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Observers at the 611 Institute airfield at Chengdu were treated to the first glimpses of the long-predicted second prototype (2002) of the Chengdu J-20 stealthy fighter early this month. In the days that followed the aircraft undertook a number of high-speed taxi trials, culminating in a first flight on May 16. Days before, the first prototype (2001) is reported to have deployed to the Chinese flight-test establishment at Yanliang near the city of Xian, signaling the beginning of a new phase of flight trials.

In the early hours of 15 May, European naval forces (Eunavfor) carried out their first strike against a pirate base in Somalia. The ships and helicopters of Eunavfor undertaking “Operation Atalanta” have attacked renegade vessels at sea on numerous occasions, but Tuesday morning’s raid was their first strike against targets on shore.

Thales will provide its high-performance inertial reference system (HPIRS) and GPS to support all-weather operations by the new Embraer KC-390 military transport. The French avionics manufacturer described the new-generation HPIRS as a “technological breakthrough” in inertial and GPS navigation, combining advantages of a civil-certified product with the performance required for a military aircraft. It is the company’s first HPIRS contract for a military transport aircraft.

Despite a “challenging” European economy, the 12th annual European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition, which concluded yesterday in Geneva, “was one of the strongest EBACE shows yet, demonstrating its value,” organizers NBAA and EBAA said.

The show attracted 12,638 attendees from 99 countries–both numbers on par with last year’s show. Some 491 exhibitors occupied a record-breaking 2,280 booth spaces at the Geneva Palexpo convention center. The show’s static display area, which was 10 percent larger than last year’s, presented a record-setting 60 aircraft.