The World of Aviation

One time Australian Aviation ‘Defence Update’ columnist T Max Hawkins passed away in Sydney on February 16, aged 83. Hawkins was a well known and respected defence writer, editing the Defence Industry Newsletter and the Australian Defence Report for many years, and wrote the ‘Defence Update’ column in Australian Aviation from the early 1980s through

Singapore Airlines continued its trend of increasing load factors during January, according to operational data released recently by the airline. For the month, the airline’s passenger load factor increased by 5.0 percentage points to 79.1 per cent, aided by a 7.8 per cent fall in capacity, while passenger numbers decreased by 3.3 per cent. By

Boeing’s Vigilare command and control system has successfully passed factory acceptance testing and will move on to on-site testing prior to final acceptance by the RAAF later this year. The tests, conducted at Boeing’s Brisbane test facility, verified system-level requirements for delivery of the system to the Northern Regional Operational Centre (NROC) at RAAF Tindal

EADS has issued a statement urging caution on drawing conclusions from the issuing of a letter by A400M partner nations on the future of the troubled program. The company says it is too early to draw financial conclusions from the contents of the letter in which the partner nations proposed the additional financial commitments they

Raytheon’s Miniature Air Launched Decoy Jammer (MALD-J) has successfully passed its Critical Design Review (CDR) conducted by the USAF. The CDR means the MALD-J can now progress to the Engineering, Manufacturing and Development (EMD) phase of the program. MALD-J is a jammer version of the MALD which is in service with the USAF, and will

Saab has selected the SKYWARD-G Infrared Search and Track (IRST) system manufactured by SELEX Galileo for its Gripen NG fighter. The IRST allows a pilot to passively search for enemy aircraft in the infrared spectrum, and can be slaved to an aircraft’s radar. The Gripen NG will also likely employ SELEX Galileo’s Raven ES-05 Active