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APROTECT YOURSELF - Military aircraft face increasing danger as the proliferation of anti-air systems gathers pace. Tim Fish examines the countermeasures
COMMERCIAL NEWS - Lufthansa rethinks its A380 decision, NASA investigates composites in aircraft production, and Aireon shares its flight data stream with Boeing
CONNECTIVITY IS KEY - Connectivity is changing how business aviation works for a range of stakeholders, as Paul E Eden discovered
GREAT EXPECTATIONS - BAE Systems has unveiled a new lightweight, compact head-up display for commercial and military aircraft. Mark Broadbent reports
BUSINESS AS USUAL - G800 begins flight tests, Japan receives the first special missions Longitude, and Textron Aviation begins deliveries of its Citation XLS Gen2 10
MILITARY NEWS - Norway terminates NH90 helicopter contract, Boeing Canada teams up with Canadian industry to offer P-8 Poseidon, and Germany signs up for the CH-47F
FACE TO EACE - Spaceport Cornwall CEO Melissa Thorpe talks to AIR International about the facility’s work and ambitious long-term plans
NUTS & BOLTS - Softbank Corporation uses a tethered balloon as a communications base station in a recent field trial at the Hokkaido Spaceport in Japan
LAUNCHPAD - ETH Zurich develops a robot to hop between asteroids, while Spirit AeroSystems and Sierra Space create Shooting Star space cargo vehicles
FINDING THE FULCRUM - Russia’s MiG-35 is viewed as an increasingly hard to sell combat jet. Alexander Mladenov looks into the reasons why
ROUTE TO RENOVATION - Iran’s military aviation sector has struggled to maintain and upgrade its fleet of ageing fighters, finds Babak Taghvaee
FLY IN THE OINTMENT? - What impact will recently announced changes to pilot training requirements have on the rise of the eVTOL? Tom Batchelor investigates
IRELAND’S AMBITIONS - The Irish Air Corps is marking its centenary year with a string of major developments, writes Josef Campion
One of the more colourful of these is the Zenith success story - turn to page 24 to read about how pandemic downtime has prompted a spike in the popularity of kitplanes. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at everything from BAE’s latest HUD (page 86) to how aircraft interiors stakeholders are hitting eco challenges head on (page 36).
Seven months into the Ukraine War, NATO continues to support its eastern ally while bolstering its own armed forces. Just look at Germany - having made minimal investment in the military over the past 25 years, the new Schultz government is playing catch up. A visit to the ILA Berlin Airshow in late June (page 22) showed German citizens how their taxes were being spent. A US Navy P-8A Poseidon, Italian Air Force F-35A Lightning and a US Army CH-47F Chinook represented three aircraft types that should be in service by 2030, while there is also speculation that an order for the Boeing AH-64E Apache could follow soon.
ILA was once all about ‘Buy European', but looking for fast procurement, Germany has turned to the United States, just like everyone else!
As ever, I hope you enjoy the issue.
Tara Craig, Editor, AIR International
