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Aviation History
1998
1998 - 1058.PDF
INDUSTRY NEWS IN BRIEF • BARC0A3XX TEAMING Belairbus, the Belgian group of companies involved in manufacturing for Airbus Industrie, has accepted the membership of Barco Dis play Systems as a partner for the Airbus A3 XX large airlin er programme. • NASASUPERCONDUCTS Nasa and TRW have demon strated the first satellite infrared imaging system to exploit superconducting electronics, a system "hun dreds of times" smaller and lighter than previously possi ble. Improved image capabil ity will allow ballistic missiles to be detected mid-flight. • LUCAS TEAM FLOWS Lucas Aerospace has selected US software developer CFM's TeamFlow package for its 24 worldwide sites to map operational processes and "share best practices". TeamFlow is the Bedford, Massachusetts-based com pany's flagship product, com bining its team-centred products in one suite.. • FORT WORTH MACHINE Lockheed Martin has in stalled a new $1.5 million Makino machining centre at its Fort Worth, Texas, plant. Part of its advanced afford- ability initiative, the centre offers four to seven times faster processing speeds, including a 15,000rpm spin dle speed, five times faster than on its F-16 line, and feed rates up from 2.5-12m/min. Demonstration components will be produced this year. • ELBIT DIGITAL MAPS Elbit Systems has won a con tract to supply 40 of its Digital Map systems to an unnamed customer, the sys tem's first use for a military aircraft programme. The Haifa, Israel-based compa ny already supplies the sys tems for the Boeing V-22 tilt rotor aircraft. GE's revolutionary laser surface treatment improves on peering IAN SHEPPARD/LONDON GE AIRCRAFT Engines is pioneering use of a laser sur face treatment technology to increase significantly die crack resistance, fatigue life and impact strength of turbine engine blades. The technique, known as laser peening, introduces compressive stresses in metals to four times die depth achieved with traditional shot peening, the current de facto standard for surface hardening of engine components. GE confirms that it has a cus tomer which is putting funding into die technology but declines to give further details. The company is reported to be using the process to treat the blades of its F101 engines for the US Air Force's Rockwell B-1B bomber fleet, and is preparing to use it on the Fl 10- 100B engine upgrade for die Lockheed Martin F-16C/D. Traditional shot peening in volves blasting beads at the compo nent at very high speed, helping to introduce compressive stresses and therefore prevent crack propaga tion to a depth of around 10mm. It may, however, damage the aerody namic effectiveness of a surface. By contrast, a laser does not affect the finish and has been found to reach a depth of 40mm. Meanwhile, Lawrence Liver- more National Laboratories, based at the University of California, and Curtis Wright's Metal Improve ment Company (MIC), based in New Jersey, are working together to commercialise the technology as "Lasershot" peening. The companies are developing a $1 million next-generation pulsed solid-state laser, which MIC says has become available thanks to advances in laser cooling. It will be up to 50 times more powerful and have a frequency 20 times faster than anything in commercial use today, says MIC, which expects to spend around two years experi menting on components such as gas turbine blades and shafts. • USN raises more backing for JSF prognostics LOCKHEED Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems (LMTAS) has received a further $6 million con tract from die US Navy to contin ue work on the Air Vehicle Prognostics and Health Manage ment (AVPHM) demonstration programme for its X-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) demonstrator. The original $6 million contract for AVPHM was awarded in September 1997 with the aim of minimising life-cycle costs by boosting in-service reliability. Prognostics, also known as case- based reasoning, uses artificial intelligence software to recognise patterns which could be the first warningsigns of impending failure. A suspect part or system can then be withdrawn well before significant and cosdy damage occurs. The extra funds will allow LMTAS to extend prognostics to real-time monitoring of other air craft systems such as structure and stealth features, the flight control system, mission systems and the joint distributed information sys tem GDIS). In service, die aim is for the air borne predictive monitoring sys tem to inform the engineering support organisation automatically via theJDIS of maintenance actions required. This will allow many cur rent inspections to be removed from the maintenance schedule. LMTAS intends to test a proto type system in 2000 as a risk-reduc tion measure for its JSF preferred weapon system concept. • Boeing avoids redesign for Super Hornet wing BOEING HAS selected a rem edy for the wing drop problem on the F/A-18E/F Super Hor net after flight testing at the Naval Air Station at Patuxent River, Maryland. A slotted fair ing allows air to flow both ways dirough the wing fold hinges, making it aerodynamically in visible and preventing the asymmetric stall which led to a roll of up to 30° in high speed subsonic manoeuvres. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 22 - 28 April 1998
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