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Aviation History
1970
1970 - 0061.PDF
Replacement Aircraft For West Country Route The long- •t -jnning search by Dan-Air Ltd for an aircraft to replace its Dakota on the Bristol-Cardiff-Liverpool-Newcastle route ' is reported to be over. The company was given a complete < route demonstration of both the Beech 99 and the Jetstream during 1969 and was known to favour the latter. Negotiations * with Handley Page had reached an advanced stage at the time of the appointment of a receiver, but Dan-Air found that financial support for the purchase was not readily available t while the manufacturer's future was in doubt. , The original timescale envisaged by Dan-Air allowed for t the Dakota to be phased out in March, 1970, and for this target date to be met the company was forced to seek an alter native replacement. Evaluation of the 29-seat Nord 262 showed that not only would it operate satisfactorily on the existing route but it would also offer scope for future expansion both in terms of capacity and range. Allegheny Airlines Inc. who have had extensive experience of third level operation with the Nord 262, achieved an overall on-time departure rate of 98.4 per cent. Their fleet of seven Nords is currently for sale at a figure approaching half the new price of the aircraft and equipped to a standard closely akin to the Dan-Air requirement. i The Nord 262 has not yet been offered for certification in this country but it is understood that mandatory modifications 1 would be likely to be confined to the fitting of a stick-shaker and possible changes to the wing tip profile to reduce the degree of wing drop at the stall. New Light Twins Mooney is developing a new light twin probably based on the current single-engined M-22, previously known as the Mustang. According to American reports, t several prototypes of Piper's twin-engined Cherokee Six are flying (see Flight for July 10, page 37). The first has logged ' . more than lOOhr. The aircraft has the same fuselage as the single-engined version but has different wings and a retract able undercarriage. Two 180 h.p. Lycomings are fitted. Piper's new assembly plant at Lakeland, Florida—originally intended for the Pocono, whose future is now in doubt—could be quickly adapted to build the Twin Six if a production go-ahead is Windecker Research Inc, of Midland, Texas, is planning to put the plastic-built, single-engdne, four-seat Eagle 1 into production following its recent type certification by the FAA. Windecker holds an exclusive licence from the Dow Chemical Company for the use of Fibaloy reinforced plastic in the Eagle, which has been under development by Dr Leo Windecker since 1960. The company is now preparing to float a new stock issue and details are expected soon. The certificated prototype, designated the AC-7, has retract able landing gear and a Continental IO-520 engine. The original fixed-gear prototype is still flying, according to Windecker, but the first retractable-gear version crashed last April when the pilot baled out after the aircraft could not be recovered from a spin. Benson Model B-8MA Agricopter which, says Benson, takes advantage of "ULV", or Ultra Low Volume application. The company claims that using five gallons of Ortho Dibron 14 concentrate the Agricopter can effectively cover 160 to 400 acres in one 40min flight. Earlier work on spraying from gyrocopters was carried out in England by Napier and Pan Britannica Piper Computer Piper is now offering potential customers a computer-run cost analysis programme covering, as appro priate, airline routes, executive travel, air-taxi operations or agricultural flying. Input data includes aircraft type, estimated utilisation, net investment, estimated hourly operating costs and annual fixed costs. So far more than 300 individual analyses have been run through. De Havilland Canada has been testing various propellers designed to reduce noise levels by using slower-revving propellers with larger paddle blades. City-centre STOL airports will dictate quieter aircraft and this is behind DHC's experiments—probably with the projected DHC-7 as much in mind as the current Twin Otter/ Miami Aviation recently showed its Series 300 demonstrator equipped with the new propellers which, it claimed, lowered the noise level by SdB compared with other Twin Otters
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