The Avio system is more than an avionics package; it is a dual redundant aircraft computer system that also controls electrical, fuel, engine support, environmental, ice protection landing gear, exterior lights, pressurization, trim control and fire extinguishing systems. The anti-skid braking system computer is a stand-alone unit that was not planned for the original aircraft.
The following information is derived from the NTSB’s preliminary report on the fatal accident involving a Gulfstream GIV at Hanscom Field (BED), Bedford, Massachusetts, on May 31, 2014.
T he NTSB has completed its investigation into the loss of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 — a Boeing 777 that crashed into a seawall then cartwheeled on Runway 28L at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) on July 6, 2013 — with a widely anticipated probable cause finding that the crew let the airplane get low and slow during an unstabilized visual approach.
Aircraft operating costs are presented in a format that separates the data into seven separate areas: Mission Costs, Variable Costs, Fixed Annual Costs, Periodic Costs, Personnel Costs, Training Costs and Facilities Costs.
June 1— About 1400 EDT, an employee from the FBO responding to a de Havilland DHC-6-200 airplane (N223AL), received fatal injuries when she was struck by an operating propeller blade as she walked toward the cockpit while the airplane was standing on a ramp at the Middletown Regional Airport/Hook Field (MWO), near Middletown, Ohio. The airplane was registered to and operated by Win Win Aviation Inc., under FAR Part 91 as a skydiving flight. The local skydiving flight was standing on the MWO ramp while waiting for passengers to board when the accident occurred.
"Under Pressure” (June 2014, page 45) was a great article on tires, but your Learjet 60 accident synopsis gives the reader the impression that this was a typical accident for a post-V1 abort. It was not. You wrote that the thrust reversers were activated but omitted that the TRs subsequently stowed (damaged squat switches) and caused the airplane to accelerate as the engines spooled up above the N1 limit for reverse.
There is something strangely prehistoric about the way many of us continue to fly what we grew up calling a “non-precision” instrument approach. After flying across continents and oceans with navigational precision measured in decimals, we push the nose over a thousand feet per minute “or so” and wait for the minimum descent altitude (MDA). That altitude is measured with an altimeter accurate to plus or minus 75 ft., plus whatever temperature tolerances may exist, and based on an altimeter setting that may be an hour or more old.
The TBM 900’s Pratt & Whitney Canada 1,825-hp PT6A-66D engine, flat rated to 850 shp to ISA+49C, gets a single power lever control that operates much like an automotive manual gear shift lever with an “h” pattern. The right side of the “h” controls condition modes, including feather, high and low idle, and cut off. The left side of the “h” controls power modes, including forward and reverse thrust, plus ground fine pitch, taxi power functions. Normal operating prop speed in flight is 2,000 rpm.
Last year, after the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) released its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for charter brokers, I prophesized that “2014 might see the industry step in and create voluntary broker rules and a registry of those who meet these standards.”
C ruising at 325 kt. at FL 310 may seem leisurely by very-light-jet standards, but when that’s combined with a 20 min., 15 sec. climb to maximum cruise altitude, the TBM 900 can meet or beat the trip times of the Eclipse 550 and Cessna Citation Mustang on most missions.
The TBM 900’s Garmin avionics package has been thoroughly upgraded. Pressurization control now is automatic by means of an FMS function, version 14 software makes possible display of weather radar imagery on the MFD map, and a solid-state GWX70 Doppler turbulence detection radar replaces the GWX68 magnatron unit. Several cockpit components, including the overhead panel, landing gear control panel and ice protection controls, plus the pressurization and bleed air control panel, circuit breaker panels and power quadrant, have been redesigned for better ergonomics.
