The World of Aviation

The UK’s Cameron coalition government has announced plans to cut huge numbers of personnel and inventory under its Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), with defence spending to fall eight per cent over four years. Capabilities to be cut include the entire Harrier force from 2011 and the carrier HMS Ark Royal immediately, which means

Eurocopter CEO Dr Lutz Bertling has said the company has no short term plans to replace or significantly upgrade its Squirrel range of helicopters. Speaking to Australian media at the company’s headquarters in Marignane near Marseille, Dr Bertling said the Squirrel, which was launched in the early 1980s, was still selling extremely well, and that

Eurocopter says delays in integrating new formation lighting on the Army’s fleet of ARH Tiger helicopters have been caused by the ADF wanting a type of lighting not specified in the original contract and not used by any other Tiger operator, but that the issue should be resolved by early 2011. Following on from reports

The Times of India reports that Indian defence officials have been briefed on the Boeing 737 AEW&C aircraft as part of a larger package of possible products from Boeing. Boeing’s head of India operations, Vivek Lall, said Indian Air Force and Navy officers had been briefed on the AEW&C platform on the basis of a

The RAAF has cleared its BAE Systems Hawk lead-in fighter fleet to resume flying, six days after flying was suspended following the discovery of an undisclosed “technical fault“. “Following an investigation into that incident, the Hawk fleet has been cleared to resume flying, with each aircraft to receive a detailed technical inspection prior to flight,”

Fractional ownership scheme NetJets has announced an agreement with Embraer for it to purchase 50 Phenom 300 business jets and 75 options in a deal that could exceed more than US$1bn (A$1.01bn). The order will see the launch of the Phenom 300 Platinum Edition, which will be developed to meet the needs of NetJets’ fractional