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Aviation History
1992
1992 - 0575.PDF
HEADLINES that number will be sold by the end of the decade. Further complicating the issue is the question of Airbus Indus trie's forthcoming launch of the 130-seat A319. While this is seen as complementary to other Airbus offerings, and not com peting with the regional jets, its launch will be dependent on the availability of sufficient funds from the partner companies. The German Government is already being pressed to help fund the Regioliner programme and its associated engines. The two engine consortia vying for German funding — MTU with Pratt & Whitney and BMW with Rolls-Royce — have already begun exploratory talks on a tie-up of their new programmes. Airbus says it will fund A319 development internally, but Ger many wants final assembly, for which it would have to pay. A DASA decision in favour of Fokker would be good news for UK aero-engine builder R-R, which has its Tay engine on the Fokker 70 and 100 programmes. A DASA decision to follow the Fokker edict and abandon the Regioliner agreement would leave Aerospatiale and Alenia without a regional-jet pro gramme, and end the co operative marketing agreement between the three companies covering their turboprop and jet aircraft. • See Business P 20 Pre 1960 1960s 1970s n_ T3~" Caspian Sea Monster Prototype and FSD Russian vehicles FT |Orlan (Orlyonok) 1980s Utka Bartini II 1990s Numerous small scale vehicles (including Panchenkov's ADP series, Eska, Volga-2, Moscow Aviation Institute Craft) Theoretical and experimental Russian work Ekranoplan development USA joins Russia on Wingship BY MIKE GAINES The USA and Russia are to co-operate on the develop ment of 5,000t-class wing-in- ground-effect (WIGE) cargo vehicles based on Russian Ekranoplan technology (Flight International, 15-21 January). Aerocon, a Virginia-based company funded by the US De- Hughes protests Northwest choice Hughes Aircraft has lodged a protest with Northwest Air lines after the US carrier short listed rivals GEC Avionics, Rockwell-Collins and Sextant Avionique to develop a head-up guidance system (HGS) for its Boeing 747-200s and McDonnell Douglas DC-lOs. The Hughes protest follows its $14.5 million acquisition of leading HGS manufacturer Flight Dynamics. The move strengthens Hughes' efforts to develop an autonomous landing guidance system, the company's first venture into commercial avionics, but it failed neverthe less to make the Northwest shortlist. Pricing may have been a factor, competitiors suggest. The shortlisted manufacturers will participate in a five-month simulator evaluation pro gramme, says Dwayne Edelman, Northwest's manager, flight operations-, development tech nology programmes. The most promising candidate system will be flight-tested and, if success ful, will be retrofitted to North west's 747s and DC-lOs, he says. Evaluation and certification will take 24 months. Northwest's request for pro posals called for a head-up dis play with the capability to present infra-red or radar run way images, allowing takeoffs and landings in low visibility. Initial certification will be for the head-up guidance system only, Edelman says, with growth to an enhanced vision system combining sensor and display coming later. • fense Advanced Research Pro jects Agency to explore the use of WIGEs for military applica tions, visited Ekranoplan experts at the Panchenkov and Alekseyev design consortia in January. Both Russian concerns have signed co-operation proto cols with Aerocon. The Alekseyev team, responsi ble for the huge "Caspian Sea Monster" of the early 1970s and the later Orlyonok series — both of which have flown — has designs better suited to a sea going craft, says Aerocon presi dent, Steve Hooker, while the Panchenkov designs, named after early Ekranoplan re searcher Bartini, appear better suited to a trans-tundra concept. A number of the Alekseyev de signers are to visit the USA soon. The present plan is to set up a new group called the Ameri can-Russian Wingship Engineer ing and Manufacturing Research Centre, sharing bases at Hampton, Virginia and Niizhniy-Novgorod. Hooker says: "We aim to bring Russian scientists ]• to Hampton and begin a trans- engineering process. We need to translate their concepts into-en- gineering and then into the American engineering conven tion. We will pay the Russians for hardware used in testing. We are talking to Lockheed and General Dynamics on structures and Pratt & Whitney and Gen eral Electric on engines." "We think that the 5,000t class is possible, using smart structures. We believe that the Achilles heel would be materials and their joins and fasteners." The proposed 5,000t military Wingship, powered by 20 large turbofans, would have a l,500t payload. The cost of develop ment is estimated at $15 billion and unit cost is $400 million. The USA is studying Ekrano- plans, which it calls Wingships, for the US Navy's Military Sealift Command as a troop/cargo trans port, able to install and support a task force. Russian interest is in a cross-tundra transport. • NEWS IN BRIEF NEW 146 ORDER UK carrier Dan-Air has traded its two leased BAe 146-100s against two -300s for delivery in mid-1992. It has agreed to replace the -300s, and also two already in service, with four new Category IIIA land ing-system-equipped -300s which will be available next year. It has taken options on two further such aircraft. FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 11 - 17 March, 1992 b
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