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Armed Helicopter Market - New Rotary Realities?


September 2001



The award of the long-running Australian Air 87 competition to the Eurocopter Tiger opens a number of avenues for both the winning company and the armed helicopter market. It is not be going too far to suggest that there is now a very different market for this type of product compared with even five years ago, let alone a decade.
At A$1.3-billion ($670-million) for 22 Tigers, the deal looks good for both sides. The UPC one gets from this figure looks very competitive – looking at a variety of armed helicopter contracts over the past five years, it seems on a like-for-like basis to be slightly less than half the price for a Longbow Apache. But the figures suggest that Eurocopter has not had to enter a (self) cut-throat deal to win the first export customer. Instead, all the signs are that even with licensed assembly in Queensland, it will make money nicely.

At the same time, coming merely scant days after the Loi de Programmation 2003-08, an award for 22 machines at time when the French offtake of Tiger HAPs was cut back by 13 aircraft in the 2003-08 timeframe comes as a welcome breath of oxygen. It is even more vital for sustenance of the Tiger programme as the Australian machines are to be delivered from late 2003-early 2004 for a late 2004 ISD – a good few years before France's own procurement time slot. In effect, Canberra is, almost certainly accidentally, allowing Paris to slip its own programme and to still achieve economies.

As a first export contract, Air 87 is a major boost for Tiger, which had been struggling in the armed helicopter mart. In many markets – especially those such as the Middle East – Tiger had lost out to various AH-64 Apache models. In effect, the Gulf is an Apache fiefdom, what with Kuwait (soon?), Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE all operators. Losses in the Netherlands and UK contests were se…

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Космические технологии - виноделам
5 сентября 2001 г.
Группа специалистов из NASA сейчас занимается интересным применением дистанционного зондирования поверхности Земли. С самолетов и со спутников дистанционно зондируются виноградники Калифорнии. Цель всей этой затеи - повышение качества вина.

С помощью полученных снимков виноградников ученые пытаются определить скорость созревания винограда, распространение болезней растений, дренаж почвы и качество ягод.

Например, во Франции виноград выращивается уже многие сотни лет. За это время был накоплен немалый опыт, но вкус вина до сих пор определяется очень многими параметрами, в том числе наклоном склона, где располагается виноградник, и его ориентация относительно солнца. У калифорнийских виноградарей опыта существенно меньше - здесь выращивают виноград только с середины 60-х годов 20-го века. Поэтому специалисты NASA сейчас и занимаются поиском модели идеального калифорнийского вина.

Е. Волынкина

(по материалам NASA)

Источник: РОЛ

"Прогресс" доставил на МКС коробочку с протеинами

5 сентября 2001 г.

В конце августа на МКС прибыл российский корабль "Прогресс", который доставил на станцию топливо, продукты питания, научное оборудование и другие грузы. Среди них была и небольшая коробочка размером 13х13х8 см. На Земле она весила около килограмма. Это второй европейский научный эксперимент, проводимый на МКС. Его финансирует Европейское космическое агентство (ЕКА). Эксперимент называется Granada Crystal Box Experiment, он предполагает выращивание кристаллов, он был подготовлен учеными из университета Гранады (Искания). Его цель - определить структуру молекул протеина , то есть белка.

В коробочке находятся насыщенные растворы солей и капиллярные трубочки с макромолекулами белка. За время пребывания на станции из этих молекул должны вырасти большие белковые кристаллы. На Земле этому процессу мешает гравитация, а точнее вызываемые ею конвекционные потоки в соляном растворе. Этот эксперимент не отнимет у экипажа МКС ни минуты времени. Коробочка просто тихонько полежит где-нибудь в уголке, к ней не нужно подключать электричества, все должно произойти само собой. Если все пойдет по плану, то 31 октября эта коробочка должна вернуться на Землю. А затем капиллярные трубочки с белками будут исследованы методом рентгеновской кристаллографии, и, возможно, удастся узнать что-то новое о строении белковых молекул - кирпичиков жизни.

Е. Волынкина

(по материалам пресс-релиза ЕКА)

Источник: РОЛ

Hypersonic scramjet projectile flies

30 August 2001

The first-ever successful free flight of a hypersonic projectile powered by a supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) engine burning hydrocarbon fuel took place last month, according to the US' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The projectile is a four-inch diameter, 20-percent scale model of a conceptual missile.

On July 26, GASL Inc fired the scramjet projectile out of a large gun at the US Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Centre in Tennessee. The test is an important step towards the realisation of flight at hypersonic speeds.

