Liberty Aircraft plc has introduced the Liberty XL-2, a certified, two-seat, side-by-side, tricycle-gear aircraft. The single engined XL-2 has a 48-in.-wide cockpit, a 600-lb. payload, a cruise speed of approximately 120 kt. and a range of 500 nm. plus. Certification of the XL-2 will initially be to the JAR-VLA requirements and will be completed by the end of 2000. FAA certification is expected shortly afterwards. The launch price is estimated at $85,000, and Liberty began taking orders on July 1. U.S. operations will be handled by Liberty's Florida office.
Ulyanovsk-based Aviastar aircraft production plant has begun delivering newly built An-124-100 ``Ruslan'' heavy cargo transports, featuring service life extension modifications, to Russian cargo carrier Volga-Dnepr.
The first 12 months of operations for discount carriers Skymark Airlines and Hokkaido International Airlines (Air Do) helped to lift Japanese domestic traffic to more than 91 million passengers for the first time last year. The Tokyo-Sapporo and Tokyo-Fukuoka routes were the busiest city pairs, with Tokyo-Osaka, Tokyo-Hiroshima, and Osaka-Fukuoka rounding out the top five destinations.
The libertarian Cato Institute has a novel take on national missile defense: promoters and scoffers are both wrong. In a new policy analysis, the think tank accuses NMD fans of inflating the ballistic missile threat in pursuit of a global defense, when a limited system would do. ``Advocates of NMD often paint a `doom-and-gloom' picture of the threat,'' the Cato analysis charges, unnecessarily including Russia and China as nuclear powers that NMD would have to be capable of neutralizing.
In the worst fire season since 1994, with no letup in sight, more than 230 helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft are assisting firefighters battling hundreds of U.S. wildfires.
Cermaseal introduced a ceramic-to-metal RF feedthrough that reduces power loss due to electromagnetic coupling. It is designed to operate without complex cooling jackets at the conductor insulator interface. The location of the mounting flange has been moved far enough away from the center conductor to eliminate electromagnetic coupling. The new feedthroughs have a frequency range of 100 kHz-13.56 MHz. and a temperature range of -55 to 350C. They handle currents up to 800 amps and voltages up to 10 kv.
The loss of the nuclear-powered Kursk should be a wake-up call to the West to buttress Russia's precarious hold on scores of decommissioned nuclear subs that are part of a mammoth stockpile of fissile material, security experts warn. Russian assertions that there were no nuclear weapons on board the Kursk are considered credible by U.S. nuclear specialists, although opinion overseas is divided. But they say the advanced submarine's two nuclear reactors present a contamination threat if they are left abandoned on the floor of the Barents Sea in the Arctic.
Qantas has been named as the preferred tenderer for the procurement of two Boeing Business Jets and three Bombardier Challenger 604s for the Australian government's executive jet fleet. The first aircraft are to enter service in 2002 and replace two Boeing 707s and five Falcon 900As.
European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. Airbus Div.'s Toulouse, France, production facilities (formerly known as Aerospatiale Matra Airbus) have begun assembling the first stretched-fuselage A340-600 long-range transport. The 380-seat aircraft is scheduled to fly in April 2001 and to enter service in March 2002.
Lynn Carlson of Northfield, Minn., has been elected president of the Washington-based National Agricultural Aviation Assn. Other officers for the coming year are: vice president, Terry Sharp of Indianola, La,; secretary, Roger Saffer of Eads, Colo.; and treasurer, Dale Faust of Casselton, N.D.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Frontier Systems are gearing-up for flight testing of a new, unmanned helicopter built to fly much longer and farther than conventional rotorcraft.
A secret National Reconnaissance Office/Lockheed Martin Lacrosse type imaging radar spacecraft was launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., late Aug. 17 on board a USAF Lockheed Martin Titan IVB heavy booster. The total cost of the spacecraft and booster exceeds $1 billion. The 15-ton satellite eventually will be maneuvered into a 425-mi. orbit inclined 68 deg. The night/all-weather imaging spacecraft is the fourth launched since the first Lacrosse was lofted by the space shuttle in 1988. That spacecraft was deorbited in 1997.
