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Aviation History
1992
1992 - 0007.PDF
HEADLINES GR.5/7s. Plans to deploy the missile on the Tornado F.3 and the Royal Navy's Sea Harrier FRS.2 have been dropped, as have plans to equip the former with the AIM-120 advanced me dium range air-to-air missile (AMRAAM). Raytheon's Improved Side winder is 3.1m long, 22cm (9in) longer than the AIM-9M, 120mm in diameter and weighs 84.1kg, including a 10.15kg warhead with laser-proximity and contact fuzes. The missile has greater maximum range and 40% shorter minimum range with a new reduced-smoke rocket motor. Raytheon says: "Testing to date has proven that Raytheon's advanced low-cost seeker will substantially improve the AIM-9 detection range and reject known countermeasures." • Additional reporting by Simon Elliott. Aerospatiale studies air-launched booster Aerospatiale has set up a study group for the develop ment of an air-launched rocket to place civil and military satel lites weighing between 500kg and 1,000kg in low-earth orbit. Aerospatiale's space and stra tegic systems manager Michel Delaye says that a retrievable single- or two-stage rocket could be launched from an Airbus aircraft flying at Mach 0.8 at an altitude of 3,9,000ft (12,000m). A third stage, using a liquid- hydrogen and solid-hydrogen propellant, is also under study. The main market is expected to be small military observation satellites and also civilian scien tific research satellites. The French Aerospace com pany says that the new project need not call for a partnership within the European Space Agency, but an alliance with a US partner may be essential. A decision on whether to go ahead with the programme should be made in 1992-3, for production and entry into serv ice in 1998-2000. US company Orbital Sciences already produces a similar sys tem, called Pegasus. • Thailand to purchase second F-16 batch The Thai government has ap proved plans to acquire a second batch of 18 General Dy namics F-16 fighters. Thai prime minister Anand Panyarachun says the aircraft, valued at $607 million, will be delivered during 1994. Delivery of the initial Royal Thai Air Force squadron of 18 F-16A/Bs was completed in 1991. In September, the US De partment of Defense notified Congress of its intention to offer Thailand an additional 18 F-16A/Bs plus six sets of Martin Marietta LANTIRN night-naviga tion and targeting pod systems. It is not known if the Thai Government has accepted the full package, although is it be lieved that acquiring LANTIRN is high on the air force's list of priorities. At present, LANTIRN can be fitted only to F-16C/Ds; F-16A/Bs would need modifica tion to carry the navigation and targeting pods. Thailand is the largest opera tor of the F-16 in South-East Asia and would be the first in the region to receive LANTIRN. The Government has also ap proved an air force request to '. i HiiiHiumuiiUii LITHUANIA LEASES BOEING 737 Lithuanian Airlines is to wet-lease a GPA Boeing 737-200 from Hungarian national carrier Malev. The aircraft made a demonstration tour of the Baltic states at the end of October last year. Lithuanian Airlines will take over the lease itself as soon as the necessary structures are in place, and flight crew and other personnel trained. The aircraft was due to be delivered in the first week of January. purchase four Lockheed C-130 Hercules. A contract is expected to be ready for signing by next month. The purchase brings to 12 the total number of heavy transport aircraft, which will be deployed as a single squadron. The air force plans to have 16 C-130s eventually, according to one air force logistics officer. • Compass inquiries start Three separate Australian Government inquiries have been announced following the collapse of deregulation start-up airline Compass. In the most significant in quiry, all aspects of current Gov ernment aviation policy, includ ing the possible allowance of Qantas domestic operations, will be reviewed. In a second inquiry, Austra lia's Trade Practices Commission will conduct a broad-based in vestigation until early ^February into aspects that were subject to ongoing conflict during Com pass' 13-month life. , , ;•• A third inquiry to be uiider- taken by the Australian Securi ties Commission will investigate routinely Compass' corporate re sponsibilities and whether they were duly observed. • See Air Transport P 8. USA ATC renewal almost complete The $22 billion National Airspace System Plan to revamp US air traffic control is essentially complete, with the award to Harris of a $1.66 billion Federal Aviation Ad ministration (FAA) contract to modernise the critical voice- communications network. Harris was selected over AT&T to develop, produce and install the voice switching and control system (VSCS), which will provide air-to-ground and ground-to-ground communica tions at the FAA en-route con trol centres vectoring traffic between US airports. The con tract covers the installation of 25 systems with options on an additional 24. Dick Pitts, senior systems engineer at Harris Air Traffic Control Systems division, says VSCS will exceed the require ment for 99.99999% reliability — no more than 3s downtime a year — through redundancy and automatic fault mitigation. The system will handle 570 ground-to-ground trunk lines and 350 air-to-ground radios simultaneously, and twice the specified 1,500 calls per min ute, he says. Communications provided to each console in a control centre will be configured auto matically to match the number of controllers on duty, which can range from two at night to 200 at peak times, says Pitts. The capacity to handle growth to 430 positions has been dem onstrated in tests of a pre- production prototype VSCS, he says. Harris and AT&T were awarded competitive prototype development contracts in 1986. The FAA says the VSCS will help avoid communications failures such as the 17 Septem ber, 1991, incident affecting the New York regional control center. VSCS bidder AT&T was criticised for the failure, which resulted in aircraft losing con tact with the ground for up to 5min. The disruption caused more than 500 flight delays and 650 cancellations, the FAA estimates. D FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 8 - 14 January, 1992
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