The test was the second of two successful launches, the first occurring on June 20. Together, these tests demonstrate that scramjet engines will provide enough thrust to power a free-flying vehicle.

The tests used Arnold's two-stage light gas gun to accelerate the projectile to the flight condition through a 130-foot long gun barrel. The projectile experienced peak acceleration of approximately 10,000 Gs, and was launched from the gun at Mach 7.1.

Arnold's G-Range facility is the only range in the country capable of providing the low-acceleration loads required to launch the projectile. After the titanium projectile was launched, it used its scramjet engine to cover a distance of 260 feet in slightly over 30 milliseconds.

Scramjet engines provide propulsion at speeds above Mach 5 by capturing atmospheric air to burn on-board fuel. These air-breathing engines are more efficient than rocket motors for hypersonic propulsion, and will ultimately allow the possibility of longer duration flight with greater payload.

Applications for such engines include powering long-range hypersonic missiles, gun-launched kinetic energy weapons, and access to space vehicles. In order to operate, scramjet engines must first be travelling at hypersonic speed. An accepted approach to r…

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Second test fire Of RD-191 engine

4 September 2001

Energomash successfully completed the second fire test of the RD-191 engine last week The test duration was 10 seconds. The engine is being developed for use in the first stage of the Angara family of launch vehicles (LV) including the Baikal reusable stage booster.

RD-191 is a Liquid Propellant Rocket Engine consuming LOX and kerosene with after-burning of oxidising gas-generator gas in the main combustion chamber. The engine has been designed based on the engines RD-170 and RD-171developed for the Energia and Zenit LVs respectively. Unlike the four-chamber RD-170 and RD-171, the RD-191 is a single chamber engine. The engine is equipped with a new turbo-pump of less power, one gas generator and a new system of propellant consumption rate control. Regulation of the thrust vector is provided through deflection of the main combustion chamber in two planes.

In March 1999 the engine mockup was delivered to the Khrunichev Space Centre for integration of the interface between the engine and the LV. The engine was demonstrated at the Paris Air Show in 1999 and 2001 and at the MAKS-2001 Air Show in Zhukovsky, mounted on Angara and Baikal LVs.


REF XQQEE XQQSE
DSD

Rosoboronexport looks at Russian opportunities in world markets

4 September 2001

At the Moscow international air and space show in Zhukovsky Andrei Belyaninov, general director of the state company Rosoboronexport, Russia's largest arms exporter, said that the company was now negotiating export contracts worth $6.5 billion. So far this year Rosoboronexport had received $2.8 billion in export revenues against the 2001 target of $3.2 billion. The company's existing contract portfolio now stands at $13.1 billion.

Rosoboronexport says its estimates show that before 2010 the annual global market demand for combat planes will stand at 150 to 200 aircraft, training planes at 80 to 90 and military transport planes at 40. Annual global market for helicopters is estimated at 400 to 500. Rosoboronexport is confident Russian enterprises are capable of winning a considerable share of this market.

Belyaninov pointed to a certain "geographic bias" in the export of Russian military hardware with main buyers being India, China and countries in Southeast Asia. "In the meantime, there are whole continents where we are not present and we have been taking steps to change the situation. Recently we signed a contract with Uruguay on auto vehicle supplies. True, the contract is just over one million dollars but what is more important is that a precedent has been set. This was our first step into the South American market," Belyaninov said.

Commenting on the merger of three Russian state arms exporting companies in November 2000 Belyaninov said most foreign partners welcomed the creation of Rosoboronexport. "Over the past nine months we have managed to create a new market brand and make it well-known," Belyaninov said.

Russian military hardware is exported to more than 60 countries. Rosoboronexport aims at re-entering the markets earlier dominated by the Soviet exporters, primarily Eastern Europe and the Middle Ea…

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Новый российский самолет-амфибия будет показан на авиационной выставке, которая пройдет в октябре Малайзии

4 сентября 2001 г.

Он способен садиться на воду и грунт и, скользя по водной поверхности, набирает в свои баки до 12 тонн воды - всего за несколько секунд. Затем самолет может обрушивать воду на очаг возгорания. Этот самолет может быть использован и в качестве перевозчика грузов. Как сообщает агентство РИА-НОВОСТИ, иркутский авиазавод, освоивший производство самолета-амфибии, в настоящее время выполняет заказ МЧС России на изготовление 7 машин.
Источник: "Эхо Москвы"

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