S70B for India

India’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has chosen Sikorsky’s S-70B Seahawk over the NH Industries (NHI) NH90 helicopter to fulfill the Indian Navy’s (IN’s) long-pending Multi-Role Helicopter (MRH) programme.

Officials said the NH90 had been excluded from the bidding process because of its commercial links with Italian defence conglomerate Finmeccanica, which the MoD ‘partially banned’ from new tenders in July.

Thanks, I didn’t know F-16 has the fixed trail edge instead of the moving aileron. I guess the single surface acting both as flap and aileron.

When an Aileron is designed to act has a flap as well, the terminology is to call it a “Flaperon“.

When the aileron act as an elevator surface as well such as on a Delta Wing design, the terminology is to call it an “Elevon“

USAF received its 23rd C5M upgraded Super Galaxy

The C-5M modernisation is a combination of the Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) and the Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Programme (RERP) upgrades. The AMP upgrade sees the aircraft equipped with a new mission computer, a digital ‘glass’ cockpit, autopilot and a modern communications, navigation and surveillance suite for air-traffic management. The RERP sees the incumbent General Electric (GE) TF39-GE-1C turbofans replaced with new GE CF6-80C2 commercial engines (military designation F108-GE-100).

This affords the aircraft an additional 22% of thrust, or the equivalent of fitting a fifth engine, giving it a 20% increase in range with a greatly increased payload and improving obstacle clearance capability by three-fold. It also means that the cargo delivery rate for the C-5M is increased by more than 50% over the legacy-variant Galaxies.

The engine’s increased reliability has reduced the aircraft’s in-flight shutdown rates by 20%, while increasing to 20,000 the number of hours it can remain on the wing before being removed for maintenance (this compares to just 2,000 hours for the legacy model aircraft).

Source:
http://www.janes.com/

Another tale of an RPV pilot: a must to read again

What a shame to see those Tornadoes end up like that. I doubt if they all had very high hours clocked up on their airframes, had they? When were they delivered to the Saudi air force?

At least the ADV variant has the right to scrap the ground aswell. And what better ground when you are a Tornado than sands? 😉

Alenia drops India Avro replacement tender

(Hindustan Aeronautics) had issued a request for information (RFI) for a modern fuel efficient engine to replace the existing Rolls Royce Dart engines on 59 HS-748 aircraft currently operational with the Indian air force.

On a more romantic note, every fan would love to see that

Just an example of the kind of catastrophic event a well sized airlifter fleet might help to overcome in a much better way than one closely matching peacetime foreseeable needs only:

Understated role of Air force in the battle against Ebola

Source:
http://i-hls.com/

Is the denting on the skin just aft of the cockpit, new?