-2000 proposal is now being applied to the development of Eurora- dar's ECR-90 radar. It is not clear what "informa tion" Hughes is referring to as APG-65 source codes were not scheduled to be released to the MSD-2000 consortium until after receipt of an EFA contract. Hughes and GEC-Marconi joined a consortium led by AEG-Telefunken System Tekno- logic of West Germany in 1986, proposing a system based on the APG-65 radar. The only com petition came from the Ferranti- led Euroradar consortium, which included F1AR of Italy, Spain's Inisel and Siemens of West Germany. The radar contract was due to be awarded in 1988, but was delayed for two years by politi cal in-fighting among the EFA partners. West Germany fa- 4 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 2 - 8 January, 1991
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