Some 34 years after its first flight, South Africa's Denel Rooivalk attack helicopter had its first combat deployment during late October. Observers have noticed at least two of the aircraft being prepared for their move to the Democratic Republic of Congo at Denel's OR Tambo International Airport facility.
ALL BETS OFF: As the Pentagon continues forming its budget plans for fiscal 2015, it is preparing for the possibility of a second round of automatic budget cuts mandated by Congress, according to the Defense Department’s top budget official, Robert Hale. That’s a far cry from a year ago, before the first round of budget cuts known as sequestration had taken hold, when Hale bet Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a bottle of scotch that the cuts would never be realized.
AgustaWestland is in the process of certifying a new Lidar-based Obstacle Detection System for use on its AW139 medium twin-engined helicopter. The Obstacle Proximity Lidar System (OPLS) uses Light Detection and Ranging (Lidar) sensors to warn the pilot both aurally and visually of obstacles in the vicinity of the blades of the helicopter acting like parking sensors on an automobile.
Much of the U.S. defense community “has lost sight of reality” as to what stealth means, a Raytheon executive told a high-level conference on combat aircraft in London Nov. 13. In a presentation to the Defense IQ International Fighter Conference, Michael Garcia, the company’s senior business development manager for active, electronically scanned array radars, suggested that longer-range sensors and weapons should be part of stealth, rather than placing near-complete reliance on reduced radar cross section (RCS).
A full-scale 757 tail, equipped with active flow control, has demonstrated increased rudder effectiveness in wind-tunnel tests by Boeing and NASA that could lead to smaller, lower-drag vertical tails. The four weeks of tests in the National Full-Scale Aerodynamic Facility at NASA Ames Research Center, Calif., evaluated the use of active flow control (AFC) to increase rudder sideforce on demand by delaying airflow separation over the deflected control surface.
Lockheed Martin is closing and consolidating several U.S. facilities and laying off 4,000 employees in what the company calls an effort “to increase the efficiency of its operations and improve the affordability of its products and services” in light of continued reductions in U.S. government spending. The cuts will leave the company with 112,000 employees. The company’s workforce has been reduced 23% since 2008, when it employed 146,000.
BEIJING — South Korea plans to introduce more than 20 former U.S. Navy S-3 Vikings into service in 2018-20 as second-tier maritime patrollers, apparently in response to the loss of a warship to a North Korean submarine attack three years ago.
LONDON — A senior F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program manager told a London conference Nov. 13 that he was “cautiously optimistic” the project would get better grades in the next report of the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, due early next year. However, he added that on-time delivery of the Block 3F software — which meets the requirements set at the start of the program -— was still dependent on how well the program performs on the interim 2B and 3I packages.
A full-scale 757 tail, equipped with active flow control, has demonstrated increased rudder effectiveness in wind-tunnel tests by Boeing and NASA that could lead to smaller, lower-drag vertical tails. The four weeks of tests in the National Full-Scale Aerodynamic Facility at NASA Ames Research Center, Calif., evaluated the use of active flow control (AFC) to increase rudder sideforce on demand by delaying airflow separation over the deflected control surface.
NEW DELHI — The Indian air force (IAF) lost another MiG-29 last week when the fighter crashed shortly after takeoff on a routine training sortie, a defense ministry official says. The pilot ejected safely. The aircraft took off from Jamnagar airbase in western India on Nov. 8 and crashed in fields near a village on the Gulf of Kutch coast. Since April 2007 the IAF has lost 35 MiG fighter aircraft in accidents. Technical defects and human error were the two main causes, the official says.
SANAAN, Yemen — The September deliveries of three U.S.-purchased tactical transport aircraft to Yemen’s capital of Sanaa, coupled with announcements of a newly tendered squadron of light observation planes, marked the culmination of the Obama administration’s push to help the Yemeni air force (YAF) take ownership of an al Qaeda fight that has become synonymous with American UAV technology.
Piaggio investors TATA Group and Mubadala Development Company have increased their shares in the Italian airframer, a move that will hike the equity in the company by €190 million ($256 million) and narrow the Ferrari stake to just 2%. The investment provides capital to further Piaggio’s development of the P.1HH HammerHead and the MPA Multirole Patrol Aircraft.
If congressionally mandated budget cuts continue as planned for the course of the decade, the U.S. Air Force will have to cut nearly half of its planned modernization programs, the Air Force chief of staff told reporters Nov. 13. Gen. Mark Welsh has outlined his top priorities for modernization: the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Long Range Strike Bomber and the KC-46 tanker and its successor. He has also identified a number of other programs that are high priorities, including Joint STARS and the T-38 trainer replacement.
SPEED LIMITS: U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh is disavowing any knowledge of Lockheed Martin’s hypersonic concept, the SR-72, recently revealed by Aviation Week (Aerospace DAILY, Nov. 4). “I don’t know anything about the SR-72,” Welsh said about the potential Mach 6 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and strike platform. “I saw an article about it.
CASCINA COSTA, Italy — AgustaWestland is planning to begin certification flights for its AW609 commercial tiltrotor in early 2014. The company is closing in on the end of envelope exploration trials using the first and second prototypes of the aircraft. The first is based in Arlington, Texas, and the second at Cascina Costa, AgustaWestland’s main test facility near Milan.
OSPREYS IN ACTION: In response to Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, the Pentagon is focusing its relief efforts on airborne and maritime search and rescue, medium-heavy helicopter lift support and logistics. The response effort includes requests for the use of Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey tiltrotors and KC-130 cargo aircraft. The USS George Washington is bringing Carrier Air Wing Five to assist with recovery efforts following the disaster, which affected more than 4 million people. The wing brings with it 80 aircraft, including the MH-60 Seahawk.
LONDON — The first RC-135W Rivet Joint intelligence-gathering aircraft for the U.K. Royal Air Force (RAF) has been delivered to its main operating base at RAF Waddington.
Unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) offer a lot of yet-untapped potential for U.S. Navy missions, especially when stacked up against other unmanned systems, a recent Rand report says. “Over the past two decades, the military roles and contributions of unmanned vehicles have grown dramatically, and this trend appears likely to continue,” Rand says in a report released earlier this month.
BEIJING — Avic Engine, well into development of a technically conservative high-bypass turbofan, is pushing to replace affiliate ACAE as the supplier of a Chinese engine for the Comac C919 airliner. In doing so, Avic Engine, the main propulsion subsidiary of state aeronautics group Avic, is offering a more dependable and realistic way for China to accumulate early experience in developing and building commercial aircraft engines.
The U.S. Navy has developed a safer and more efficient way to build bombs at sea, service officials say. In an effort to stem work-related injuries and speed the assembly of munitions aboard aircraft carriers, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) has helped develop a more “ergonomic” way to build bombs on the ships. The ONR-sponsored improvements will allow sailors to move around more freely and assemble multiple bombs simultaneously on smaller, individual stands, Navy officials say.
