All aerospace news – Page 1961
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Icy irony
NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft, to be launched in October, has been given a "real" mission, thanks to the military. The plan for the Prospector to be used to map the chemical composition of the Moon has been made all the more tantalising by the apparent discovery of an "ice lake" ...
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Bond begins Shannon SAR contract
Bond Helicopters has taken over the Shannon, Ireland-based search and rescue (SAR) contract operated on behalf of the Irish Marine Emergency Service. The company is operating a Sikorsky S.61N, which replaces a similar aircraft flown on the SAR contract for the last five years by Irish Helicopters. A second S.61N ...
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Airbus issues hydraulic pump warning after A330/340 fires
Airbus Industrie has instructed all A330 and A340 operators to de-activate the aircraft's electrically driven hydraulic pumps, following a series of fires which has left at least two aircraft badly damaged. In the latest incident, an auxiliary pump is suspected of having overheated on a Malaysia Airlines (MAS)A330-300 ...
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Airbus closes in on AE-100 development agreement
Airbus Industrie is expected to announce shortly its team to head Europe's participation in the joint development of the proposed Air Express AE-100 regional passenger aircraft in partnership with China and Singapore. The new Airbus team will assume responsibility for the programme from Aero International (Regional) (AI(R)), which ...
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Engine plant
Construction has begun of a new Space Shuttle Main Engine Processing building next to the Orbiter Processing building at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The engine-processing building is scheduled to be opened in July 1998. Source: Flight International
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Jet services Learjets
Singapore-based Jet Maintenance, part of the Jet Aviation Group, has become the Pacific Rim's first authorised Learjet service centre. Source: Flight International
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What's on
Russian Aerospace '97 20-22 May, Moscow. Organised by Flight International and Aviaexport. Contact: Kim Daniels, First Conferences, 85 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1R 5AR, UK; tel: +44 (171) 404 7722; fax: +44 (171) 404 7733; email: confdesk@firstconf.com RAeS Events January: D F McIntyre Lecture: Prestwick Airport Reborn 13 January; Gordon ...
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PATS fuel tanks extend 767 range
JET AVIATION HAS completed modification of the first Boeing 767 to be fitted with auxiliary fuel tanks. The 15,000litre auxiliary fuel-system, produced by PATS, was installed in a corporate-configured 767-200ER completed at Jet Aviation's Basle, Switzerland, modification centre. The aircraft's owner has not been identified, but is believed ...
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FSI's Boeing 777 receives Level C approval
FLIGHTSAFETY International's (FSI) first Boeing 777 full-flight simulator has received Level C training approval. The FSI-built simulator is now in service at the company's Seattle training centre. A second 777 full-flight simulator is now being built by FSI's Simulation Systems division for delivery to Malaysian Airlines in the second quarter ...
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Airbus Industrie and Wicat join in A310/A300-600 training upgrade
AIRBUS INDUSTRIE IS improving pilot training for the A300-600 and A310-300, with the help of Wicat Systems, to match that available for the A320, A330 and A340. Wicat is supplying new computer-based training (CBT) courseware and is developing a "free-play" trainer for the A310/A300-600 flight-management and -guidance system (FMGS), similar ...
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TTS unveils new-design simulator
THOMSON TRAINING &Simulation (TTS) has delivered the first of its new-design full-flight simulators to the ATR Training Centre (ATC) in Toulouse, France. The new design was evolved following TTS' acquisition of Rediffusion and includes features from the UK company's Concept 90 simulator. The first new-design machine to enter ...
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Japan plans its first space-docking experiment
Japan will become the third space nation, after the USA and Russia, to conduct a rendezvous and docking in space. The Engineering Test Satellite, ETS7, to be launched with the US/Japanese Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite by a national H2 booster in the middle of 1997, will consist ...
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Russian programme in crisis
Russia may have to abandon its manned space programme this year because of a severe shortage of funds, Yuri Koptev, director-general of the Russian Space Agency has warned the Government. It has been planned that the country's Mir 1 space station will be the base for several international ...
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Chinese develop new navigation pod
China is developing a low-altitude navigation pod to provide strike aircraft with all-weather terrain following and target-identification capability. The 200kg Blue-Sky pod is being developed by the China Leihua Electronic Technology Institute (CLETRI), and is believed to have been test-flown already. The pod is fitted with radar and ...
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Rising star
Despite annual sales of around $20 million and a rating as one of the fastest-growing space companies in the USA, Spectrum Astro's success had gone relatively unnoticed until NASA awarded it the contract to develop the first craft in the space agency's New Millennium programme. Spectrum Astro, of ...
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AD could ground 727 freighter conversions
US CARGO CARRIERS are bracing for a Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness directive (AD) which could severely restrict the payload of Boeing 727 freighter conversions. The AD had been anticipated in late December 1996, but the FAA says that it now plans to begin discussions with aircraft modifiers and operators in ...
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NATSwill introduce North Atlantic ATN
The UK's National Air Traffic Services (NATS) is pushing on with the implementation of the aeronautical telecommunications network (ATN), clearing the way for the debut of the Future Air Navigation System (FANS) on North Atlantic routes. An upgrade of the Oceanic Control Centre at Prestwick, Scotland, being planned ...
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Boeing offers airlines 767-400ERX stretch
BOEING IS NOW formally offering the stretched 767-400ERX to airlines. Authority to offer was given at the beginning of January, and the company expects a formal launch early this year, leading to a first flight in 1999 and certification and first delivery in 2000 (Flight International, 18-31 December, 1996, P5). ...
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Light moves
Time did not stand still for the big light-aircraft manufacturers while they sought and gained product-liability reform. This ultimately allowed them to re-enter their former markets, but by that time, US production had dropped from its early-1980s peak of about 70 light single- and twin-engined aircraft a day, to a ...
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Australian Dash 8 will carry a laser coastal depth-sounder
BOMBARDIER HAS SOLD a de Havilland Dash 8 Series 200B to an Australian company which plans to equip the aircraft for hydrographic surveys of shallow coastal waters (Flight International, 1- January, p4). Adelaide-based LADS is to equip the aircraft with a laser airborne depth-sounder (LADS) and offer its shallow-water surveying ...