Helikopter - Robinson har levert 13 000 maskiner - AVweb

 

Robinson Delivers 13,000th Helicopter

Kate O'Connor

April 29, 2021

0

Image: Robinson Helicopter Company

Robinson Helicopter Company announced on Tuesday that it has delivered its 13,000th helicopter. The aircraft, an R44, went to Robinson dealer SKY Helicopters in Dallas, Texas, for its Part 135 air taxi and tour operations. The helicopter will be the 27th Robinson model in SKY’s fleet.

“Robinson Helicopter Company has a come a long way since 1979 when its first 2-place R22 was delivered,” the company said. “Fast forward 42 years, today’s Robinsons are offered in a multitude of sizes and configurations. Whether it is an R22, R44 or R66, Robinson helicopters continue to set the standard for reliability and remain the most cost-effective helicopter on the market.”

Robinson Helicopter Company was founded in 1973 by Frank Robinson. It’s R22 prototype flew for the first time in 1975 and the model received its FAA type certificate in March 1979. Along with the two-seat R22 and four-seat R44 piston models, Robinson manufactures and five-seat R66 turbine helicopter. The company’s 10,000th helicopter was produced in 2011.

Aerospace & Defence Roundup: Apr. 29, 2021 - AW&ST

 

Sjekk overskriftene her: https://tinyurl.com/288s3npd

Space - Ingenuity kom seg ikke i luften i går - Forsøker igjen natt til lørdag - Curt Lewis

Straks noe kommer fra NASA legger jeg det ut her. 

The helicopter is “safe and in good health,” according to the agency, and it will reattempt its fourth flight on Friday at 10:46 am ET (0246 UTC). NASA engineers expect to receive the first data from that attempt about three hours later..... skriver NASA

(Red.)

(Photo courtesy: NASA/JPL) NASA's Ingenuity helicopter just failed to lift off from the Martian surface, but it will try again on Friday A software issue may have prevented its flight computer from transitioning to flight mode. Ingenuity has just a week left for the two final flights that would push it to the limit. NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter was scheduled to embark on its most daring flight yet on Thursday. But it failed to lift off, so NASA plans to try again on Friday. Ingenuity made history when it flew for the first time on April 19 - a 10-foot hover that marked the first controlled, powered flight ever conducted on another planet. Since then, the 4-pound drone has completed two more flights, venturing farther and flying faster each time. Ingenuity was in good shape after its last flight, in which it traveled roughly 330 feet out and back. It was set to attempt an even more ambitious adventure on Thursday: a 117-second flight in which the little drone was supposed to reach a record speed of 3.5 meters per second. The plan was for the helicopter to climb 16 feet into the air, fly south for about 436 feet, and snap photos of the Martian surface along the way. It was then supposed to hover for more photos, turn around, and fly back to its original spot for landing.  But Ingenuity's rotor blades didn't lift it up at all. The culprit is probably a software issue that first showed up during a high-speed spin test ahead of the chopper's first flight. That test failed because Ingenuity's flight computer was unable to transition from "preflight" to "flight" mode. Within a few days, NASA engineers resolved the issue with a quick software rewrite. But those engineers determined that their fix would successfully transition the helicopter into flight mode only 85% of the time. The data that Ingenuity beamed back on Thursday indicated that it couldn't get into flight mode - so it may have hit one of the 15% of instances in which the software patch doesn't work. "Today's delay is in line with that expectation and does not prevent future flights," NASA said. The helicopter is "safe and in good health," according to the agency, and it will reattempt its fourth flight on Friday at 10:46 a.m. ET. NASA engineers expect to receive the first data from that attempt about three hours later. The Ingenuity team has just one more week to complete two flights that would push the chopper to its limits. By the fifth and final flight, Ingenuity's controllers plan to push the helicopter as far and fast as it can go. In the process, they expect Ingenuity to crash. "We really want to push the rotorcraft flights to the limit and really learn and get information back from that," MiMi Aung, the project manager for Ingenuity, said in a press briefing last week. "That information is extremely important," she added. "This is a pathfinder. This is about, you know, finding if there any 'unknown unknowns' that we can't model. And we really want to know what the limits are. So we will be pushing the limits very deliberately." Ingenuity's flights are experimental, meant simply to test what rotorcraft technology can do on Mars. So NASA expected that some of the attempts might fail. It's all in the interest of gathering data to inform the development of helicopter missions on other planets, which could do all kinds of science and exploration that a rover mission can't. "We are aware that failure is more likely in this kind of scenario, and we're comfortable with it because of the upside potential that success has," NASA associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen told Insider. Space helicopters similar to Ingenuity could someday survey difficult terrain from above, study large regions faster than a rover can, and even do reconnaissance for astronauts. Such space drones could fly "over ravines, down canyons, up mountains," Josh Ravich, the mechanical lead for the Ingenuity team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Insider. "Even rocky terrain is fairly inaccessible to the rovers but much more easily accessed by a rotorcraft." NASA already has one helicopter mission in development: A rotorcraft called Dragonfly is set to launch toward Saturn's moon Titan in 2027. It aims to investigate whether that methane-rich world could host alien life.

