All Fixed-Wing news – Page 1297
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BAe plans negotiations for Canadian Hawk trainer deal
British Aerospace is to begin formal negotiations to provide up to 25 Hawk 100 trainers to Canada, following the latter's decision to proceed with the NATO Flying Training in Canada (NFTC) programme. Canadian defence minister Douglas Young announced the approval for the NFTC on 23 April, saying that ...
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Kamov flies modified Ka-50
Russian helicopter manufacturer Kamov has begun flight testing an all-weather attack variant of the Ka-50 Hokum, the Ka-50N, fitted with a more capable sensor suite. The Ka-50N prototype has been equipped with a nose-mounted forward-looking infra-red (FLIR) sensor, understood to have been supplied by Thomson-CSF. The ...
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Evergreen has to switch VERTREP demonstrators
The US Navy's USS Saturn is due to depart at the end of April for five months at sea with different aircraft from those originally envisioned to be operated by commercial operator Evergreen Helicopters. The Military Sealift Command (MSC) sea trial marks the third in a series of ...
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Participation in JSF gathers momentum
THE Netherlands and Norway have formally joined the US Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) project, but Denmark has yet to decide on participation. On 16 April, the two countries signed a JSF requirements-validation memorandum of agreement (MoA), which commits them to the JSF. The US Department of Defense says ...
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Direct to target
INTERNATIONAL INTEREST in the US Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) is growing as flight testing continues to demonstrate an accuracy better than the 13m (40ft) requirement. McDonnell Douglas (MDC) has already proposed the JDAM to at least one foreign country. JDAMs have been dropped from the Lockheed Martin ...
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Germans choose Elisra
The German army will equip its Sikorsky CH-53 helicopters with the Israeli Elisra SPS-65(V) integrated airborne self-protection system. A limited number of systems was rushed to Germany and installed on CH-53s which were flown on missions in Bosnia. The German army is now negotiating a deal to purchase the Israeli-developed ...
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Resolving contradictions
One down, one to go - or, at least, that would appear to be the case, following the US Department of Defense's recent decision on its Hughes AIM-9 Sidewinder replacement, which ended the battle for the air-to-air missile's succession. The next decision to be made is over which ...
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Tiger signature is promised for Paris Air Show
French minister of defence Charles Millon has promised that the production-investment contract for the Franco-German Eurocopter Tiger anti- tank/support helicopter will be signed at the Paris air show in June. The agreement would clear the way for production of the first batch of Tigers, leading to delivery to ...
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Boeing submits revised bids for re-engineing B-52
Boeing has submitted a revised bid to re-engine the US Air Force's B-52 bomber fleet after its original submission was rejected as "not cost-effective" by an Office of the Secretary of Defense report on 15 April. Despite the blow, Boeing is confident that the initiative is alive, and ...
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KC/RC-135 re-engineing
CFM International, the joint venture involving General Electric Engines and Snecma, could receive as much as $1.1 billion from the US Air Force up to 2002 to provide 267 CFM56 turbofans for Boeing KC-135 tankers and RC-135 Rivet Joint-Surveillance aircraft. As part of the re-engineing work, the joint venture received ...
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JSTARS award
Greenwich Air Services has received an additional $9 million from the US Air Force to convert six Pratt & Whitney JT3Ds to the TF33-102B engine configuration for use on the Northrop Grumman E-8C Joint Surveillance, Target Attack radar system (JSTARS) aircraft. The work includes repair, overhaul and modifications necessary to ...
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Poles are permitted to fly Gripen
Poland and Sweden have signed a new security deal which will allow Polish air force pilots to ßy the Saab JAS39 Gripen. The move comes as the various competitors for the Polish fighter requirement step up their marketing efforts. The agreement covers the protection of classified military information, ...
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Tilt-rotor arrives at initial-production hurdle
The Bell/Boeing V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft is expected to be cleared for low-rate initial production before the end of April, but a production increase is dependent on US Congress decisions. Backers of the Osprey military tilt-rotor were disappointed late in 1996, when the US Government rejected a proposal for ...
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Gradual development
By the mid -1980s, the Soviet Ministry of Aviation Industry (MAI) began to seek proposals from design bureaux for a replacement for the Antonov An-24 short-haul regional twin-turboprop, which had been in service since 1962. The idea was that the new aircraft could also serve as a replacement for the ...
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Dutch air force takes Apaches to Poland
The Royal Netherlands Air force has deployed its McDonnell Douglas A-64A Apache attack helicopters to Poland, using the Drawsko Pommerski training ground near Stettin, in working the helicopters up to a limited initial operating capability. Along with the seven Apaches, the Dutch Tactical Helicopter Group (THG) deployed four Boeing CH-47D ...
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Hughes takes HISAR on worldwide sales drive
Hughes is preparing to take its HISAR (Hughes Integrated Surveillance and Reconnaissance System) flying demonstrator on a world sales tour covering up to 20 countries over ten months. The HISAR system, mounted in a Raytheon Beech Super King Air 200, is undergoing final shake-down flights before beginning a ...
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Airbus and Boeing vie to replace RAF tanker fleet
Airbus Industrie and Boeing are competing to replace the Royal Air Force's Lockheed L-1011 TriStar and Vickers VC10 tanker/transport aircraft, with the two companies preparing private finance initiative (PFI) proposals for the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD). Boeing is understood to be offering a tanker/transport derivative of the ...
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Honeywell considers GPWS challenge with BASE Terprom system
Honeywell is considering launching a civil ground-proximity warning system (GPWS) based on British Aerospace (Systems & Equipment's) (BASE) military Terprom product. If the teaming goes ahead, it would provide the first serious challenge to AlliedSignal's longstanding monopoly in the GPWS market. An earlier attempt by Collins to launch ...
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MDC revives YC-15 for a technology-test role
McDonnell Douglas (MDC) is to propose the test and development of an autonomous landing system to the US Air Force, using the newly resurrected YC-15 prototype as a technology demonstrator. The autonomous landing system is expected to be one of the first technology-research efforts to be conducted with ...
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Dow-UT manufactures lighter F119 fan-case
A COMPOSITE fan-inlet case for the Pratt & Whitney F119 fighter engine has been developed by Dow-United Technologies Composite Products (Dow-UT). The one-piece component, produced by resin-transfer moulding, is lighter and cheaper than the current fabricated-titanium case, says Wallingford, Connecticut-based Dow-UT. The fan-inlet case is the structural frame ...