D-36 Ukraine Plane

At take-off power (sea level, static, ISA):
Thrust, kg(f)	6500
Specific fuel consumption, kg/ kg(f)-h	0.350
Air flow rate, kg/s	260
By-pass ratio	5.6
Overall compressor pressure ratio	20.0
TIT, K	1450
At maximum cruise power (H=8000m, Mfl=0.75, ISA):
Thrust, kg(f)	1600
Specific fuel consumption, kg/kg(f)-h	0.620
Overall dimensions, mm:	3469x1541x1711
Dry mass, kg	110

The world's most powerful helicopter engineThis turboshaft engine was designed for the Mi-26 twin-engined transport helicopter. Both the engine and the helicopter are by an enormous margin the most powerful and most capable in the world. The engine's derivation from the D-36 "enabled production to be achieved quite rapidly". Bench testing started in 1977, and series production at the Motor Sich plant began in 1982. According to Mil, by 1999 a total of 280 Mi-26 helicopters had flown, though in 2001 Ivchenko-'Progress' gave the total number of D-136 engines in service as only 470. In 2001, writing as if it was one of his engines, Vyacheslav Boguslayev of Motor Sich gave the number produced as "about 500".

The engine is listed by Motor Sich as a past rather than current programme, although small numbers of Mi-26 helicopters continue to be exported, the most recent (2006-7) being three Mi-26T multirole transports for Venezuela.The D-136 is composed of 10 modules, each of which (except for the main module) can be removed and replaced without disturbing neighbouring modules on an installed engine. Five of the gas-generator modules are identical with those of the D-36.

Folding Plane

A California startup revealed an aircraft

on Wednesday evening built for an increasingly popular new kind of pilot—the weekend aviator with a jones for expensive toys.

Loaded with features like folding wings (so you can keep it in your garage) and seat belt-like parachutes (so you can ease the whole thing down to the ground), ICON Aircraft’s new light sport airplane (LSA), dubbed the A5, might just be the ultimate joyride.

“We designed it so that people who don’t know airplanes know that something has changed,” Kirk Hawkins, ICON’s chief executive officer, told Popular Mechanics.

What’s changed are federal regulations, which created a new form of airplane and a new kind of pilot licence that requires less training and no medical check to obtain. The Federal Aviation Administration created the Sport Pilot category in 2004, but only now are players large and small entering this virgin market. At the “Sun ’n Fun Fly-In,” an aircraft festival held in Florida earlier this year, manufacturers showcased 75 LSAs, up from just 20 in 2006.

For ICON, reaching new customers meant a design that borrowed heavily from automobile marketing. “The product has to have sex appeal and be aesthetically inspirational,” Hawkins says. “It not only has to perform well, it has to look like it performs well.”

ICON faced another design hurdle in ensuring that aspiring pilots were not cowed by the risks of flight. The A5’s cockpit gauges look like they belong on a sports-car’s dashboard, while curved structures guard against accidental contact with the propeller whenever the plane is on the ground. Perhaps most crucial to this goal is that increasingly common parachute: no delicate maneuvers are necessary if the airplane is distressed—it can simply float to the ground.

Engineers at ICON also built the A5 to be a lot less of a hassle than other small aircraft, allowing owners to have a lot more fun. The wings can fold for storage in a large garage, and the airplane even comes with its own trailer. Amphibious models have platforms that connect to docks or piers. Versions of the A5 that can’t land in water will have automatic, rather than manual, folding wings.

Hawkings isn’t shy about his attempt to make flying small airplanes the luxury motor sport of the 21st century. “The passionate consumer will not use these to get to grandma’s house quicker,” he says. —Joe Pappalardo

Antonov-32 Plane

India's state-owned military-plane maker Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) said that a joint venture to develop a multi-role transport aircraft is near completion. HAL is partnering with Russia's Ilyushin Design Bureau in the $600 million project, to which the two companies will contribute equally, HAL Chairman Ashok Baweja told a news conference here.

'The funding is ready and the programme is now on,' Baweja said of talks which dragged on since first conceived in the first half of this decade. The 60-tonne tactical transport aircraft, meant to serve the armed forces of the two countries, would take six-to-seven years to develop, with the components coming from Ilyushin production facilities in Russia, Baweja said.

To be used both for transport duties and troop deployment, the aircraft is meant to replace the Indian Air Force's ageing Antonov-32s even as the country also seeks transport aircrafts for the US. Last month, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said India plans to buy six Hercules transport planes, along with ground-support equipment and spares, from Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) of the US for $962 million.

The four-engine turboprop aircraft will be used as the main tactical aircraft for special operations, officials have said. Bangalore-based HAL manufactures under license Russian-designed Sukhoi and MiG fighter planes, British Jaguars and locally designed advanced light helicopters. In about a month, it will deliver to the Indian Air Force the first locally-built Hawk advanced jet trainer to be followed by 14 more over the next year, Baweja said.

The aircraft were among 66 trainer jets ordered by the Indian government in March 2004 from Britain's BAE Systems. Under the terms of the agreement, 24 Hawk trainers were bought off the shelf, while the other 42 are to be built under licence by HAL. In the financial year ended March 31, the state-owned company crossed two billion dollars in sales, which have doubled in three years, according to Baweja. Exports rose by a fifth to $81.25 million.

HAL received orders worth 233.15 billion rupees ($5.83 billion) during the year, including 159 advanced light helicopters to be delivered to the Indian armed forces. The company has 451 billion rupees of orders on hand, Baweja said.