Aviation News Mega-Thread

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The first COMAC ARJ21-700s for Air China has left the paintshop and production-facility at Shanghai-Pudong Airport. It will now go through final preparations for its first flight.

The aircraft, registered B-605U, is scheduled for delivery in the fourth quarter of this year.

Last year, the three biggest state-owned Chinese carriers, Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines, announced that they would take on 35 ARJ21s each. All of these should be delivered by 2024.

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The US Navy Forces Europe-Africa says two Russian Federation - Aerospace Forces (RF VKS) Su-35s conducted an unsafe intercept of a US Navy P-8A Poseidon over the eastern Mediterranean Sea on 26 May 2020.

This has to be one of the closest intercepts Scramble ever noticed on released pictures. Both Su-35s, assigned to the Special Purpose Air Brigade, were fully armed and their pilots positioned themselves on each side of the P-8A estricting the P-8As ability to safely maneuver. The aircraft show Vympel R-27 (Nato designation AA-10 Alamo), the Vympel radar-guided medium-range R-77 (AA-12 Adder) and the Vympel short-range infrared-guided R-73E (AA-11 Archer) missiles underneath the fuselage and wings.

The Flankers, residing at the Russian air base Khmeimin at Latakia (Syria), were SCRAMBLE'd to the P-8A and intercepted the aircraft over the eastern part of the Mediterrannean See in international airspace for over a period of 65 minutes.

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Turkmenistan probably ordered six M346 Master combat training jets and eight AW139 helicopters.

Our friends of BMPD, the unofficial blog of the Russian think tank Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, reported first that according to the annual military arms export report (from Italy abroad) of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that was presented to the Italian Senate clears that Turkmenistan will probably become a Master user. The Turkmen only rarely comments on military issues and did not make a statement concerning the AW139 or the M346.

Details of the order remain scarce but a BMPD analyse of the Italian government report resulted that Leonardo was receiving a contract for six M346 Master and eight AW139s in 2019.

Scramble Facebook News (SFN) already reported about this upcoming contract on 18 May 2018 (*) and on 1 August 2019 (**). The SFN 2018 report followed a demonstration of Leonardo products (including C-27, M346) at Mary-2 air base (Turkmenistan), Most probably, this demonstration resulted in a contract for six Masters and possibly eight AW139s.

Italy is a traditional military hardware supplier to Turkmenistan. It is reported that from 2007 to 2017, the Italian government issued export licenses for the supply of military products to Turkmenistan in the amount of USD 271 million (247 million euro). While in 2019 this amount was increased to USD 490 million (446 million euro), most probably including the Master and AW139 order.

Leonardo has so far delivered a total of 72 M346s (22 for the Italian Air Force, 12 Singapore, 30 Israel and eight (plus eight on order) for Poland). In February 2020, Azerbaijan signed a letter of intent regarding the option to buy ten to fifteen M346s.

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https://www.flightglobal.com/airlines/c ... 76.article
https://www.flightglobal.com/airlines/a ... 73.article
https://www.flightglobal.com/strategy/u ... 70.article
https://www.flightglobal.com/airframers ... 71.article
https://www.flightglobal.com/strategy/a ... 67.article
https://www.flightglobal.com/airframers ... 64.article
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/tecna ... 60.article

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Airbus announced a new milestone of the Airbus A400M Atlas after the airlifter has achieved its certification of its Automatic Low Level Flight capability.
The certification campaign, performed in April 2020 above the Pyrenees and central France, involved operations down to 500ft, including transitions from low level flight to other operations like aerial delivery.

This first certification phase concerns operations with Visual Meteorological Conditions, meaning with crew visibility. There will be a second phase including Instrumental Meteorological Conditions, without visibility, to be certified in Q2/21.

Inherent to the fighter aircraft world, and as a unique capability for a military transport aircraft, the Automatic Low Level Flights improves the A400M’s terrain masking and survivability, making the aircraft less detectable in hostile areas and less susceptible to threats when cruising towards key military operations like aerial delivery, air-to-air refuelling, logistic or other specific special operations.

