All news – Page 7126
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Out of control ?
Yet again, too many passengers and crew who died in airline accidents in the last year died in aircraft which, until the moment at which they hit the ground or water, were functioning perfectly - but whose crews were not. These accidents are classed as Controlled Flight Into Terrain, or ...
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Boeing aims for C-17 cost cuts
Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES Boeing is studying a further round of cost-cutting measures for the C-17 transport in 1998 as part of efforts to generate further sales to the US Air Force as well as to potential export customers such as Japan, Saudi Arabia and the UK. The unit fly-away ...
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Turkish F-5 upgrade programme gets under way
Paul Lewis/SINGPAORE The Turkish air force's first upgraded Northrop F-5A/B fighter is expected to begin flight testing 18 months after the service concludes a contract with the recently selected Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI)-led consortium. IAI and its partners, Elbit and Singapore Technologies Aerospace (ST Aero), will begin contractual ...
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Critical decision looms for the FLA as An-70 waits in the wings
Douglas Barrie/LONDON Andrea Spinelli/GENOA The Airbus-led European Future Large Aircraft (FLA) programme faces a key go-ahead decision early in February, against a background of increasing political pressure to use the Antonov An-70 as the baseline for the project. The FLA Policy Group is scheduled to meet in the ...
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GAO says Pentagon missile defence schedule is too risky
The US General Accounting Office (GAO) believes that the tight schedule set for a decision on whether to deploy a national defence network against ballistic-missile attack carries an unacceptable risk. The US Department of Defence plans to decide in 2000 whether to field initial elements of the national missile-defence ...
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UK considers Jaguar engine re-build
Douglas Barrie/LONDON The UK Ministry of Defence is in the final phase of studying a complete re-build of the Rolls-Royce Turboméca engines powering the Royal Air Force's Sepecat Jaguar fleet, aimed at providing additional thrust while also reducing maintenance demands. The upgraded powerplant, likely to be referred to ...
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Kuwait moves ahead with AH-64D purchase
Boeing can expect to sell Kuwait 16 AH-64D Longbow Apache attack helicopters, worth an estimated $800 million, but it remains unclear whether the foreign-military-sales deal will include the APG-78 Longbow fire-control radar (FCR), say government officials. At issue since late 1997 is whether the Kuwaiti Government would be cleared ...
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Belgium remedy
The Belgian army is planning a change in pilot-recruiting policy to counter dwindling numbers of helicopter pilots to fly the Agusta A109 helicopter or the Pilatus Britten-Norman Islander liaison aircraft. Instead of recruiting its pilots among NCOs already serving and who volunteer for air service, the army now wants to ...
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Trident upgrade
Northrop Grumman has won a $78 million US Navy contract to upgrade Trident I nuclear submarines with new launch tubes and subsystems to accommodate the larger D-5 Trident II sea-launched ballistic missile. The work will be handled by the firm's Marine Systems unit. Source: Flight International
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Indonesian Flanker
Indonesia has postponed its planned acquisition of 12 Sukhoi Su-30 two-seat variants of the Su-27 because of its economic problems. The first aircraft was due to have been delivered in 1998. Also postponed is its planned procurement of eight Mil Mi-17 helicopters. Source: Flight International
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Taiwan narrows its utility helicopter choice
Paul Lewis/SINGAPORE The Taiwan army has narrowed down the selection of a replacement utility helicopter to either the Sikorsky S-70 Black Hawk or the Bell 412, in what promises to be one of the few remaining lucrative arms deals still being actively contested in Asia. Taiwan has a requirement ...
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US Navy promotes low-cost Tomahawk
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC The US Navy is to seek Congressional approval to shift funds from production of the Tomahawk cruise missile to development of a new low-cost version. The Navy wants to take fiscal-year 1998 money earmarked for the last batch of Tomahawk Block 3 missiles and put it ...
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Wingdrop is a 'national issue', says panel
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC A Blue-Ribbon panel set up to review efforts to cure the Boeing F/A-18E/F wingdrop problem has identified a "national need" to understand the phenomenon. Concern has been raised by the failure of windtunnel testing and computation fluid-dynamic (CFD) analysis to predict accurately how potential solutions will perform ...
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Cash crunch
Paul Lewis/SINGAPORE The Asian economic bubble has burst and the perceived regional "arms race" has, for now, come to a grinding halt. With local currencies and stock markets in freefall and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) administering fiscal first aid, most South-East Asian defence-procurement provisions are rapidly drying up. Despite ...
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Malaysia gateway
Brent Hannon/KUALA LUMPUR Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at Sepang, 70km (45 miles) south of the Malaysian capital, rushed to its target completion date of 1 January with two runways, a main terminal and a satellite terminal largely finished, says Ambrin Buang, senior general manager of Government-owned K L International ...
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Singapore solutions
Paul Lewis/SINGAPORE At a glance, aircraft, armoured vehicles, automated taxi-dispatchers and container ships would appear to have little in common. Not so, says Singapore Technologies Aerospace (ST Aero), which has just merged with its ST sister companies, Automotive, Marine and Electronics, to form a single S$3.5 billion ($2 billion) listed ...
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Mars fever
Tim Furniss/LONDON The first flights to enable assembly of the International Space Station (ISS) to begin are scheduled to start in June, but such is the intense public interest in Mars after the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997 that NASA is considering a more Martian-orientated approach to the later stages ...
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AASI predicts a sales boom for its Jetcruzer 500
Advanced Aerodynamics & Structures (AASI) has announced a further ten sales of its Jetcruzer 500 turboprop business aircraft, bringing the total backlog to 86, worth around $103 million. The Long Beach, California-based manufacturer hopes that sales will exceed 220 by the end of 1998, based on the current interest ...
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Live TV takes to the air for business aviation
Live television has become available to business-aircraft users, following US certification of Datron Systems' new satellite-television antenna for corporate aircraft. The Escondido, California-based company, launched its direct-broadcast satellite antenna DBS-2100 at the National Business Aviation Association convention in September 1997. The system underwent its first flight tests at the ...