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Aviation History
1994
1994 - 1019.PDF
HEADLINES chartered Antonov An-124 within the month. The engines incorporate sev eral other changes which re sulted from the test-flight programme late in 1993. AIRCRAFT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Honeywell, which developed the 777 AIMS, delivered the latest software load for the system in early April. The de livery contained 90% of the load and will be followed by a further set containing 92% of all the software early in May. Honeywell says that the latest loads are adequate for the ma jority of the 777's require ments. The full 100% will not be reached until September, when all aircraft systems need to be airline standard for the start of accelerated extended twin-operations testing. The complex AIMS opera tion, which contains 440,000 lines of software code, com pared to 46,000 for a 747-400 flight-management computer, is heavily dependent on new processing chips designed spe cifically for AIMS. Problems were encountered with the first set of processors and Boeing is anxious to check on the per formance of the new chips. • Bonn rejects bid for fighter cash The German defence minis try says that it will only pay DM160 million ($96 mil lion) from an estimated DM570 million in costs incurred be cause of the re-orientation of the Eurofighter programme. According to Jorg Schon- bohm, the defence ministry state secretary, the Federal Government will not shoulder the costs calculated by the Eu rofighter consortium and pre sented to the Government at the end of March. The ministry calculates the re-orientation cost from the European Fighter Aircraft pro ject to the Eurofighter 2000 at around DM300 million, of which industry was to bear just less than half. The Government claims that other costs were incurred because of technical- development delays. • UK makes Rooivalk bid official The UK has become the first major Western nation to allow South Africa to bid officially for a large-scale weapons programme, in antic ipation of the United Nations arms embargo being officially lifted after South Africa's Gen eral Election later this month. Atlas Aviation of South Af rica has been officially invited to tender (ITT) for the British Army's attack-helicopter re quirement. The South African company submitted an unso licited bid to meet Staff Target (Air) (Cardinal Points Specifi cation) 428 for an attack heli copter in 1993. It has since teamed with Marshall Aero space to pursue the bid. There has been considera ble pressure to provide Atlas with the full ITT. Industry sources claim: "There is a considerable warm feeling within the Ministry of Defence [MoD] toward South Africa." A high-level Government delegation is scheduled to visit the country in July. Other potential military deals with South Africa are also under consideration. The shift in policy came to light in a response to a parlia mentary question given by Jonathan Aitken, Minister for Defence Procurement. "After preliminary assess ment and discussions with the company, it was decided that they should have access to the invitation to tender to allow them to put their bid on the same footing as the five solic ited bids," he replied. The decision to provide South African aerospace com pany Denel with a full ITT has had an impact on programme time scales, although Aitken says that steps have been taken to minimise the effect. Atlas has been given until October to come back with its bid, leading to an expected delay of one month in the MoD selection of a helicopter. The MoD has made it clear that the Rooivalk bid is con tingent on the UN arms em bargo on South Africa being lifted, and peaceful transition to a multi-racial democracy. The Rooivalk is likely to need avionics, sensors, and weapons changes to meet the MoD requirement. If the Rooivalk were to be selected, it would be assembled in the UK by Marshall. • DASA reveals secret flight control work BY ANREZEJ JEZIORSKI IN MUNICH Deutsche Aerospace (DASA) has had a team working on a model of an alternative to the Eurofighter 2000's flight- control software since late 1993, but has kept it secret from everybody, including its partner on the EF2000 flight- control system (FCS), GEC- Marconi Avionics (GMAv). DASA developed its alterna tive model drawing on experi ence gained in the DASA/ Rockwell X-31 programme (Flight International, 30 March- 5 April). The development fuels con tinuing arguments about sys tem-design responsibility (SDR) for the EF2000's FCS and potentially raises a ques tion over the future role of GMAv, which wrote the exist ing FCS software, in the multi national Eurofighter pro gramme. GMAv says that it is a "mystery" as to exactly what DASA is up to, although it is now aware of the work. The new model was devel oped within six months by a team of DASA specialists work ing separately from the Eu rofighter programme. Project sources say that development began in the third quarter of 1993, following the worst of the Eurofighter's software troubles, which had repeatedly delayed the first flight. While DASA's Eurofighter team was de-bugging the exist ing software for the aircraft's FCS, the specialist team — built around a core of between four and seven engineers, some taken from the X-31 pro gramme — was designing its alternative control system. DASA has now briefed its partner companies in the con sortium on the "X-31 method", Eurofighter flies into German FSC mystery but officials stress: "This pres entation was outside EF2000, at the expert level." DASA denies that there are any plans to use the new soft ware, which is still under test, in the EF2000. A senior official says, however: "We have peo ple who have knowledge of modern methods to develop flight-control systems, so of course this group is always thinking where they could be used on other aircraft." The official adds that it has not yet been proven whether the "laboratory model" of the alternative control software could be run using existing Eurofighter hardware. • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 20 - 26 April, 1994
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