Intermec and Robotic Vision Systems have entered into a strategic alliance to help industry comply with new Air Transport Assn. and Defense Dept. requirements for permanent bar code identification of line-replaceable and life-limited aircraft parts. Specifically, Everett, Wash.-based Intermec will provide scanners, printers and wireless-network hardware while RVSI, headquartered in Canton, Mass., will supply handheld and fixed-mount imagers.
While on the subject of no-frills transports, Kirchner said major aircraft manufacturers should take a lesson from the auto industry and establish highly efficient production lines. Aircraft are still manufactured using the same organization as they did during World War II, with piles of parts in stock, Kirchner said. Cockpits should be of one type, prebuilt, and ``slide'' into aircraft rather than customized units assembled completely in-place. Only a handful of aircraft options should be offered with any additional work performed at a customized outfitter.
The USN 60 portable ultrasonic flaw detector with high-resolution (640 X 480 pixels) color LCD display and 60-Hz. update rate extends the performance and range of applications of a portable instrument. It weighs 6.6 lb. (with batteries) and is based on the USN 50/52 series. Six ``D'' batteries provide up to 6 hr. of use, while an AC adapter allows continuous bench-top use. Two independent gates with real-time TTL and analog outputs, up to a 6000-Hz. pulse repetition frequency and Smart View selection, allow a wide range of applications.
Non-destructive testing is accomplished through Airscan, an air-coupled, ultrasonic inspection method that eliminates contamination of sensitive materials during testing. The company-developed method is one of several inspection methods they offer. Others include eddy current testing with emphasis on low-conductivity materials, and eddy current probe design and fabrication as well as ultrasonic testing using air-coupled, dry-coupled, water-immersion, water-squirt and contact techniques.
CIA translators monitoring online publications in Taiwan spotted reports that the first batch from a total of 40 Su-30MKK ground attack aircraft took off from Russia on their way to China. However, the reports only say that a single SU-30 ``with the sign of the Chinese People's Liberation Army painted on it took off from Volgograd.'' The Aug. 11 report went on to say, ``It will be one of the Russia-made fighter planes delivered to the Chinese military.'' Conflicting reports from Western specialists have predicted delivery to begin any time from this year through 2002.
Fuel systems in large Transport Category jet aircraft used by the world's airlines are safe, according to a three-year study that included design reviews and inspections of 990 airplanes built by seven different manufacturers and flown by 160 operators on six continents. The airline industry's Aircraft Fuel Systems Safety Program, which began voluntarily after the loss of TWA Flight 800 in July 1997, found that improvements can be made to maintenance of bonding jumpers, and inspection of fuel quantity systems, pumps and associated wiring.
A POLYMER-BASED LIQUID CRYSTAL MATERIAL that forms holograms, which can be switched on and off by applying an electrical current, is being commercialized by Science Applications International Corp. Among the potential uses are very compact, low-power holographic displays and solid-state filters for business projectors that encapsulate the power of multiple lenses or filters within a slim component. A team of scientists from SAIC and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory working to detect laser beams developed the material.
Michael Lennon has been promoted to vice president-electro-optical and infrared targeting programs from director of radio-frequency electronic warfare programs for Northrop Grumman Electronic Sensors and Systems, Rolling Meadows, Ill.
The busiest site on the intranet linking employees of Delta Air Lines is the one dedicated to travel. Delta employees may review the airline's flight schedule and list themselves for a flight. It's one of the great benefits of working for the airlines. Travel is virtually free ``as long as there is room,'' said Kip Smith, manager of intranet and Internet for the carrier.
Terry Krivak (see photo) has been promoted to vice president-K-12 education from executive director of the Smart consortium and George Ziga to vice president-collaborative research from program manager for research at the Ohio Aerospace Institute in Cleveland.
A new device being developed by Eaton Corp. could protect electrical wiring from arcing, which is more likely to occur with aging aircraft. Although circuit breakers protect aircraft wiring against thermal damage from current overloads, they do not detect arcing, which can start fires without tripping the breakers.
