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Aviation History
1992
1992 - 1536.PDF
HEADLINES Sky Owl UAV faces test ban O ne of the two teams com peting for the Pentagon's short-range unmanned air ve hicle (UAV) contract has been barred from further flight test ing after it failed to qualify military personnel to operate the system. The UAV Joint Programme Office (JPO) may accelerate its selection of a vehicle, origi nally scheduled for September, sources suggest. The McDonnell Douglas/ Developmental Sciences team says it will still offer its Sky Owl UAV for the short-range requirement although the JPO will not now conduct testing of its vehicle. McDonnell Douglas says user testing "...is one of a number of elements in the down-select process". The JPO says the team "...failed to qualify soldiers on the system and consequently will not be permitted to enter [limited user testing] or pilot tests". The competing Israel Aircraft Industries/TRW Hunter short-range UAV has already entered limited user testing "...and continues to execute to the established schedule", says the JPO. The Sky Owl team was late in completing technical evalu ation testing because of system integration and computer soft ware problems. Following this testing, both teams were re quired to qualify US Army and Marine Corps personnel to op erate the UAVs during the early operational assessment test phase. The McDonnell Douglas-led team says it "...ran out of time to get the system working as we wanted it to". The company says both teams experienced delays and the JPO admits that the down- select was delayed from mid- 1992 by problems experienced by both contractors although the process has now begun. The USA plans to field its first corps UAV company in 1994. The vehicles will be used for reconnaissance and targeting on 8h missions up to 150km behind enemy lines. • See VAV P 18 IA1A official warns of European ATC chaos BY JULIAN MOXON IN BRUSSELS Horrific delays" to air traffic in Europe are being pre dicted over the next three months by a senior International Air Transport Association (IATA) official. Air traffic flow management (ATFM) in the region has al ready reached breaking point on at least three occasions in the last month. A report submitted by IATA to Eurocontrol in early June warns that, "...airlines have been alarmed by their experiences in May, which closely resemble...or exceed...the bad situation of last year. It is particularly worrying that on Friday 22 May, the ATFM system reached breaking point". The result was that average delays to departing aircraft were three times the normal figure. "Part of the problem was that some ATFM units got com pletely overloaded," says Euro- control flow-management chief Diek Deutschaever. IATA's European technical di rector George Oliver says that similar problems occurred on 9 and 10 June. On 9 June all slot allocations were suddenly cancelled, aircraft were delayed An-124 solves Airbus heavy-lift requirement Airbus to lease Antonov transporters West Aerospace Collaboration in Berlin, adds that Airbus now expects to deliver the first of five A310s ordered by Aeroflot in 1990 shortly (Flight Interna tional, 6-12 May). The deal had been hampered by problems in financing. The A310s will be operated by Russian International Airlines, which has been set up by Aer- oflot to operate on long-haul routes from Moscow. • Airbus has signed an agree ment with the All Russia Insti tute of Aviation Materials, to obtain examples of lithium alu minium alloys for quality test ing. The agreement is a step towards a commercial deal. • Airbus Industrie is to wet lease Antonov An-124 heavy transport to support its own fleet of Super Guppy trans porters. The consortium is in the final stages of negotiation with the joint UK/Russian venture, Heavylift Volga-Dnieper. Adam Brown, Airbus director of planning, says the An-124s will be used pending the intro duction in 1996 of the successor to the Super Guppy. Airbus has been re-examining its airborne transport require ment in the light of the need to move large sections of the A330 and A340 airliners. Brown, speaking at The Finan cial Times Conference on East- and a British Airways flight from London to Paris was forced to return to London. The problem was traced to an electrical prob lem in Brussels. On 10 June, a TWA flight from Paris to Tel Aviv had to turn back and land at Paris because the Milan air traffic control centre was one controller short. "That shows how critical the system is to a single failure," says Oliver. Flow management was intro duced in Europe to ensure that air traffic controllers are fed with manageable numbers of air craft. The system has been ra tionalised from 13 national centres down to five, located in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Rome and Madrid. In early 1994, Euro- control will open its central flow- management unit in Brus sels, which is expected to bring major improvements. The current problem centres on a chain reaction occurs when unexpected restrictions intro duced by air traffic controllers to cope with sudden increases in traffic overload the ATFM mech anism. This reduces flow- management efficiency, which in turn overfoads the controllers, further overloading the ATFM network which, the report to NEWS IN BRIEF FAA ADMINISTRATOR Retired US Air Force Gen Thomas Richards has been confirmed by the US Senate as the new Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administra tion and will be sworn in imminently. Now a private businessman, Richards is a 62-year-old Vietnam and Ko rean War veteran and was a member of the presidential commission on the bombing of the PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie. He was deputy commander in chief of the US European Command. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 17 - 23 June, 1992
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