The World of Aviation

The famous RAF 617 Squadron, better known as the ‘Dambusters’ will soon be disbanded after the unit completed its latest deployment to Afghanistan. 617 became famous after the unit, equipped with modified Lancaster bombers successfully breached a number of dams in the Ruhr Valley in 1943, thus severely impacting Germany’s war effort. Now flying Tornado

Rex subsidiary Air Link has been granted interim approval to service Cobar and Mudgee from Sydney until March 21, but has decided not to operate those services because of what it says has been a “much-delayed approval” process. Rex says it is still assessing whether the route is viable, and claimed Transport NSW’s drawn out

Dubai International Airport in the UAE has recorded an annual passenger traffic figure of 66,431,533 in 2013, 15.2 per cent more than the 57,684,550 it logged in 2012. The record comes on the back of a 7.5 per cent increase in airliner movement numbers to 369,953, and the opening of the new Concourse A terminal

An Airbus A350 test aircraft has completed a week-long cold weather trial at Iqaluit in Canada. The trial saw MSN3 subjected to temperatures of -28°C. After a cold soak period, the aircraft’s APU and engines were started, its avionics and other systems behaviour verified, and low speed taxi and RTO tests conducted. The test comes

The UK MoD has awarded several contracts to AgustaWestland totalling £760m (A$1.24bn) for the maintenance, conversion and upgrade of its Apache AH1 attack helicopters and Merlin transport helicopters. The Apache force Integrated Operational Support (IOS) contract will see AW provide support and maintenance services to the UK’s Apache fleet from April 1 2014 to March

Airbus Helicopters says it has overcome development and industrialisation issues with the NH90 helicopter program and plans to ramp up production of the program this year. Speaking at the company’s 2013 results conference on January 28, company CEO Guillaume Faury said NH Industries “has now overcome the difficulties of the beginning of the program” and