The World of Aviation

AgustaWestland has delivered the first of 12 NH90 NFHs to the Royal Netherlands Navy during an official ceremony at the company’s Vergiate plant in Italy on April 20. The delivery is the first of 111 NFH variants to have been ordered by the Netherlands, France, Italy, Norway and Belguim, and comes nearly three years after

Boeing says it successfully flew the first of a second batch of F-15K fighters for South Korea on April 19. The aircraft, dubbed F-15K41, is the first of 21 F-15Ks ordered under South Korea’s NFX2 contract as a follow-on to the original batch of 40 F-15Ks which completed delivery in October 2008. The F-15K is

An RAAF 11SQN AP-3C Orion based in the Middle East was damaged on April 8 after a flare became hung up within its countermeasures dispenser system (CMDS). The aircraft recovered safely to its base at Al Minhad Air Base in the UAE and no crew members were injured, but the incident has been subject to

Despite admitting that it has been costing his airline over $1.5 million a day, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce told reporters on April 21 that he does not expect the disruption to European flights as a result of the Icelandic volcano eruption will materially affect Qantas’s earnings outlook. “It won’t affect our earnings forecast. We will

Airbus Military says it has completed all the flight tests required for the daylight certification of the wing-mounted Cobham 905 hose-and-drogue refuelling system on its A330 MRTT, clearing the way for formal military certification of the system from Spain’s INTA certification authority. Tests included manoeuvring in an expanding flight envelope to verify the aircraft’s handling

EADS North America has announced its intention to bid for the USAF’s KC-X tanker replacement program as the prime contractor with its A330 MRTT based KC-45, although it stresses that it hasn’t given up looking for US partners for its bid. Previously partnered with Northrop Grumman and more recently reported to have unsuccessfully explored a