Starting December 8 in Baltimore, the NTSB will hold a five-day public hearing into the July 17, 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 into the ocean off Long Island, N.Y. While the latest factual data on the accident are expected to be provided, a determination of cause will not be rendered. The crash has been the largest accident investigation in the NTSB's history.
Piston engines ranging in power from 180 hp to 300 hp that burn Jet A1 kerosene are under development in France by Socata subsidiary SMA and Renault Sport. Two engines recently completed an initial phase of bench testing and are being prepared for test flying.
Top officers elected by this organization representing women employed in corporate aviation are Elizabeth A. Clark, president, who is a King Air and Beechjet captain with Mississippi Chemical Corp., and Maria Jeanmaire, a first officer at Tenneco.
In this month's Cause&Circumstance(page 98) you'll read about two highly trained air carrier pilots who stalled a DC-8 freighter, more or less intentionally during a post-overhaul flight check, and then were unable to extricate the aircraft from the increasingly deepening stall. The airplane crashed into the Virginia hills after descending in the stall for some 10,000 feet.
Operators with P&WC turbine engines that have completed as much as 75 percent of their TBO hours now can join the company's Eagle Service power-by-the-hour fixed-cost maintenance service plan. Operators pay an enrollment fee but do not pay for the hours already used until the engine actually goes in for a hot-section inspection or overhaul. The plan covers all unscheduled engine removals and P&W service bulletins.
Bombardier opens a new completion center in Montreal this month that replaces the smaller facility acquired from Innotech Aviation in December 1996 (December 1996, page 20). While, the new center will be dedicated to completing Global Express aircraft, it also will handle some Challenger completions. Bombardier's first factory service facility in Europe will open in Berlin. Also, this month, the company's new aircraft delivery and painting center goes on line in Wichita.
Survival Products offers a newly TSOed four- to six-person life raft weighing in at 12 pounds and packed into a four-by-12-by-14-inch valise. The inflated raft exceeds government requirements with its fresh water buoyancy of 190 pounds per person and a deck area of 3.6 square feet per person. Price: $995. (An 18-pound, nine-person raft, not yet TSOed, is priced at $1,295.) Survival Products, Inc., 5614 S.W. 25th St., Hollywood, Fla. 33023. (954) 966-7329; fax: (954) 966-3584.
FAA and Transport Canada type certification of the 600-hp Orenda V-8 piston engine is now scheduled before year-end, two years later than originally planned (May, page 14). Production engines will be built at a new facility slated to open this month in Debert, Nova Scotia. Orenda has flown developmental engines on a King Air C90B, which will be the first aircraft to obtain an STC for installation of the powerplant.
AirCastle in Los Angeles, Global Aviation in Singapore and Hop-A-Jet in Fort Lauderdale formed an alliance to market business jet charter services throughout North America, Asia and China.
Marc Valle is the new vice president of programs for this business aircraft manufacturer. Formerly, he was program manager for the Falcon 900 and 900EX.
``AlliedSignal Aerospace'' is no more, following a reshuffling of Allied's corporate structure. Aerospace President Dan Burnham was named vice chairman of AlliedSignal (sans Aerospace) and has relocated to Morristown, N.J. All the former Aerospace units will report to Burnham. AlliedSignal also merged its avionics and electronics businesses into a single unit based in Olathe, Kan. AlliedSignal Electronics and Avionics Systems is headed by Robert D.
The Autoscope from Lenox Instrument Co. is a portable, battery-operated borescope that includes a nine-inch long, 5/16-inch diameter steel probe to troubleshoot engines. This diagnostic tool also has a high-resolution 3x-magnification precision optical-lens system, a high- in- tensity, quartz halogen light and a stainless-steel battery pack with three standard C batteries. Price: $895. Lenox Instrument Co., 265 Andrews Rd., Scottsville Industrial Park, Trevose, Pa. 19047. (215) 322-9990; fax: (215) 322-6126.
Northwest Airlines exercised its option for 24 additional Avro RJ85s to be operated by Airlink carrier Mesaba. Deliveries of the original order of 12 began in April, and deliveries of the second batch will begin in May 1998 and continue for 48 months.
Even as the FAA is extolling the virtues of Raytheon's Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS), the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, which will have to work with the new ATC software and hardware, wants the FAA to change the STARS design. NATCA contends that the design is unsuitable, and its development is hampering attempts to fix problems with current air traffic control computers (November 1996, page 17).
McDonnell Douglas, the FAA and the Air Transport Association have developed a ``Turbulence Education and Training Aid'' to give pilots and flight attendants a heightened awareness of weather conditions that can cause turbulence, pointers on how to avoid it and ways to minimize risk in unavoidable encounters. The package consists of a 26-minute video and an illustrated manual. Copies of the program can be ordered from the National Technical Information Service. Phone: (703) 487-4650.
General aviation airfields are the intended beneficiaries of a revised priority system for receiving funds, as the result of revisions to certain procedures in the FAA's Airport Improvement Program. Among other changes, the revamped system will give greater priority to ``proposals submitted by small airports,'' the agency said. The revised system concentrates on ``full program'' development as opposed to individual projects.
Michel Dansereau has been appointed this wheel and brake company's marketing director for sales in the Americas and Japan. Dansereau will be based in Seattle.
Preliminary figures for August 1997 are so weak that they can mean one of only two things: Either the market took a serious, unexpected downturn in late summer, or the paperwork pipeline does not accurately reflect the month's sales. Most likely the latter reason is why only 13 transactions were recorded when researchers at Aviation Data Services closed out their preliminary accounting. That total includes four new turbojets sold in the U.S. market and one sold internationally. No new turboprop sales were recorded.
International Aviation Composites will move from Irving, Texas to Alliance Airport in Fort Worth in February 1998. The company repairs composite rotor blades of helicopters built by Aerospatiale, Bell, Boeing/McDonnell Douglas, Eurocopter, Schweizer and Sikorsky.
The NBAA is researching the impact on business jets of the FAR Part 36, Stage 1 phaseout schedule. Stage 1 business jets under 75,000 pounds may operate indefinitely within the United States, but as the phaseout of all Stage 2 jets of more than 75,000 pounds continues toward a December 31, 1999 deadline, the NBAA is concerned that Stage 1 jets under 75,000 pounds might become the next target for phaseout.
