LONDON — The U.K.’s Joint Helicopter Command is considering basing options for its enlarged fleet of Boeing CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters. The Royal Air Force’s 46-strong fleet of Chinooks is currently based at RAF Odiham, Hampshire, but the air arm will soon be taking delivery of an extra 14 Chinooks in the Mk. 6 configuration currently being built by Boeing in Philadelphia. But the base at Odiham does not currently have the facilities to cater for 60 Chinooks, so commanders are exploring alternative options.
In observance of the U.S. Labor Day holiday, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report will not publish an issue on Sept. 3. Subscribers to the Aviation Week Intelligence Network can visit www.aviationweek.com/awin for continuous updates.
The Pentagon has added $12 million to its 2014 spending plans to equip its Boeing 737-based C-40s with a fuel-tank inerting system, the same upgrade mandated for U.S. operators of Boeing commercial aircraft. The 2013 spending plan anticipated spending about $1 million more than fiscal 2014-17 for various required modifications. In the fiscal 2014 request, the figure jumped $6.1 million for 2014 and another $6 million for the outyear estimates through fiscal 2017.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) sept. 9 - 11 — Aviation Week NextGen Ahead: Air Transportation Modernization Conference, "Re-Defining NextGen," The Dupont Circle Hotel, Washington, D.C. For more information go to www.aviationweek.com/events
COPEHILL DOWN, U.K. — The U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) is rapidly building up its fleet of modernized CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters upgraded through the £290 million ($450 million) Project Julius program. Sixteen of the RAF’s 38 Chinook Mk. 2 helicopters have now been updated to the Mk. 4 standard and the first aircraft will shortly be deployed to join the U.K.’s Joint Helicopter Force operating from Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. Several Mk. 4s are already in-theater, having arrived in December 2012 to support special forces operations.
LONDON — U.K. air crash investigators have salvaged the voice and flight data recorder from a CHC-operated Eurocopter AS332L2 Super Puma that crashed near the Shetland Islands on Aug. 23. Investigators have been using sonar to try to locate the recorder, housed in the tail boom section of the aircraft, which crashed on approach to Sumburgh airport while returning from the drilling platform Borgsten Dolphin on behalf of oil company Total.
NEW DELHI — India expects to make another attempt to launch the GSAT-14 communications satellite aboard its Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) in December, a senior space scientist says. Plans to loft GSLV-D5 were scrubbed on Aug. 19 just hours before the scheduled liftoff from the launch pad in south India, due to a fuel leak in the second stage of the rocket engine.
Despite a call for budget cuts, the U.S. intelligence community’s budget for fiscal 2013 was $52.6 billion, and placed a high priority on certain major acquisition programs. That classified request to Congress was a reduction of $1.3 billion from the previous year, a start toward saving $15 billion by 2017 and $25 billion over the decade, according to a report by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper that was leaked to the Washington Post by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
New findings from India’s 2008-09 Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter mission point to an internal source of water on the Moon detected in magmatic deposits at an equatorial crater peak, according to NASA-funded research led by scientists from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
BEIJING — China’s lunar exploration program will meet its long-standing target to launch the Chang’e 3 sample-return mission this year, but only just, according to a statement from a government authority with oversight of space activities. The mission will go ahead at the end of the year, says the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.
WILMINGTON, Del. — Boeing will begin assembly of the first new-build MH-47G later this month, as it works to finalize a contract for another seven new-airframe Chinooks to augment the U.S. Army’s fleet of special-operations helicopters. All eight new-production MH-47Gs, based on the regular Army’s CH-47F heavy-lift helicopter, are scheduled to be delivered in 2015. The Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation regiment already operates 61 MH-47Gs remanufactured from CH-47As and Ds.
CARRIER OVERHAUL: The USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) completed its Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH) this week. The Roosevelt began its RCOH on Aug. 26, 2009. The ship returned to the fleet after four days of sea trials. More than 24 million man hours of work were conducted during the RCOH, including refueling the reactors, upgrading ship’s infrastructure and modernizing combat systems and air wing capabilities. The RCOH will enable the ship to carry out the remaining 23 years of its 50-year service life.
WILMINGTON, Del. — Boeing is projecting that production of the CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopter will continue—and potentially increase—beyond 2020 as international sales build on another round of remanufacturing for the U.S. Army. Production of CH-47Fs for the Army is scheduled to end in 2019, but deliveries of the upgraded Block 2 aircraft are planned to begin in 2020. The Army is expected to upgrade all of its Chinooks to Block 2 standard to restore lift and range capability lost to weight growth.
Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) has completed the first flight of the country’s first indigenously produced turboprop trainer. The Hurkus, named after celebrated Turkish aviator Vecihi Hurkus, took to the air from the TAI facility at Akinci airbase near Ankara on Aug. 29. The aircraft, in the hands of TAI test pilot Murat Özpala, made a 33-min. flight that saw the Hurkus climb to 9,500 ft. and conduct tests of the flight control surfaces.
While the U.S. mulls the future of its nuclear deterrent and the role its naval forces will play in that realm, the continued development of nuclear-armed submarines by India — and potentially additional countries on the other side of the globe — is threatening nuclear stability in the region, a U.S. Naval War College paper says.
NEW DELHI — India will induct its heaviest aircraft, the Boeing C-17, into military service next month, giving a major boost to the country’s airlift. The aircraft wil enter service with the Indian air force (IAF) on Sept. 12 at Hindon air base near New Delhi, a senior defense ministry official says. India signed a $4.1 billion foreign military sales contract with Boeing in 2011 to acquire 10 aircraft, making the country the largest C-17 export customer. The contract was finalized last June.
F-35 ENGINES: The U.S. Navy has awarded Pratt & Whitney a $69.6 million contract covering long-lead components, parts and materials for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s F135 engine. The contract is associated with low-rate initial production (LRIP) Lot VIII, which includes 19 F135 Conventional Take Off and Landing (CTOL) engines for the Air Force; six Short Take-off and Vertical Landing (Stovl) engines for the Marine Corps; and four Carrier Variant engines for the Navy.
MOSCOW — Newly deployed, very-high-frequency radars can counter most stealth technologies, according to engineers and executives of Russian radar specialist Nizhny-Novgorod Research Institute (NNIIRT). The company brought the newest configuration of its multi-band 55Zh6ME radar complex — designed to support the Almaz-Antey S-400 Triumph surface-to-air missile system — to the MAKS air show at Zhukovsky, outside Moscow. It also used the show to unveil the new 55Zh6UME, a single-unit, dual-band system designed for lower cost.
While some defense analysts have criticized the “small footprint” concept underlying the rebalancing of Pentagon forces to the Asia-Pacific, leaders from U.S. allies in the region seem to embrace the idea.
