iscover
The Hugely Expensive Mcdonnell Douglas C-17 Becomes Airborne At The Recent Paris Airshow. In The Ever Competitive Race To Assign Their Steed With A Better And Catchier Warcry Than The Competition, The Mdc Pr People Came Up With The Obvious Benefits Of Drive-On-Drive-Off For Their Wonderplane. Industry Wags Tell Us That It Took About A Quarter Hour For The Competition To Shorten This To The Acronym Of Dodo. Needless To Say Mdc Soon Dropped The Idea! (paul Merritt)
Newsdesk Military Aviation
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Asta Sold
The sale of Aerospace Technologies of Australia (ASTA) has been completed, Rockwell Systems Australia Pty Ltd (RSA) having purchased all of the Government’s shares for $40m. RSA has developed a business plan for ASTA that will involve the transfer of approximately $130m worth of additional aero component work to ASTA over the next seven to 10 years. As the first step towards achieving this aim, RSA has made a formal commitment to transfer additional work to ASTA valued at about $50m in the coming year. RSA has also committed additional expenditure of $14m on research and development and on equipment and building modifications. Excluded from the RSA deal are Avalon Airport (now owned by the Government via a new holding company, Avalon Airport Geelong Pty Ltd), ASTA Aircraft Services and ASTA’s interest in New Zealand’s Pacific Aerospace Corporation which itself is for sale (refer NZ News). Avalon will continue to operate and the other two businesses are subject to “separate strategies”. Avalon Airport Geelong (AAG) will now take over the operation of ASTA Aircraft Services which employs around 450 of the total 1250 ASTA workforce. It is expected that there will be further retrenchments, particularly if more heavy maintenance work cannot be won for the ailing ASTAAS which has seen lean times in recent years due to recession and increasing competition from existing and new heavy maintenance facilities in the northern hemisphere. In other Government sell-off news, it has now been decided that Australian Defence Industries (ADI) will not now be privatised. The company is expected to return to profit by 1997.
Crash Data Recorders For Raaf Aircraft
The RAAF is to fit crash data recorders (CDRs) to all its aircraft over the next five years in a programme which will make the investigation of accidents more efficient. The CDR suites will comprise flight data recorders (FDR), cockpit voice recorders (CVR) and crash position indicators (CPI), the latter is essentially an ELT and activates automatically in an accident and helps rescuers to quickly locate the aircraft. At the moment only the RAAF’s Boeing 707 and Falcon 900 aircraft have CDR equipment installed. McDonnell Douglas has now assembled the major sections of the first F/A-18E/F. The first of the new mode Hornets is due to fly for the first time in December, and the programme is on time and on budget. MDC is using a computer controlled Nicholson laser guided alignment system to achieve near perfect alignment of the fuselage sections, a first for a US tactical fighter. The remaining existing fleet will be retrofitted and new acquisitions will have the equipment installed at delivery. Not all aircraft will have the full suite installed. Non-combat types such as the PC-9, MB-326 and transports will have CVRs and CPIs only, while the F/A-18 Hornet, F-111 and P-3 Orion fleets are to be fitted with all three.
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