PARIS Le Bourget 2017 Aeronautical Salon

report by : Pierre-Yves Lecoeur and Thierry Letellier

 

The 2017 edition was a commercial aircraft order announcement festival, and it was a first in the history of the Air Show, with the 1,000 commercial aircraft sold on the first four days of the show. But this industry is faced with slow commercial aerospace growth and flat global defense spending. The studies reveals that the global commercial aerospace growth is likely to deliver only 2.1 percent annual growth this year.

This edition of Paris Air Show saw more new military productions than the previous years. Of course the F-35 was the star of this Salon but many of other very interesting projects took part of this major event. The Antonov An-132D, which made its first flight on 31 March 2017, was presented at this 2017 edition of the Paris Air Show. The An-132D was designed in record time or almost as the program was launched in May 2015 with a factory outing on December 20, 2016. The twin-engine aircraft is intended for short and medium range: Depending on its payload, which can be extended to 9.2 tons, the unit can travel from 1,400 to 4,400 km. Honeywell, Liebherr Aerospace provided much of its equipment, its engines are Pratt & Whitney Canada PW150A, providing a unit power of 5,071 hp, driving Dowty R408 six blade propellers with a diameter of 4.11 m.

Turkish Aerospace Industries has sent both prototypes of the Hurkus-A aircraft to Le Bourget as it begins an international sales drive competing against Pilatus’s PC-21, the Korea Aerospace Industries KT-1 Woong-bi and Beechcraft T-6 Texan II. The Hurkus-A is the basic version of the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-68T-powered 8,046-lb. (3,650-kg.) gross-weight trainer, which received European Aviation Safety Agency certification in July 2016. The mid-life update of the Mirage 2000D was confirmed at Le Bourget. The project financially led  by  a ministerial investment committee (CMI) of the Ministry of Defense and will cost some 160 million euros. This operation will concern 55 Mirage 2000D on the 71 aircraft currently in service within the Air Force. By the year 2030, another 55 powerful fighting planes will be available, knowing that they are still extremely solicited during external operations .   Leonardo also  unveiled  its M-345 training jet aircraft, which has piqued the interest of many Air Forces with costs comparable to those of a turboprop aircraft but that delivers superior performance, officials say. The new M-345 exposes them to the most demanding missions of their training syllabus to obtain a high-quality training at lower costs.

Saab announced at Paris Air Show the first flight of its new fighter Gripen E. The aircraft took off on June 15, 2017 at 10:32 local time from Linköping aerodrome. Apparently, the Gripen E differs little from those predecessors including the Gripen C currently in service. The fuselage was lengthened by about 50 cm to cancel out the effect of the increased mass of the new radar. The new equipment includes the Selex ES-05 Raven Electronic Scanning Radar (AESA). The Gripen E is equipped with a passive infrared detection system IRST mounted in front of the cockpit. The aircraft’s electronic warfare system has also been upgraded. A GE Aviation F414G with a maximum speed of Mach 2 provides the propulsion.

The F-35 fighter aircraft flies for the first time at the Paris Air Show with the hope of seducing new European customers (certainly Belgium) and forgetting its technical and financial problems. An F-35A stealth aircraft provided a demonstration of approximately eight minutes each day. Launched in the early 1990s, the F-35, developed by the US defense group Lockheed-Martin, is the most expensive weapons program in US military history, with a total estimated cost of nearly $ 400 billion Of dollars for the Pentagon, for a goal of nearly 2,500 planes to be produced.

L3 Technologies is exhibiting two next-generation tactical aircraft from its expanding stable of multi-mission platforms at Paris Air Show as part of its outdoor static display. L3’s Aerospace Systems business segment is debuting the AT-802L Longsword, an FAA- and military-certified intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and light-attack aircraft, and the SPYDR II, the next generation of flexible ISR capability.in its largest showing at a major airshow, has three aircraft on display at Paris Air Show.

This year, for the first time, the Embraer KC-390 landed on the tarmac of the Paris Air Show. Since April 2016, two prototypes of the nearly identical Embraer KC-390 are now available for flight-testing. After the inaugural flight of the first of these aircraft, the two aircraft accumulated more than 1000 flight hours. The manufacturer of commercial, defense, and executive aircraft boasts a static display showcasing its new E195-E2, the largest of the second generation of Embraer’s family of commercial jets. Globalairpower would like to thank all the organisation from GIFAS to have permited us to make this report.