By William Garvey, Jessica A. Salerno, Molly McMillin
Bell Helicopter is moving production of its new Model 505 JetRanger X helicopter from the U.S. to the company's Mirabel plant near Montreal as part of a restructuring that the company says will optimize manufacturing capabilities.
The pilot breed has in it the primal instinct to attempt every assigned task, no matter the odds of success. Like many of our innate urges, this proclivity must be kept in check because in an airplane, acting on it can be deadly.
By William Garvey, Jessica A. Salerno, Molly McMillin
Sheltair has acquired Tampa Jet International Center at Tampa International Airport, Florida, and plans to expand its infrastructure. The operation and location is expected to fit into Shelter's growth model and complements its network of fixed-base operations.
In February 2002, a Gulfstream V underwent maintenance at a repair station at West Palm Beach Airport in Florida. The airplane was placed on jacks for a tire change. During the process, a maintenance tech disabled the weight-on-wheels, aka "squat" switches with wooden "Popsicle sticks" to simulate that the GV was in "ground mode" so he could access the Maintenance Data Acquisition Unit in the cockpit to troubleshoot a false overspeed warning problem.
Former Royal Air Force aviator O.W. "Wally" Epton, with nearly 17,000 hr. of stick time specializes in conducting functional check flights and training other pilots how to do the same in a responsible and knowledgeable way.
BCA contributor James Albright, who authors the "http://code7700.com" website, advises using qualified pilots and mechanics on functional check flights.
Aviation lore veritably brims with tales of the fearless test pilot flying into harm's way to probe the limits of an experimental airplane's performance, the quintessential scenario being the flutter dive. You know the scene: Pull up, Buck, pull up!
Two young men, both aspiring for aviation careers, were killed on March 24, 2014, at about 1738 when the Piper Seminole PA-44-180 they were piloting broke up in flight and crashed into a salt marsh near Brunswick, Georgia. The NTSB determined that the accident probably resulted from the pilots losing control of their aircraft while flying in stratiform instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) at 8,000 ft. MSL.
The pilot and two passengers were killed on the afternoon of May 3, 2016, when their Beech 35B Bonanza broke up and crashed in Syosset on Long Island, New York. The IFR flight originated in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and was en route to Robertson Field (4B8) in Plainville, Connecticut.
The NTSB calls your attention to Advisory Circular AC 91-75, a Safer Skies initiative recommendation authored by the FAA and the industry that highlighted vacuum system failures as a significant cause or contributor to fatal accidents in IMC.
The inspiration for "mercy missions" traces back to Nov. 19, 1946, when an off-course American C-53—the paratroop version of the DC-3/C-47—with four crewmen and eight military VIPs aboard crashed into the Swiss Alps. All survived, but they were stranded in deep snow on a high glacier with no means of self-extraction.
Weight-and-balance considerations of a helicopter are similar to those of an airplane, except they are far more critical, and the CG range is much more limited.
Bruce Whitman, chairman, president and CEO of FlightSafety International, receives the medaille de l'Aeronautique from France in New York from Consul General Bertrand Lortholary on April 26, 2016.
Designers attempt to provide exceptional capabilities in all areas, including price, but the laws of physics, thermodynamics and aerodynamics do not allow one aircraft to perform all missions with equal efficiency. Trade-offs are a reality of aircraft design.
Three HondaJet HA-420 graphs are designed to illustrate the aircraft's performance under a variety of range, payload, speed and density altitude conditions.
Michimasa Fujino, founding president and CEO of Honda Aircraft Co. Inc, is understandably proud of the new HondaJet. He has personally guided its progress from initial conception to a fully developed model and certified aircraft, fighting through at least five years of delays in the process.
