LONDON — The U.K. arm of European charter airline Thomas Cook is set to lease a demilitarized Airbus A330 tanker from the AirTanker consortium. AirTanker, which owns and operates the A330 Voyager Multi-Role Tanker Transports (MRTTs) for the U.K. Royal Air Force, has signed a letter of intent with Thomas Cook for an initial three-year leasing deal that will involve at least one of the consortium’s A330s having its military equipment removed and a new interior installed to support Thomas Cook’s growing long-haul network.
Engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center are in the final stages of preparation for a series of liquid-hydrogen fill and loads tests with a 5.5-meter diameter composite cryogenic fuel tank that may help save production cost and increase performance on future launch vehicles, including NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS).
With nearly 100 hr. of flight testing under its belt, the Scorpion demonstrator will make a seven-stop trip to the U.K. in preparation for its international debut at the Royal International Air Tattoo and Farnborough, both outside London next month.
Blowing a hole in the U.S. Air Force’s budget plans, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that was amended to block the service’s request to retire the A-10 Thunderbolt II.