 

Lufthansa er ofte etterrettelige i sine markedsvurderinger - Curt Lewis

 Jeg håper dette vil stemme for norske/nordiske selskaper også (Red.)

Lufthansa loses hope over summer travel rebound The German airline said Thursday (April 29) that it had cut its capacity forecast for the year. It now expects to fly only about 40% of its pre-crisis capacity, down from earlier guidance of up to 50%. The group - which also includes Swiss and Austrian Airlines - still expects a 'significant' recovery in the second half of the year. It says bookings shoot up wherever restrictions are loosened. But Lufthansa has stepped up warnings to German unions over job cuts. The carrier says it's ready to used forced dismissals to reduce headcount. Over the first quarter, sales were down 60% on a year-earlier period only partially hit by lockdowns. Lufthansa's net loss halved to about 1.2 billion dollars, helped by job cuts and reduced operating costs. The firm's cargo businesses - a rare bright spot - posted a record quarterly profit. Lufthansa shares were down over 4% by lunchtime on Thursday.

 

Nå som det brygger opp til torskekrig med Boris, kan denne være grei å ha - Regjeringen

Brexit førte til uforutsigbarhet. Samtalene med UK om utnyttelse av ressursene i området som inngår i det du kan lese under, har brutt sammen. Det blir spennende å følge med i det som kan bli en alorlig konflikt. (Red.)

Prop. 185 L (2020–2021) - Lov om Norges kontinentalsokkel

Proposisjon | 30.04.2021 | Utenriksdepartementet

Prop. 185 L (2020–2021) handler om Lov om Norges kontinentalsokkel. Loven definerer Norges kontinentalsokkel i tråd med havretten og legge til rette for at Kongen i forskrift kan fastsette de nøyaktige koordinatene for grensene for denne. Yttergrensene for sokkelen mot det internasjonale havbunnsområdet utenfor skal fastsettes på grunnlag av anbefalinger fra Kommisjonen for kontinentalsokkelens yttergrense i New York. Avgrensningslinjene mot nabolands sokler skal fastsettes i tråd med de bilaterale avgrensningsavtalene som gjelder Sverige, Danmark, Færøyene, Storbritannia, Island, Grønland og Russland. Loven er modellert etter gjeldende lover for Norges grunnlinjer og 200 mils soner. Loven vil ikke regulere ressursutnyttelse, miljøforhold eller forskning på sokkelen. Dette vil fortsatt reguleres av gjeldende lovgivning for petroleumsaktivitet, mineralaktivitet, miljøforhold og forskning på sokkelen. Loven presiserer den geografiske utstrekningen for Norges suverene rettigheter til å utforske og utnytte ressursene på kontinentalsokkelen og bidrar slik til forutsigbarhet og klare rammevilkår for virksomhet på sokkelen.

Naval Strike Missile - Kongsberg / Raytheon gjør det godt - The War Zone

 Sjekk saken her: https://tinyurl.com/2mmpmxrv

Stratolaunch fløy igjen etter to års opphold - AVweb

 

Sjekk video her: https://tinyurl.com/5ea8t68s og her: https://tinyurl.com/dh9mcma

Stratolaunch Completes First Flight Since 2019

Kate O'Connor

April 29, 2021

0

Image: Stratolaunch

The massive Stratloaunch aerial launch platform took to the air on Thursday for the first time since its initial flight in April 2019. The test flight, which lasted approximately 3 hours and ten minutes, departed from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port at about 7:30 a.m. local time. According to the company, the flight was successful and all results were as expected. Thursday’s flight is also the first for the aircraft since Stratolaunch was sold to Cerberus Capital Management in October 2019 following the death of company founder Paul Allen.

The dual-fuselage, six-engine Stratolaunch carrier, now named Roc, was designed to ferry multiple vehicles each weighing up to 500,000 pounds to altitudes of around 35,000 feet for launch. Built in partnership with Scaled Composites, it has a 385-foot wingspan and maximum takeoff weight of 1.3 million pounds. Stratolaunch is also developing the Talon-A hypersonic testbed, up to three of which can be launched from the carrier at a time.

