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Aviation History
2000
2000 - 1164.PDF
DZ?mx* Russia plans fifth-generation fighter in 2010 ALEXANDER VELOVICH/MOSCOW RUSSIA IS to introduce a fifth-generation fighter by 2010, according to Maj Gen Sergey Kolyadin, the chairman of the Russian Air Forces Scientific Engineering Committee. Kolyadin's comments in a recent interview with the Russian media are one of the strongest indications yet that the air force is pushing for ward with plans to field a rival to Lockheed Martin's F-22. The impoverished Russian combat aircraft industry has been working on advanced fighter pro posals for several years without any prospects of the funds being avail able for a full development pro gramme. The outlook for the industry appears to have improved, however, with large increases announced for the defence budget and the election of Vladimir Putin as the country's President. Kolyadin says the air force considers the MAPO MiG1.44 and Sukhoi S-37 Berkut forward swept-wing fighter as experimen tal aircraft to develop and evaluate new technologies rather than as competing prototypes. Whether either will evolve into serious con tenders for production should the requirement progress remains to be seen. For now, flight tests of both air craft continue. The MiG 1.44 has made only one flight and some reports suggest that adjustments to the digital flight control system must be made before the tests resume. On the other hand, Sukhoi has gained such confidence in its S- 37 Berkut that it is talking about an international debut for the for ward-swept winged fighter atjuly's Farnborough Air Show. • A Russian air force MiG-31 interceptor crashed on landing at Kotlas air base in the Archangel region of northern Russia on 6 April. One of the two pilots was killed. Since it reached initial oper ational capability in 1981,36MiG- 3 Is have been lost in accidents and 20 pilots killed, one of the worst safety records in the air force. 3 Boeing seeks government help on Super Frog airlif ter RAMON LOPEZ/FORT WORTH BOEING'S PHANTOM Works is seeking the involve ment of a US Government research organisation to build a large-scale flying model of the company's Advanced Theater Transport (ATT) concept aircraft. The company reckons the aircraft could be operational by 2013-5. The Phantom Works already has research and development agreements with US Air Force researchers on ATT. But company representatives are talking with NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) about advanced research contracts that could include fabri cation and flight testing of a large manned or radio-controlled demonstrator. Boeing has already responded to a NASA advanced aircraft research request for pro posals issued six months ago. An adaptation of the 1960s tilt- wing concept, the No-Tail ATT super short take-off and landing (SSTOL) transport, also known as Super Frog, would be capable of lifting 30t loads into 229m (750ft)- long unprepared air strips. The ATT uses counter-rotating port and starboard propellers and split flaps/ailerons for lateral control. For SSTOL, the ATT's wing is tilted up to 42° to increase lift, using two jackscrew actuators housed within the wing/fuselage fairing. Low-speed lift is augment ed by propeller flow over the wing. The 39m-span wing is swept to cover 80% of the compact 27.5m- long fuselage. The ATT would be powered by four 9,000kW (12,000shp)-class turboprops, cross-shafted for redundancy. Fully loaded, the Super Frog i's projected to have a range of 3,300km(l,785nm).Ithasasimilar fuselage diameter to the Boeing C-17, but would carry around 40t into conventional airfields - half the larger aircraft's load, but up to four times the load of a Lockheed Martin C-130J. X-35A progresses towards first flight LOCKHEED MARTIN has completed the first flight readiness review for the X-3 5 A conventional take-off and landing variant of its Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) concept demonstrator. The aircraft is expected to fly at Palmdale, California, in June/July. The Lockheed Martin JSF team has begun testing its prototype multisensor avion ics in the Cooperative Avionics Test Bed, a modified BAC One- Eleven with Northrop Grumman's multimode active-array radar and distributed infrared sensor system, Kaiser helmet-mounted display and Lockheed Martin core processor. Boeing has already completed windtunnel tests of a subscale air craft model. Last year it conducted tethered and untethered flights tests with a 7% (2.5m) scale model. Phantom Works plans to settle on the ATT's final configuration by the end of the year, says the company. ATT would not satisfy Future Transport Rotorcraft vertical-lift requirements, but the USAF's Special Operations Command might replace its C-130s with a SSTOL transport and tanker vari ant. The US Army also has an unfunded requirement for an SSTOL aircraft. The Defense Science Board sees a US military requirement for such an aircraft operating from sea bases. It recommends that the USAF and DARPA begin concept defini tion of a new SSTOL intra-theater transport with initial fielding in 2015. It said the aircraft should be shipboard-capable with at least C-130Jpayloads. • NEWS IN BRIEF • EGYPTIAN AMRAAM The US Government has approved the proposed sale of surface-launched Ray theon AMRAAM missiles to Egypt. The size of the planned order and delivery schedule is subject to agree ment and contractual talks are at an early stage. Egypt plans to use the new surface- to-air missile system to replace its elderly Russian- supplied SAM-6 systems. • NIGERIAN SUPPORT The US Government is to provide Nigeria with a $10 million military air package, including help in restoring the country's eight Lockheed Martin C-130H/-30Hs to operational condition. 16 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 11 - 17 April 2000
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