All Fixed-Wing news – Page 1339
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Harness hitch adds three-month delay to F-16 test programme
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES THE OPERATIONAL TEST and evaluation of three Lockheed Martin F-16A/B mid-life update (MLU) aircraft has been put back by around three months while the manufacturer reworks wire harnesses which are "below specification." The wiring problem, which is related to uneven solder used ...
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Boeing schedules September delivery for first F-22 wing
Guy Norris/SEATTLE BOEING IS ON schedule to deliver large sub-assemblies for the first pre-production F-22 air-superiority fighter to its partner Lockheed Martin in September, amid rising confidence that the first flight will take place on time in late May 1997. Boeing's two biggest sections of ...
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Aviall continues disposals in quest for core profits
Kevin O'Toole/LONDON AVIALL IS TO sell its aerospace-fastener operation, in another step towards its ambition of stripping the group back to its profitable aircraft-parts distribution business. An agreement was signed at the end of April to sell the fasteners-distribution unit to a new company formed ...
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FLA mission is well defined
Sir - Your leading article under the title "Missing a Trick" (Flight International, 17-23 April, 1996, P5) contained a number of misleading statements relating to the Future Large Aircraft Programme which I would like the opportunity to correct. The article is a thinly veiled Lockheed-Martin sales pitch, which ...
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Derco support
Derco Aerospace is to provide logistical support for Lockheed Martin C-130 maintenance by Chile's Enaer, providing spare parts, component repair and overhaul. Source: Flight International
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Lockheed Martin building F-16 IRST
LOCKHEED MARTIN is building an infra-red search-and-track (IRST) sensor pod for flight demonstration on its F-16 in April-May 1997. The company sees a substantial export market for the sensor, a podded version of the AAS-42 IRST in service since 1994 on US Navy Grumman F-14Ds. It has been ...
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The road beyond Damascus
Israel's industry faces a period of unheralded change. Douglas Barrie/TEL AVIV Most countries with a population of 5 million would have neither the money nor the motivation to develop a national ballistic-missile-defence system, but then Israel is unlike most nations. It has developed the Israel ...
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Upgrade impetus
ISRAELI COMPANIES HAVE succeeded in turning into actual business the much-mooted upgrade market for both the Northrop F-5 and Soviet-era combat aircraft. Israel Aircraft Industries' (IAI) Lahav division implemented an avionics and weapons-system upgrade on the Chilean air force's F-5E/F. This included a variant of the Elta ...
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SABCA profits
Belgian aerospace-components manufacturer SABCA says that the demise of Dutch manufacturer Fokker, which is its joint owner together with Dassault Aviation, is having little impact on profits. The company ended 1995 with net profits up by nearly 13%, to BFr132 million ($4.4 million), on sales of BFr8.3 billion. Fokker represents ...
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GAO/DoD differ on SEAD future
The US GENERAL Accounting Office (GAO) and the Department of Defense (DoD) are at odds over future US military requirements for suppression of enemy air-defences (SEAD). The investigative arm of the US Congress has recommended postponing retirement of the McDonnell Douglas F-4G Wild Weasel and Grumman EF-111 Raven ...
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Looking ahead
Since the end of the Cold War, some officials complain that Germany's defence budget has been used as a "gold mine" for other state financial needs. Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH BETWEEN 1991 AND 1994 Germany's defence budget shrank from DM54 billion ($36 billion) to DM 47 billion, ...
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Eurocopter pitches EC135 at South African Air Force
Forbes Mutch/JOHANNESBURG EUROCOPTER IS LIKELY to offer a military version of its EC135 twin-engined light helicopter to the South African Air Force (SAAF) as a replacement for the ageing Aerospatiale Alouette III. A formal requirement to replace up to 50 SAAF SA316Bs Alouette, used in air-support ...
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Bombardier shows Australian maritime-patrol Dash 8s
BOMBARDIER is conducting a 12-country demonstration tour with the first of three de Havilland Dash 8-200 maritime-patrol aircraft for Surveillance Australia. The tour began in Scandinavia, and is continuing through the Mediterranean, Middle East and Asia, with the aircraft due to arrive in Australia in June and enter service in ...
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Out of the black comes Tacit Blue
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC THE US AIR FORCE has taken the wraps off another of its classified stealth projects with the unveiling of the Tacit Blue technology demonstrator. The Tacit Blue was used to test low-observable technologies eventually used in the Northrop Grumman B-2 bomber and other stealthy ...
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1997 launch planned for MD-11 stretch freighter
Guy Norris/LOSANGELES MCDONNELL DOUGLAS (MDC) could launch a freighter version of its proposed MD-11 stretch by the end of 1997, as part of a renewed attack on the large-cargo-aircraft market. "We hope to be out in the market with the MD-11 stretch by the second ...
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DASA develops a towed radar decoy for Transall
Douglas Barrie /LONDON DAIMLER-BENZ Aerospace (DASA) Airborne Systems is developing a towed radar decoy for transport- and combat-aircraft applications, for use against radar-guided air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles. The decoy has been successfully test-flown against monopulse radar emitters. In the transport-aircraft variant, the towed decoy would ...
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RAF will pull out of Germany by 2002
THE Royal Air Force is to withdraw its last combat-aircraft units from Germany by 2002 with the closure of RAF Bruggen and the relocation to the UK of its four Panavia Tornado squadrons. The decision to end the RAF presence in Germany was announced in the 1996 Statement ...
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Thrust-vectoring Sukhoi Su-27M flies
Alexander Velovich/MOSCOW SUKHOI HAS BEGUN flight testing from the Zhukovsky flight-test centre, near Moscow, the first pre-production Su-27M (Su-35) Flanker variant equipped with thrust-vectoring nozzles. The aircraft, Su-27 number 711, had five flights in April, apparently with the axisymmetric nozzles in a fixed configuration. ...
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Defence cuts threaten Franco-German programmes
GERMAN DEFENCE minister Volker Ruhe is threatening that Bonn may have to "reconsider" its bilateral co-operation programmes if France fails to commit itself fully to its joint helicopter programmes. The French Government is debating possible cuts to the Eurocopter Tiger and NH Industries NH90 programmes, which Germany ...
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Reconnaissance Office may get new Darkstar
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC The US Congress may subsidise the cost of building a replacement for the Lockheed Martin/Boeing Tier III Minus Darkstar unmanned air vehicle destroyed on its second flight on 22 April, says US Air Force Gen Kenneth Israel, who heads the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office (DARO). ...