All news – Page 7496
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AE-100 engine competition accelerates as rivals fight
The competition to power China's planned AE-100 passenger aircraft is intensifying, with rival engine manufacturers extending increasingly more attractive offers of industrial co-operation and co-production. Aviation Industries of China (AVIC) has stipulated that the joint venture will select an engine primarily on the basis of performance, reliability and ...
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Boeing agrees on Chinese Chinook
Boeing and China National Aero Technology Import and Export (CATIC) have reached an outline work-share agreement to co-produce the Boeing 234-100 Chinook helicopter, but are still looking for sufficient orders to launch the programme. The two sides have broadly agreed to split production of the civil heavy-lift ...
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Admit it
If anyone in global air-transport still believes that the legal minimum standards for airline pilot training are adequate for today's aircraft and air-traffic enviroment, they would do well to read the official report on the Birgenair Boeing 757 accident (P14). It states that the pilots involved in the accident, although ...
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Vympel pushes export R-77
Russian missile design house Vympel is pushing ahead with the development of an export variant of the R-77 (AA-12Adder) medium-range active radar-guided air-to-air missile. Pictured is what appears to be an export-modified R-77 ready for a test firing. The carriage pylon is marked AKU-170E, rather than the standard AKU-170, the ...
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Dassault wants a Rafale deal soon
Dassault and the French Government are close to resolving a major problem over how to fund an earlier service entry of the air force version of the Rafale fighter, to meet export demonstration needs. Dassault had expressed considerable concern over the defence ministry delaying delivery of the air force Rafale ...
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Eurofighter threatened by fresh defence cuts
Andrjez Jeziorski/MUNICH A new danger, to the Eurofighter programme, is looming in Germany with the spectre of further defence cuts early in 1997. Industrial and political sources say that the defence ministry could be facing a new cutback of between DM300 million ($200 million) and DM500 ...
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Prowler crews evaluate F-18 C2W
Graham Warwick/ST LOUIS Operational crews have evaluated the McDonnell Douglas (MDC) F-18 command and control warfare (C2W) variant using a concept simulator at MDC's St Louis, Missouri, headquarters. The C2W variant of the two-seat F-18F is being proposed to replace US Navy and Marine Corps Grumman EA-6B Prowler ...
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Budget reductions hit Germany's Huey fleet
The German army is being forced to retire one-third of its fleet of Bell UH-1D Iroquois fleet ahead of time because of budget shortages. Some 52 transport helicopters from the current fleet of 176 are to be grounded from 1997, and will be cannibalised for spares. The helicopters ...
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US GAO backs CH-60 Black Hawk over Huey upgrade
The US Department of Defense could save more than $700 million if it forces the US Marine Corps to scrap plans to upgrade 100 Bell Helicopter Textron UH-1N utility helicopters and buy new Sikorsky Aircraft CH-60 Black Hawk rotorcraft, say Congressional investigators. "In deciding to modernise its fleet ...
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Germans plan London visit to discuss air force missile plan
German defence officials will visit London later this month for exploratory discussions on the possibility of drawing together elements of the UK's Storm Shadow variant of the French Apache stand-off weapon with the German KEPD-350 to meet a German air force requirement for such a missile. The officials are from ...
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USAF safety
The US Air Force has achieved its second-best overall flight-safety year on record in fiscal year 1996, with a "Class A" accident rate of 1.26 accidents per 100,000 flying hours. Class A includes fatal accidents or "mishaps" involving destruction or damage worth more than $1 million. Rates for fighter and ...
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Pentagon funds air-launched decoys for SEAD mission
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical (TRA) a $24.4 million contract to develop and demonstrate a miniature air-launched decoy (MALD) designed to knock out air defences. The MALD advanced concept technology demonstration (ACTD) involves using a small, inexpensive air-launched decoy for ...
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Acceptable errors
The human-factors element in flight safety is now being taken seriously. David Learmount/WARSAW The world's flight-safety specialists have given up trying to eliminate human error. Now, the aim is to understand error and to control, or "manage" it. This strategy holds the key to improving airline flight ...
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Beyond-visual-range AAMs
The advent of extended beyond visual range (BVR) air-to-air requirements has inevitably led missile design houses to look at ramjet sustainers as a potential power plant solution, and the Royal Air Force's Future Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (FMRAAM) is, therefore, not the first to have a design solution built around ...
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Strategic Air to Surface Systems
Alone among the Western nations, France has continued to pursue the operational deployment of ramjet-powered air-launched stand-off missiles since the late 1940s. While the USA experimented with ramjet propulsion during the late 1940s and 1950s, with test vehicles such as Glenn Martin PTV-N-2 Gorgon, the preference was for turbojet, and ...
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Linear aerospike engine
Much of NASA's investment in the X-33 demonstrator will be in the development of its linear 'aerospike' engines. The aerospike "-is tremendously efficient because it is simpler than the current bell-nozzle rocket engine", says Micky Blackwell, president and chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. "It automatically adjusts itself to ...
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Terminal velocity
The push is on to provide ramjet propulsion for the Eurofighter EF2000's extended-range air-to-air missile. Douglas Barrie/LONDON Providing more than twice the punch for the same mass in comparison to solid rockets has inevitably made ramjet propulsion attractive to missile designers. In the air-to-air missile (AAM) arena, ...
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Surface-to-Air/Surface-to-Surface
It is generally believed that the USA's interest in ramjet propulsion was rekindled, at least at a research level, during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war when it gained access to Soviet technology in the shape of captured SA-6 Gainful surface-to-air missiles. The SA-6, like the SA-4 Ganef, uses a ramjet sustainer, ...
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Bombardier acquires Innotech for Global
Bombardier is to acquire the business-aircraft completion division of Innotech Aviation. The Canadian manufacturer plans to outfit its Global Express long-range business jet at Innotech, based at Montreal's Dorval airport. The deal to acquire Innotech from Halifax-based IMP International is expected to be completed at the end of ...
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Eurocopter leases EC135s to Bavarian police
Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH Eurocopter has won Government approval for a contract to supply nine EC135 light helicopters on a ten-year lease to police in the south German state of Bavaria. According to Eurocopter, the contract will be signed on 13 November, now that the Bavarian regional government ...