India and the U.S. are working during U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s visit there to finalize defense deals worth $2.5 billion, an Indian government official says. India’s Defense Procurement Board met Aug. 7 to discuss issues of pending purchases of 15 Chinook heavy-lift and 22 Apache attack helicopters. “The negotiations for $2.5 billion in contracts [with the U.S.] are almost over and the Defense Procurement Board will clear the off-set proposals as per the procurement policy,” he says.
U.S. Navy sailors demonstrated the Electronic Warfare Battle Management (EWBM) for surface defense system during the recent Rim of Pacific (Rimpac) exercise. Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), EWBM “could transform the future of electronic warfare and defense of ships at sea,” Navy officials say. The system helps sailors and Marines coordinate electronic-countermeasure responses to threats faster than is possible through traditional voice communications, reducing the need to respond with expensive munitions, Navy officials say.
Avic subsidiary Joy Air will expand to more than four times its current size with an order for 30 MA60 regional airliners from sibling Xian Aircraft. Deliveries are due to begin next year. The carrier has eight MA60s in service and, before the latest order, was awaiting delivery of one more. In the new contract, it took options on another 30 aircraft of the type. Avic developed the MA60 by fitting the Antonov An-24 airframe with Pratt & Whitney Canada PW100 engines and other Western equipment. Joy’s network has a main base at Xian, where Avic makes the aircraft.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) expects to increase production of 787 outer wingboxes in 2016 to support Boeing’s plan to build the aircraft at a rate of 14 a month by the end of the decade. MHI, one of three major Japanese suppliers of 787 structures, will expand product facilities at its Shimonoseki Shipyard & Machinery Works and Nagoya Aerospace Systems Works with an investment program to begin in October. The plants are now building 10 shipsets of 787 outer wingboxes monthly.
Damage to the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) is hindering efforts to discover why a Spanish-registered MD-83 airliner crashed in Mali last month. French investigators from the country’s BEA safety board, who are leading a multinational team of experts, say damage to the magnetic tape in the CVR has made the recordings from the final minutes of flight AH5017 unusable.
