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Aviation History
1996
1996 - 2680.PDF
HEADLINES DASA and Bonn lock horns over Eurof ighter cash DAIMLER-BENZ Aerospace (DASA) is at loggerheads with the German defence ministry over Eurofighter funding, as the deadline looms for the presenta tion to parliament of the 1997 defence budget. There is still no funding allocat ed to Eurofighter production in vestment in the draft budget, with the cash-strapped ministry hoping to persuade DASA to cover a large chunk of the expected cost of investment itself. With both sides refusing to budge, fears of a further costly delay to the programme are grow ing, particularly in the UK, where funding has been approved. One option said to be under con sideration in Bonn is to proceed with production, but at a slower build-up rate. The ministry is offering to allo cate just DM100 million ($65.6 million), short of the DM3 50 mil lion it originally had planned to set aside for 1997 before the most recent spate of cuts. Programme sources say that the DM350 mil lion figure is die minimum amount needed to go ahead with produc tion investment on time. The latest offer has been deemed unacceptable by DASA, but diere are fears that die ministry is not in a position to offer much more without cutting other pro grammes. It suffered a DM1.8 bil lion budget cut in July, and faces further cuts totalling DM7 billion up to 2000. The parliamentary defence and budget committees will consider the draft budget on 9 October, although there are indi cations diat the defence minister may not meet thus date. • Airbus pushes on with new versions of A340 DAVID LEARMOUNT/TOULOUSE AIRBUS INDUSTRIE is to challenge Boeing's 777-300 stretch with an enlarged, rewinged A3 40 which carries as many pas sengers and flies further, says the European consortium's A3 30/ A3 40 commercial programme manager David Pound. The European consortium is effectively launching the -500 and- 600 variants of the A3 40 with an in- service date of 2000. One crucial outstanding ques tion is whether current negotia tions between Airbus and General Electric will result in exclusive GE rights to develop a powerplant. The engine under discussion, says Pound, is "a scaled-down GE90 using lower-temperature materials...which will offer 9% better fuel efficiency than current engines with the same thrust". The thrust bracket is 222-267kN (50,000-60,0001b). Airbus says that the aircraft will have "increased design cruise speed and improved speed flexibility compared to cur rent A340s". Pound claims that Airbus has upped the size of the A330/A340's "generic market" by 40% by intro ducing two new stretches and an enlarged wing — the -500 ultra- long-haul version, effectively a very high-gross-weight version of the current A340-300, and the highly-stretched -600, whose cabin capacity is increased by 2 5 %. He says that there are no orders yet, but the interest shown has con vinced Airbus that it should go A330-200 fin gives 1 m tip extension and 10% chord extension A340-500/600 changes from A340-300 Three frame wing box and tapered inserts j\ Enlarged horizontal stabilisers 1.6m fuselage plug 1.6m wingtip extensions increase wingspan to 63.6m A340-500/600 wing profile Wing box insert -Optimised section- FLIGHT J 1996 Reed Business Publishing MMK'lllf.Ol' | | •••—^—•— A340-300 A340-500 A340-600 B777-300 Max take-off weight (kg) 275,000 356,000 356,000 299,640 Pax (3-class) 295 316 372 375 Range (km) 13,505 15,355 13,690 9,713 Source: Airbus Industrie ahead with the programme. The A3 40-600 in a three-class layout will seat 3 72 passengers and carry a full payload from Europe to the US West Coast, says Airbus. Range is listed as 13,690km (7,400nm). By comparison, the current high-gross- weight A340- 300 carries 295 passengers 13,505km. The three-class A340- 500, hardly bigger than the -300, will fly 316 passengers 15,355km. The main structural/engineer ing changes (see diagram) to the basic A340-300 design entail three fuselage inserts in the -500 and the -600. The wing is given a tapered wing-box insert to increase wing area/fuel capacity, and a 1.6m wing extension, with slat 7 also length ened appropriately. The fin is to be the same as that of the new A3 30-200, which is larg er than those on current A340s. The horizontal stabilisers are to be enlarged in span and chord. The extra weight will be sup ported by strengthening the centre gear and making it a four-wheeler rather than a two-wheel bogie. • Honeywell talks to Lockheed Martin about APALS involvement GUY NORRIS/LOS ANGELES HONEYWELL IS IN talks about becoming involved in Lockheed Martin's Autonomous Precision Approach and Landing System (APALS). The US avionics company con firms: "There have been talks, and we are certainly kicking it around." The discussions are led by Honey well's Business and Aviation Sys tems division, in Phoenix, Arizona. Lockheed Martin wants to form a joint venture and use Honeywell's US Special Category I (SCAT-I) satellite-launching system for inte gration with the APALS where Category III capability is required until standalone APALS Cat III approval can be achieved. Privately, senior Honeywell executives say that the decision on whether to pursue the APALS hangs on a knife-edge, with several concerns over "certification is sues". These are thought to include technical and cost hurdles. Lock heed Martin needs a partner with relevant avionics experience be cause its APALS launch customer, Lone Star Airlines of Texas, requires only a Cat II system. The cost of certificating to more-exact ing Cat III standards has driven the company to hunt for a partner. • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 9 - 15 October 1996
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