Range/Payload Profile — Each of the four payload/range lines was plotted from only two data points by B&CA , so they are highly simplistic approximations. The graph illustrates the Eclipse 550 at a 518-lb. payload, 1,109 nm at high-speed cruise in 3 hr. 26 min. FAR Part 23 50-ft.
S ixteen years after conception, a decade since its first flight and $1.4 billion dollars later, the Eclipse 500 finally is maturing into a full-fledged business jet, albeit the tiniest in current production. The world’s first VLJ was endowed with promising but untested DNA. As a result, it went through one of the most difficult and time-consuming development cycles in the history of business aircraft.
Y ou’ve made the decision to replace your flight department’s aircraft. You have identified the models best able to achieve your anticipated missions and have determined the preferred interior configuration. Now, how do you go about optimizing your aircraft’s replacement value?
Two dozen of the windshield failures in the U.K. database involved rotorcraft. Of those, 19 resulted from high-speed collisions with birds, with the potential for shattered windshield pieces flying violently into the cabin and piercing the flight crew or cabin occupants. For example, on Dec. 5, 2008, an Aerospatiale AS355 was cruising near Leominster when a large bird was sighted just prior to impact. The windshield shattered and the dead bird’s carcass struck and injured the student pilot in the left seat.
The archipelago nation of the Philippines has had a long relationship with the United States dating from the end of the Spanish-American war in 1898 when the islands were ceded to the U.S. as a protectorate, in effect, becoming an American colony and Southeast Asian outpost.
No one knows the potential consequences of windshield failure better than Tim Lancaster, who on June 10, 1990, was the pilot-in-command of British Airways Flight 5390 traveling from Birmingham, England, to Malaga, Spain. Suddenly the left windscreen on the BAC 1-11 separated from the fuselage and Capt. Lancaster was immediately jerked out of his seat with such force that his head and entire upper torso were pulled entirely out of the airplane through the opening where his windshield had been. Only his legs remained inside.