Drone kræsjet inn i siden til moderfartøy og havarerte - AVweb

Som du får inntrykk av under, så er dette en stor maskin. Den ble presentert for Flyoperativt Forum i 2008 og vi ble imponert. (Red.)

Unmanned Helicopter Crashes Into Navy Ship

Kate O'Connor

April 28, 2021

6

Image: U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Adam Butler

An unmanned MQ-8B Fire Scout helicopter crashed into the side of USS Charleston shortly after taking off from the ship on Monday. No one was injured in the incident, but U.S. Navy officials reported that the aircraft fell into the water and was not recovered. The crash occurred at approximately 3:40 p.m. local time.

“The mishap damaged a safety net on the ship and struck the hull,” the U.S. Third Fleet said in a statement. “Damage to the ship is being assessed, but appears limited to an area above the waterline. Charleston continues operations in the Western Pacific.”

The aircraft was assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 21, which is based out of California’s Naval Air Station North Island. The cause of the accident is under investigation. The Northrop Grumman MQ-8B Fire Scout is a vertical take-off and landing tactical unmanned aerial vehicle (VTUAV) measuring 31.7 feet long.

Helikopter - Airbus leverer adskillig færre enn i fjor - AIN

 

April 29, 2021

Airbus Helicopters Orders Plunge 26 Percent

First-quarter results posted this morning from Airbus Helicopters reveal that the pandemic pain in the OEM rotorcraft patch is far from over, with new orders and deliveries falling sharply. New orders fell by 26 percent to 40 net orders, compared with 54 in the same period a year ago. Meanwhile, deliveries dropped to 39 helicopters, down by eight aircraft from a year ago.

The new orders included two Super Puma-family helicopters and one H160. The overall order book dropped 5 percent, to 664 helicopters, from 702 in the same period a year ago. Still, first-quarter earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) actually increased 17 percent to $75 million, compared to $64 million in the first three months of 2020, thanks to increased service revenues and unspecified reductions in program and research and development spending. Overall revenues dropped 2 percent, to $1.425 billion, from $1.455 billion in first-quarter 2020.

Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury characterized the results as “positive,” noting that Airbus Helicopters was able to increase its bottom line for the period on the strength of growing service revenues.

USAF Alaska - Foruroligende når èn avskjæring i uken fører til slitne mannskaper - Defence Daily

 

Spike in Russian aircraft intercepts straining Air Force crews in Alaska, three-star says

Rachel S. Cohen

1 day ago

An F-22 Raptor from the North American Aerospace Defense Command intercepts a Russian Tu-95 Bear bomber in international airspace near Alaska on Oct. 19. NORAD said F-22s intercepted two Tu-95s, as well as a pair of Russian fighters, but that they did not enter American or Canadian airspace. (NORAD)

Intercepting record numbers of Russian aircraft off of North America’s west coast has stretched Air Force units thin, a top service official in Alaska said Wednesday.

“We have certainly seen an increase in Russian activity. We intercepted over 60 aircraft last year. … We monitor more than that,” Lt. Gen. David Krumm said from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, during an online forum hosted by the Air Force Association.

Churchills War Rooms - Virtuell tur - Book her - Imperial War Museums

 

Museet et verdt et besøk. Det ligger lett tilgjengelig bak Downing Street 10. Undertegnede og Reinhard Lillebø var der i 2016, og det var særdeles interessant. Anbefales sterkt. 

Foto: Per Gram

(Red.)

He said ‘Oh, you like drawing, do you?’ And I said ‘Yes, sir’… And he said ‘Right, you can work for us tomorrow’. Myra Murden was still a teenager when she started working in the Cabinet War Rooms. Born in Reigate, Surrey in 1924, she became a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) in 1942, aged 18. She was a Leading Aircraftwoman during the Second World War.   Many officers and administrative personnel worked underground in the War Rooms, such as typists, stenographers, telephonists, and secretaries. Myra recalls, “there were these tiny little cubby-hole places and I remember sitting and doing short-hand and typing there.” She loved to draw and was often drawing and doodling between tasks. Until one night she was caught drawing a rose. “This civilian went by and he said ‘Oh, you like drawing, do you?’ And I said ‘Yes, sir’… And he said ‘Right, you can work for us tomorrow’.   With that, Myra was sent through a trap door into a lower room to work for three draftsmen. In this room, the four of them worked on huge maps, used in the Cabinet War Rooms. “I did the labels and I suppose the grotty jobs, but that didn’t worry me…And these three men, they did all the important secret work on the maps.” “There was one huge map in the morning...they would put little crosses and things across the Atlantic where U-boats or submarines or ships had been sunk. And it was my job to draw a little submarine and put a little English flag on, or a swastika, or a ship on its side…”

