Commercial Aircraft Sales

The two six year programmes are worth about $A135m and are being funded jointly by the British Ministry of Defence and Rolls-Royce. They will be carried out at the company’s military engine facility at Bristol. The first programme, the High Temperature Demonstrator Unit Phase 5 (HTDU5) will look into ways of applying advanced technologies to combustors and high pressure turbines for use in a wide range of potential future engines.

The second programme is called NTAT- Near Term Advanced Core Military Engine Technology – and will focus on the demonstration of advanced compression systems, low pressure turbines, reheat systems and nozzles. Rolls-Royce says the programmes are relevant to future military engine applications but will also have substantial spinoff for civil engine developments.

The programmes are intended to find a 50% reduction in engine mass, a 30% cut in fuel burn, 30% lower manufacturing costs and 25% lower life cycle costs through improved durability compared with today’s combat engine technology.

Fokker 60 Ready for Launching:

Fokker is reported to be preparing to launch a stretched version of its Fokker 50 regional the Fokker 60-by the end of the year.

Both civil and military versions of the Fokker 60 are planned, which will seat 60 passengers in standard arrangement and up to 68 in the high density configuration. Compared with the Fokker 50, it will feature a fuselage stretch of 162m allowing two more seat rows, an increase in maximum weight from 19,550kg to 21,950kg and more powerful 2750shp PW127B turboprop engines.

The military version of the Fokker 60 will have a strengthened floor and a large cargo door on the starboard side of the fuselage.

Play Santa Claus This Christmas.

Christmas is on the horizon and you don’t know what to get that special aviation minded person in your life? Well, how about a gift that keeps on giving throughout the year – that’s right, a magazine subscription to AA. This way, everytime an issue is received that special person in your life will think of you. Not such a bad idea and one that saves money also as it is substantially cheaper to get AA by subscription than by buying it over the counter.

The one year rate is $49. 00 (you save $10. 00). Use the coupon from p19 of this issue or send your remittance to Australian Aviation, PO Box 3105, Weston Creek, ACT 2611. You can also fax in your order using either Bankcard, Mastercard, Amex or Visa on (06) 288 2021.

Melbourne based National Valve and Engineering (NE) is exporting three specially developed aircraft refueling trucks to mainland China. The 20m long truck and trailer units have a 50,000 tre capacity, with a delivery rate of 2500 per minute. Destined for Being and Guangzhou airports, the trucks are basedon a specially modified left hand drive International chassis, with custom-made fuel tanks. Earlier in the year NVE, a division of Email Electronics, supplied two hydrantrefueling trucks to Shenzen airport, the company viewing China and Asia in general as areas of significant export potential. Well done NVE The Royal Netherlands Air Force plans to acquire four Fokker 60s. So far 182 Fokker 50s have been sold, with about 160 delivered.

The Good Old Days:

Boeing president Dean Thornton summed up the “modern’ world nicely during his speech at the rollout of the 1000th 747 recently: “It couldn’t be done today in the time it took us to do it then just 45 months from start to finish. We couldn’t get a building permit in 45 months today!” Amen to that. • DURABLE F28: The Fokker F28 twinjet transport has had its service life extended to 100,000 flight cycles, a 67% increase on the manufacturer’s original guarantee of 60,000 cycles when the aircraft first entered service in 1969.

The F28’s service life was increased to 90,000 cycles in 1982 following a structural integrity audit programme and to go beyond that point, Fokker will examine the past maintenance and operational histories of individual airframes. The fleet leader F28 has accumulated 89,600 cycles since 1969.