Piaggio Developing Special Mission Avanti for Italy

July 15, 2008
Aircraft

Piaggio Aero Industries is developing a special version of the P.180 Avanti for the Italian air force intended for navaid flight inspections. Private firm Norwegian Special Mission will supply its Unifis 3000 inspection terminals for the reconfigured airplanes, due to enter service in 2010. Italy’s Aeronautica Militaire 14th Stormo is providing four Avantis from its fleet for upgrades with the flight inspection gear. The positioning system is described as a hybrid, using image processing from an onboard camera system integrated with an inertial reference unit and GPS receiver. That gives the operator the ability to calibrate without the need to land or rely on ground equipment. Piaggio said other governments are expressing interest in the special-mission version of the Avanti.

Back

Dilemma for Boeing as Pentagon Issues Revised RFP for KC-X August 22, 2008 Boeing faces a tough decision, now that the Pentagon has confirmed that bigger is better in the KC-X tanker competition. “We’ve now revised the... [more]
GAO Confirms Naval Global Hawk as Winner of BAMS August 22, 2008 The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) denied a protest by Lockheed Martin over the U.S. Navy’s selection of the Northrop Grumman RQ-4N... [more]
Boeing Confident on C-17 Future; Pitching New Version August 22, 2008 Continuing production of the C-17 Globemaster airlifter into the next decade now seems assured. Boeing officials are quietly confident that the... [more]
Boeing Pushes P-8 for U.S. Navy EP-X Requirement August 22, 2008 The U.S. Navy is expected to issue a draft request for proposals this quarter for the EP-X intelligence-gathering aircraft, which will replace... [more]
UK Royal Air Force To Replace Nimrod SIGINT Aircraft with RC-135s July 21, 2008 The UK Royal Air Force flies three Nimrod R.1 versions that are dedicated to SIGINT (signals intelligence). They were converted from MR.2... [more]