At a minimum, the ADC serves up corrected ambient air temperature (SAT) to the flightcrew. SAT and TAT are passed to aircraft systems for use in power management, airspeed calculation and other performance-related tasks. Modern turbine powerplants often are equipped with digital computers (FADECs) that optimize fuel flow and power output while keeping the engine within operating limits. In this case, the ADC provides pressure altitude and the appropriate temperature as a function of operating phase.
West Chester, Pa.-based Keystone Helicopter plans to provide helicopter operators with the skills, services and personnel needed to ``complete the whole maintenance package.'' Keystone tracks technical records (ADs, SBs, etc.) on computer, while also offering avionics troubleshooting and field maintenance teams when needed. The company plans to establish a ``maintenance presence'' in the New York area, to support its highest concentration of airframe and engine maintenance customers.
IAC Ltd. of Fort Worth has been appointed an authorized service center for the Helicopter Technology Co. main rotor blade that is used as a PMAed replacement on RDM 500s.
Rifton Aviation, a charter operator based at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, N.Y., has added a Citation II to its fleet. Meanwhile, ownership of 5,300 acres west of Stewart has been transferred from New York's DOT to the state's Department of Environmental Conservation to permanently preserve the lands
After four years of ownership by Rolls-Royce, the Allison name has all but vanished from the company's production facility in Indianapolis. Only the Allison Advanced Development Co. -- established to prevent improper transfer of sensitive military technology to a foreign power -- still bears the old corporate name. And with exception of some data plates, engines also will bear the name of the ``new'' owner. The Indy line now includes the Rolls-Royce Model 250 small turboshaft and turboprop engine, the AE 2100 turboprop and the AE 3007 turbofan.
Imagine you're flying a Gulfstream V on an ILS approach into Westchester County Airport, currently a Type I ILS facility. The tower reports the weather as ceiling partially obscured, RVR 700. In most aircraft, that would be an automatic prescription for a divert to an alternate with better weather or one with a Type II or Type III ILS approach system. But who wants to commute back to the office from Kennedy, La Guardia or Newark?
FAA efforts to develop datalink technology have fallen under the scrutiny of the DOT's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) amid fears of cost overruns and poorly defined benefits. Despite 15 years of development and $420 million already spent, datalink remains a ``complex, long-term effort'' with ``substantial but uncertain'' costs, the OIG says in a recent report. OIG also fears that datalink, once incorporated into the cockpit environment, will increase the amount of ``head down'' time spent by pilots at the expense of more critical tasks.
The city of Burbank, Calif., says Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport is guilty of ``massive'' violations of Stage 2 noise restrictions, including 202 in October 1998. Airport officials say Stage 2 operations represent just two percent of the total number of takeoffs and landings at the field, and the city's action is part of an ongoing initiative to restrict airport growth. ``Burbank's use of the numbers is disingenuous at best and outright deceptive at worst,'' says Victor Gill, an airport spokesman.
On October 9, 1996, an Airbus 330-300 suffered two very severe lightning strikes while approach-ing the Greek island of Rhodes, where the aircraft made an uneventful landing. The first impact of the lightning on the fuselage was slightly above door 1R and showed jumps from frame to frame about one meter above the row of cabin windows until door three. On its way, the lightning burned out about 30 rivets. The lightning exited the aircraft on top of the vertical fin, where it burned a one-inch hole.
A Dassault Falcon 2000 demonstrator equipped with a Flight Dynamics HGS-2850 Head-Up Guidance System (HGS) performed the first manually flown and HGS-guided approach and landing under actual Category IIIa conditions at Tessera International Airport in Venice, Italy.
The FAA has announced that Loran-C will remain in operation until at least 2008, and the agency has suggested that the navigation system could stay in service even longer if a cost/benefit study indicates that such a move is desirable. The FAA said that the possibility of GPS interference, as well as the high costs associated with maintaining the satellite navigation network, has led the agency to reexamine available navigation alternatives.
AlliedSignal Aerospace, in its second annual helicopter forecast, predicts that 2,350 new civil turbine rotorcraft will be delivered between 1999 and 2003, sustaining a three-percent annual growth rate for the fleet. The Turbine Powered Civil Helicopter Market Outlook was based on AlliedSignal's fourth quarter 1998 customer expectations survey, which polled 1,000 operators that fly 2,900 helicopters in various regions worldwide.
Rolls-Royce has expanded its East Kilbride, Scotland facility to perform work on the R-R/Allison AE3007 engine, which powers the Embraer ERJ-145/135 regional jets, and Cessna's Citation X. The facility is the third equipped to handle the AE3007, and the first in Europe. East Kilbride already works on the AE2100 turboprop for the Saab 2000 and Lockheed Martin C-130J. In March, Europe's Joint Aviation Authority certified the AE3007A1, a growth engine with improved hot and high performance.
Norwalk, Conn.-based Debis Financial Services, a subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz Credit Corp. and a company of DaimlerChrysler Services, funded $1 billion in acquisitions in 1998, including $200 million in aircraft transactions
A total of 16,949 wildlife strikes to U.S. civil aircraft occurred from 1991 through 1997, for a 53-percent increase in the number of annual strikes, according to a recent report compiled by the FAA and released by the Flight Safety Foundation. Forty-nine percent of bird strikes took place on approach and landing, and 35 percent during takeoff and climb. Fifty-three percent of the mammal strikes occurred on approach and landing, and 32 percent during takeoff and climb.
A seven-member industry team led by AvroTec Inc. of Portland, Ore., and Avidyne Corp. of Lexington, Mass., has won a NASA contract to develop a next-generation cockpit for light general aviation aircraft.
SECA, the SOGERMA subsidiary based at Paris' Le Bourget Airport, claims to be the first engine maintenance facility in Europe to convert an AlliedSignal TFE731-2-3B into a TFE731-2C-3B
Edited By Robert A. SearlesArnold Lewis ASA to be operated as a wholly owned subsidiary; scope issue may become more prominent issue for pilots.
Delta's acquisition of Atlantic Southeast Airlines is the first of what some analysts believe will be a spate of regional-airline acquisitions by senior partners. Delta Connection ASA had reliability difficulties stemming to early 1998 and before and is being acquired by the senior partner for roughly $700 million, or $34 per share. Delta already owned 28 percent of ASA.
Two more suppliers have been chosen to provide equipment for Bombardier's new Continental business jet. Group Intertechnique will supply the fuel and electrical systems for the transcontinental aircraft, while AlliedSignal, which previously was chosen to supply the business jet's AS907 turbofan engines, will provide its 36-150 auxiliary power unit. Earlier, Rockwell Collins was tapped to provide its Pro Line 21 integrated avionics system for the Continental, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was selected to build the aircraft's wing.