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Within weeks, the Belgian Defence Minister Philippe Goffin will announce if the Belgian Air Force will deploy with four F-16s to the Middle East.

Before July 2020, the decision in this must be made, due to the planning cycle of Operation Inherent Resolve. As before, and if approved, the four (plus two spare) Vipers will be deployed - for the third time since 2014 - to al Azraq air base (Jordan) from where they commence flights over Iraq and eastern Syria. Their main missions will be protection of coalition ground troops, aerial reconnaissance and fighting ISIS. The deployment, as part of the Air Task Force Middle East (ATFME) in support of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), is scheduled to start in August 2020. The last Belgian Operation Desert Falcon deployment to al Azraq lasted ended in December 2017.

During previous anti-ISIS deployments, the Koninklijke Luchtmacht (KLu, Royal Netherlands Air Force) rotated with the Belgiums every some twelve months. It is not known, but currently unlikely due to the conversion of the Dutch F-16s to F-35A, that the KLu will relieve the Belgians in 2021

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As the cargo flying business is booming, UPS has announced that they have acquired five additional MD-11Fs through The Boeing Company.

Two of the planes are set to be delivered from autumn this year, while the remaining three are joining in 2021.

UPS currently has a fleet of 39 MD-11Fs, making them the world's largest operator of the type.

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https://www.flightglobal.com/networks/e ... 89.article
https://www.flightglobal.com/space/for- ... 86.article
https://www.flightglobal.com/defence/ba ... 78.article

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Mini scoop: First Ukraine Police H145 helicopter

Alexander Lut kindly provided an imagine of the first Eurocopter Deutsland H145T2 destined for the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Міністерство внутрішніх справ України, romanized: Ministerstvo vnutrishnikh sprav Ukrayiny, MVS).

The photo of D-HMBF (test registration) with code "01" was made on 27 May 2020 at Donauwörth. The lettering on the door translates as Police (Ukrainian: Поліція, Politsiya).

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Fire-fighting Chinook

Surely everybody knows the CH-47 Chinook in its role of fire-fighting helicopter, carrying an external “Bambi” water bucket. Successful as such, but some people believed that there were ways to benefit even more of the potential of this heavy lift helicopter. Cooperation between renowned U.S. fire-fighting company Coulson and aircraft broker/parts supplier Unical led to the CU-47 design.

Based on a decommissioned former US Army CH-47D, the Coulson-Unical CU-47 features a 3,000 gallon roll-on/roll-off internal tank and an advanced Garmin avionics suite. The internal tank design is based on the 4,000 gallon Retardant Aerial Delivery System RADS-XXL. This was developed by Coulson engineers for their Lockheed C-130 Hercules tanker conversions. But although the tank may be smaller, the device known as RADS-L shares most of the same hydraulic components, the same doors and the same design of the larger C-130 RADS-XXL.

The CU-47 features more improvements: increasing the flow rate for the RADS-L was on the wish list and so the floor of the CH-47D was modified to accommodate a pair of drop doors, controlled by the pilots through a state-of-the-art touchscreen controller. From the same touch panel, the pilots also control the CU-47’s newly-developed retractable snorkel system to refill the RADS-L tank from water sources close to a fire’s location. In a hover, the snorkel takes just four seconds to deploy and six seconds to retract. It enables to fill the entire tank in under two minutes.

The partnership of Coulson and Unical was announced a year ago. Obviously Coulson brings in the expertise in fire-fighting, while Unical Aviation provides the aircraft and the spare parts. And there is an abundance: Unical bought the entire Canadian Forces CH-47 parts inventory and were the largest purchaser of CH-47Ds from the U.S. Army. All in all up to twelve CH-47Ds will be converted into next-generation heli-tankers.

One of the first Chinook to be converted, N47CU (M3440) was already tested under operational conditions in Santiago, Chile in November 2019. N47CU used to be US Army 92-00299, which in itself was converted from CH-47A 61-02413. Currently residing at San Bernadino (CA) N47CU awaits the next fire season.