Aerospace & Defense Roundup: Mar. 09

Four bidders have made offers to take over Italian group Piaggio Aerospace. The unnamed suitors are proposing to purchase the two companies— Piaggio Aviation and Piaggio Aero Industries—which form Villanova d’Albenga-based Piaggio Aerospace. Credit: Piaggio Aero Industries

Rolls-Royce has been selected to provide the electrical propulsion system for Vertical Aerospace’s gull-wing VA-X4 urban air mobility aircraft. The debut deal for Rolls-Royce in the UAM market, announced March 9, will see the engine manufacturer design the propulsion system architecture and provide eight 100kW-class lift and push propulsion systems per aircraft along with power distribution and monitoring systems. Credit: Rolls-Royce

Sierra Nevada will deliver two Scorpion aircraft to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency to serve as Multi-Role Enforcement Aircraft (MEA) under a $48.3 million contract announced on March 9. The MEA are based on the Beechcraft King Air 350/360 series, with a mission suite that includes active and passive sensors, and satellite communications. Credit: Sierra Nevada

Belgium is halting operations with its F-16 fleet to undertake urgent modifications to its engines. Inspection of an engine involved in a Feb. 11 incident in which an F-16 encountered engine problems on takeoff from Florennes Air Base found that engine components had experienced a process described as “nozzle burn,” in which a fracture in a component caused it to melt and become loose inside the engine. Credit: USAF

Startup Jump Aero is to study the use of an electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicle to calibrate navigation aids, as an alternative to a costly fixed-wing platform. The research contract was awarded by the U.S. Air Force’s Agility Prime program to help accelerate the commercial advanced air mobility market. Credit: U.S. Air Force

A DARPA program grew a landing pad for the Bell Boeing V-22 made of “engineered living materials” (ELM) to reduce brownout conditions on landing, the agency’s director said on March 9. The ELM program chose the V-22’s brownout problem as an early test case for the complex, multicellular organisms that can “grow on-site, self-repair and respond predictably to their environment,” said Peter Highnam, speaking to the National Defense Industry Association’s Pacific Operational Science & Technology Conference. Credit: DARPA