Fixed-wing – Page 1302
-
News
Working together
THREE COMPANIES came together to develop the F-22 in the belief that their combined resources would be required to see the programme through to production. They are being proved right. So far, the F-22 industry team has invested about $2 billion on the programme, estimates programme ...
-
News
Common modules take control
ADVANCING THE STATE of the art in system design and integration has enabled the F-22 team to meet demanding weight and cost budgets "flowed down" to the subsystem level by the integrated product-team structure. Many of the traditional boundaries between systems have be blurred in a bid to ...
-
News
Human centred
PILOT-VEHICLE INTERFACE is a dry, but accurate, description of the centrepiece of the F-22's array of technologies. The F-22 cockpit is seen as a showcase of the team's achievement in integrating human potential into the aircraft. It is here, under the single-piece canopy, strapped into the modified ACES ...
-
News
Balancing act
BALANCE IS A term used repeatedly by the F-22's designers when describing what they have achieved, and balancing lethality, survivability, supportability and affordability - and several other 'ilities' - has proved a formidable task. Driving the design was the requirement to combine stealth with speed and agility, in ...
-
News
Slipring win
Air Précision, part of the UK's Cobham group, has won a contract to supply electrical sliprings for the main and tail rotors of the NH Industries NH90 helicopter. The sliprings transmit electrical power for the de-icing and folding of the rotors. Source: Flight International
-
News
Engineering dominance
LOOK AT FIGHTER evolution in 25-year steps, and the technological advance which can occur in a quarter-century is obvious. The 1915 Fokker DVII, 1940 North American P-51 and 1965 McDonnell Douglas F-4 were each the dominant fighters of their age, and illustrate the advances that have been achieved. Another 25 ...
-
News
Challenging evolution
WHEN THE US Air Force began defining its requirement for an air-superiority fighter to replace the McDonnell Douglas F-15, the world was a very different place. The Soviet Union still existed and Iraq was just a minor Middle Eastern power. The major regional conflict had not yet replaced superpower confrontation ...
-
News
Integrating information
LOW-OBSERVABLE AIR superiority places severe requirements on avionics that can only be met by the degree of integration evident in the F-22, says Marty Broadwell, deputy avionics team-leader. "We are collecting snippets of information, with minimum illumination, pencil beams, sensors that are passive or barely on. Alone, ...
-
News
Arming from the inside
CHALLENGING WEIGHT and cost goals have been met by the F-22's armament-system design team while ensuring that the aircraft ultimately will be able to perform missions other than air superiority. The first of those extra missions, near-precision strike using the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), already has been added to ...
-
News
Testing for combat
DEMONSTRATING THAT he F-22 is at least twice as effective in combat as the F-15, as required by contract, will require a combination of wargaming, simulation and flight testing. Computer modelling is being used to develop a statistical basis for the comparison, with almost 1 million simulated engagements already ...
-
News
Ten years after Lavi
Ovadia Harari has come a considerable distance in the decade since the Israeli Government dumped the Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI)Lavi fighter project. Then project manager on the Lavi, Harari is now general manager of IAI's military aircraft group. Both Harari and IAIhave moved on since the decision was ...
-
News
Fishbed facelift
A familiar, delta-winged dart descends to a smooth landing at Aerostar's Bacau base, with the Carpathian mountains forming a hazy backdrop to this once improbable scene. It would have been unthinkable as recently as seven years ago that a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (NATO code-name "Fishbed") - the most widely-used fighter the ...
-
News
European commissions
European Aviation Air Charter (EAA) is one of the UK's youngest airlines, but it already employs more than 200 people and boasts a fleet of 15 100-seat aircraft. It has established European Joint Aviation Requirements (JAR)-145 approval for its maintenance operation, and, more recently, a pilot-training centre at its Bournemouth ...
-
News
Back from the brink
AN AIRFORCE is rarely satisfied with its allotted budget, and many military air wings have fine-tuned the art of pleading poverty into a way of lobbying for extra cash. The Philippine Air Force, however, has been forced to endure more hardships than most. Years of financial neglect have been compounded ...
-
News
BAe and Cubic Defence team up with Georgia Tech for RAAF contract bid
British Aerospace Australia is to team with Cubic Defence Systems of San Diego, California, and US electronic-warfare specialist Georgia Tech Research Institute of Atlanta, to bid for an A$90 million ($72 million) Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) contract for the provision and through-life support of an air-combat training system (Project ...
-
News
USNavy may advance Common Support Aircraft programme
THEUSNAVY is evaluating industry responses to a request for information on whether a new Common Support Aircraft (CSA) could be developed with the funds it would otherwise spend extending the service lives of the Northrop Grumman E-2 and Lockheed S-3. Industry was asked what type of aircraft could ...
-
News
China considers Rafale/M88
France and China are in discussions over the possibility of the Chinese air force acquiring the Dassault Rafale next-generation fighter aircraft. Chinese officials, including senior procurement officers, initially visited Dassault in 1996, while, more recently, French representatives, including those from Rafale engine manufacturer Snecma, have spent a considerable ...
-
News
MIGMAPO reveals light fighter project
MIG MAPO has begun work on a new fifth-generation fighter design in the wake of the collapse of its 1.42 fighter project for the Russian air force. The project, the Lightweight Multi-function Fighter (LFI), was revealed by MiG MAPO director of strategic planning Alexander Ageyev. He describes it ...
-
News
Rising star
In the byzantine world of the Russian aerospace industry, perhaps nothing should come as a surprise.The emergence, however, of Alexei Fedorov as Sukhoi's general director was an unexpected triumph for the boss of the Irkutsk Aviation Industrial Association. Fedorov's ascension has come at the expense of Mikhail Simonov, ...
-
News
Hawkeye shows the way to procurement savings
THE US NAVY'S E-2C Hawkeye airborne-early-warning (AEW) aircraft is being singled out by Paul Kaminski, the US Defense Department's acquisition chief, as a model for Pentagon acquisition reform. He says that application of new procurement practices will yield "billions of dollars in savings", including an estimated $375 million ...