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Aviation History
1992
1992 - 1037.PDF
HEADLINES ASTOVL artists impression Remotely driven fan S Reed Business Publishing PMmM ASTOVL engine configuration signs to go forward into further development. The Navy is un derstood to be aiming to have a demonstrator flying by 1999 and an aircraft in service by 2010. McDonnell Douglas and BAe are expected to put in a joint bid, following the signing of an agreement in December to work together on STOVL require ments. Others bidders' are likely to include Lockheed, now lead ing development of the F-22 ATF, Grumman and General Dy namics. It is unclear at what 777 definition group, will be in the stretched 777 group. "Cathay is interested in the stretch and we are interested in building it," adds Ozimek. "Fine tuning" of the 777 stretch design will follow completion of the "A" and "B" models flight loads survey early in the test flight programmes. The Cathay order brings 777 orders to 99 and options to 89. Negotiations with Emirates Air lines covering orders and op tions for a further 14 should be "...finalised within the next month or two", adds Ozimek. Emirates has announced its in tention to order seven and op tion seven powered by Trents. R-R says the Cathay order means it has "...more Boeing 777 customers than any other engine manufacturer and a 28% share of the announced business on the Boeing aircraft". It also claims a 58% share of "...business for the new generation of Boeing and Airbus wide-bodied airliners in the Asia Pacific region". Boeing has scheduled the first 777 flight Sfor 1 June, 1994, with deliveries to United Air lines due in May 1995. Cathay will take delivery of its first Boeing 777 in 1996. • level engine manufacturers will be involved in the bidding teams. ATF engines are Pratt & Whitney's F119, the F-22 win ning competitor, and General Electric's dtfal-cycle F120. The ASTOVL aircraft would be one candidate (studies are also underway into a Harrier III) to replace the US Marine Corps current AV-8B Harrier lis, but could also find wider applica tions in the Navy operating from the conventional-take-off-air craft carrier fleet. In the UK the STOVL aircraft would probably form the basis of any bid to replace the Royal Navy's Sea Harrier FRS.2 fleet. The MoD says that it is continu ing studies on the subject, with a requirement for a new aircraft in around 20 years. • Israel snubs USA in weapons export row Israel's defence industry has signalled that it will make strenuous efforts to find non-US component substitutes for Is raeli-developed weapons with export potential, following rec ommendations in a US State Department report that future supplies of military technology to Israel should only go ahead after extensive end-user checks. This swift reaction to the US report has already resulted in contracts being signed with a number of foreign suppliers out side the USA, and a search for economic local production. The heavily censored report by the State Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG) makes accusations over the ille gal re-exporting of US-origin military technology by "a major recipient of US weapons and technology", but does not name the country in question. Senior officials in Washington, how ever, confirm the widespread be lief that it is indeed Israel. In addition to recommending that future export licence ap provals should be "...contingent on being able to conduct com prehensive end-user checks", the OIG report also states that the US administration should take steps to recoup the revenues gained from the unauthorised third-party transactions. A classified appendix to the report lists the violations which include "...the supply of cluster bombs to Ethiopia, air-to-air missiles to China and anti-tank missiles to South Africa". Meanwhile, despite Washing ton's refusal to divulge details of an investigation into allegations that Israel passed Patriot missile technology to China, senior Pen tagon officials express privately the belief that Israel did indeed betray US secrets. It has been suggested that a Chinese delega tion was given details of the Patriot's electronics, obtained by plugging test equipment into the missile's integral maintenance ports. No evidence of this has, however, been released. • Gulf War report short on revelations The unclassified version of the US Department of De fense's long-awaited "lessons learned" report on the "Conduct of the Persian Gulf War" con tains- few new revelations about weapons shortcomings, despite the wealth of detail provided in the 1,500-page document. By contrast, a separately pub lished classified version of the report is known to contain weapon efficiency estimates which are markedly lower than those publicly claimed. The F- 117 and Tomahawk cruise mis sile success rates are understood to be as much as 50% worse. Aircraft mission capable rates (MCR) are revealed for most types, ranging from 82% to 92%. Full mission capability rates were in the 69% to 88% range for those types covered. The F-16's 88.8% MCR and F-18's 99% availability were par ticularly impressive, as was the A-10's 87.7%., Helicopters, severely affected by environmental hazards, achieved lower, but generally still impressive figures such as 82% for the UH-60 and 85% for the OH-58D and CH-47D. The report comments that the AV-8B's short take-off and verti cal landing ability allowed 24 of the aircraft to recover to base in 5min and for 12 aircraft rou tinely to take off in less than 2min. When an aircraft became disabled on the King Abdul Aziz base runway, the AV-8B was the only aircraft type able to con tinue operating. D Taiwan Aerospace chief bows out The chairman of_ Taiwan Aerospace, David Huang, resigned on 14 April "for per sonal reasons". The company was established in October 1991 and the following rhonth signed a preliminary agreement to acquire up to 40% of McDonnell Douglas' (MDC) commercial aircraft business, worth up to $2 billion. The company says Huang had wanted to resign for some time but waited until the initial evaluation of the proposed joint venture with McDonnell Douglas had been completed. Recent reports have suggested that Taiwan Aerospace's stake in MDC's commercial aircraft business could end up being as little as 25%. • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 22 - 28 April, 1992 r,
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