 

© IWM CHURCHILL'S WAR ROOMS: THE ONLINE TOUR Experience the power of Churchill War Rooms from the comfort of your home with our new online tour. Join live as our experts talk you through this remarkable historical landmark - with a chance to ask questions at the end.    New dates added. Book your place now. BOOK NOW

 

The Map Room was the nerve centre of Britain’s war effort. The room was not left empty for six years, during the Second World War. It was the beating heart of the Cabinet War Rooms. Every retreat and advance, every defeat and victory, was recorded in calm, unemotional and faithful detail within this inner sanctum. Prime Minister Winston Churchill was a great lover of maps and could often be found in the Map Room, which had the most up-to-date information on the war. Major-General Hastings Ismay recalled, “my visits often coincided with those of a sturdy figure in a siren suit”. The ‘Map Room boys’ were said to ooze glamour and success, but Myra’s job was far less glamorous. She worked even further underground, in the sub-basement, in rather grim and dusty conditions. Myra would not have been allowed in the Map Room. In fact, only a select few had access to the room. Yet, the smooth operation of the Map Room depended on contributions from many members of staff behind the scenes.  Like many other people who worked in the Cabinet War Rooms during the Second World War, Myra had to keep her job a secret from her family and friends. It was not until many years later that she could tell anyone about her work which contributed towards the outcome of the Second World War. The Map Room has been preserved to look almost exactly as it did when the lights were switched off on 16 August 1945.  When you can visit Churchill War Rooms again, pay close attention to the maps, which remain the same as they did in the Second World War, down to the pin holes.  If you look close enough, you might see Myra’s handiwork.

Aerospace & Defence Roundup: Apr. 28, 2021 - AW&ST

 

Sjekk overskriftene her: https://tinyurl.com/28us636k

Space - Michael Collins minnes - AW&ST

 

Sjekk artikkel her: https://tinyurl.com/5ayjtzbu

MAX må moddes i henhold til en FAA AD - AW&ST

 

FAA To Order 737 MAX Electrical Modifications Before Further Flight

Sean Broderick April 28, 2021

Credit: American AirlinesWASHINGTON—An FAA order mandating changes to Boeing 737 MAXs affected by recently discovered electrical issues before those aircraft can fly again has been finalized and is slated for publication April 30.

The immediately-effective airworthiness directive (AD) orders affected 737-8 and 737-9 operators to modify electrical bonding of the P6 panel, “including the mounting tray for the standby power control unit (SPCU),” as well as the bonding of the main instrument panel (MIP) assembly in front of and between the two pilot seats.

Specific modification instructions will be detailed in two Boeing-developed service bulletins referenced in the AD that the FAA still must approve. It is not clear when the service bulletins will be finalized.

“We have been working closely with the FAA and our customers to finalize two service bulletins that will ensure a sufficient ground path in those areas,” Boeing said in a statement. “Upon FAA approval, we will provide the final versions of the bulletins to affected operators with detailed instructions on completing the work to return their airplanes to service.”

The issues were traced to “manufacturing design changes to certain metallic support panel assemblies installed in the flight deck,” the FAA AD said. “The design changes resulted in insufficient bonding of the panel assemblies and consequent insufficient electrical grounding of installed equipment ... [W]ithout dedicated grounding paths implemented by design, there is a potential for degradation or loss of the existing uncontrolled ground paths on those airplanes over time.”

The issues, revealed earlier in April, affect 737 MAX aircraft with line numbers from 7399 through 8082. FAA said 106 of these are with 21 operators, including about 90 that were in active service following the model’s return from a 21-month grounding. Some are in countries that have not approved the 737 MAX’s return from the grounding, including China and India.

The AD calls on affected operators to make the Boeing-specified modifications “before further flight.” Once finalized, the modifications are expected to take no more than three days per aircraft. 

An April 27 report by The Air Current said the proposed modifications include adding 20 ground studs and six jumpers in the P6 panel, which sits behind the right-side pilot seat, and five studs and six jumpers on the MIP. Aviation Week confirmed The Air Current’s report.

Boeing also must modify some 370 737 MAXs it has built since early 2019 but not delivered. The company, which is prioritizing 737 MAX deliveries as a key to its financial turnaround, has handed over four 737 MAXs in April after averaging about 19 per month in the first quarter.