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Aviation History
1977
1977 - 2324.PDF
FLIGHT International, 30 July 1977 317 Turbo Mentor test accident A BEECHCRAFT T-34C Turbo Mentor engaged in company test-flying crashed on July 35, killing the pilot, Bob Stone. The aircraft was in a high speed dive as part of trials to estab lish the extreme aerodynamic limits of the T-34C. The drag chute installed on the aircraft was found to be de ployed at the accident site, but pend ing further investigations Beech is un able to say whether premature de ployment caused the accident. According to Beech, a flutter con dition which caused an accident to a T-54C in January this year has now been eliminated. The company says that the flutter test programme estab lished that the T-34C exceeds by more than 50 per cent the normal flight envelope required for US Navy student training. Beech says that it is inconceivable that a student pilot could inadvertently take the aircraft into the upper flight regimes being tested last week. "Kiev" mounts retractable radar A RECENT article in the Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute has confirmed the existence of a radar on a retractable mounting at the bows of the Russian aircraft carrier Kiev. Nato has allocated the unsubtle re porting name of Trap Door to this installation, which was reported ex clusively by Flight last winter (Decem ber 18, page 1769). Trap Door is used to control SS-N- 12 surface-to-surface missiles in the early stages of flight. Mid-course guidance commands are transmitted to the missiles by Kiev's Ka-25 Hor mone A helicopters. There are no photographs so far of the new radar in the raised position. All published pictures show only the rectangular hatch cover which gives the radar its reporting name. Drawings in the US publication suggest that this cover is in two sections, one of which moves forward towards the bows and the other rearward to uncover the radar mounting. Argentinians propose new trainer A TURBOPROP aircraft to replace Beech T-34A primary trainers in the Argentinian Air Force is being pro posed by FMA, the manufacturer of the Pucara light attack aircraft. Development go-ahead may be given by the end of the year, with a first flight possible in 1979 and production in the early 1980s. A model of the trainer, designated IA.62, was on display at Paris and showed off its lineage from the Pucara. Like the attack aircraft, it is powered by a Turbomeca Astazou turboprop, in this case a 590 h.p. XIVR. The idea is clearly to provide a combination primary/basic trainer in the mould of the T-34C Turbo Mentor or Pilatus PC-7 Turbo-Trainer, : ; . • • . • " • •• •• with the two crew in tandem and a retractable tricycle undercarriage. Basic details of the proposed IA.62 are as follows: Empty weight 1,300kg Max weight clean 1,950kg Max weight with stores 2,600kg Cruise speed 300km/hr Max speed at 10,000ft 360km/hr Max dive speed 600km/hr Min speed 110km/hr (at max weight) T/O to 50ft, max weight, s.i. 550m Landing from 50ft, max weight, s.l. 500m Range 1,200km Endurance 5hr Ceiling, clean 26,000ft Load factor, clean, aerobatic 4-6, —3 Load factor, max weight + 4, -2 For basic weapon training, the IA.62 would have two 7-62mm machine-guns in the wings and two underwing hardpoints for light bombs or other stores. Basic avionics would include intercom, multi-channel VHF, ADF and VOR/ILS. TV sight tested in F-14s THE US Navy is testing a version of the Northrop Tiseo closed-circuit tele vision sight, for identification of enemy aircraft, on four Grumman F-14 Tomcats. Tiseo is already opera tional on USAF F-4Es, has been delivered to Iran and Turkey, and is due to be fitted to Greek F-4s. The Navy version, known as TVSU (Tele vision Sight Unit), is identical in per formance but slightly different in configuration. In spite of being packaged in two instead of four boxes, TVSU weighs the same as Tiseo at about 941b. According to Northrop, the F-14 is already wired to accept the system, which has completed all laboratory, USN technical and carrier-suitability tests. The four units are installed on aircraft taking part in Air Intercept Missile Evaluation/Air Combat Evaluation (Aimval/Aceval) exer cises at Nellis AFB, Nevada. Though air-drop trials of the Marconi Space and Defence Systems lightweight air-launched torpedo have begun (see Defence last week), British Opposition defence spokesman Sir Ian Cilmour confirms that the Government is con sidering cancellation of the project The TVSU and the Tomcat's AWG-9 /Phoenix radar and fire- control system are slaved to one another. The gimballed telescope / television system is gyro-stabilised and, like Tiseo, has two fields of view to allow visual identification of hostile aircraft up to 10 miles distant. Images are displayed in both cockpits. During the Aimval trials the TVSU has been used with AIM-7F Sparrows to identify and electronically "kill" F-5E aggressor aircraft. The system was used for identification 171 times in 185 encounters. Sikorsky pushes on with advanced helicopter SIKORSKY'S Rotor Systems Research Aircraft (RSRA) has now been fitted with two fixed wings as well as two General Electric TF34 engines to pro vide extra forward thrust. The aircraft has hovered at the company's Strat ford plant (see World News) but is now to be flown without the wings to Langley, Va, for full wingborne flight trials. The RSRA can normally hover at a maximum 20,5001b gross weight. The engines and wings push gross weight up to 28,0001b, at which the aircraft has to make a running take off. There is no runway at Stratford, hence the need to move to Langley. Meanwhile, Sikorsky has received a contract to take the Advancing Blade Concept (ABC) helicopter into the true high-speed regime, the target being 300kt. As a pure helicopter it reached 160kt. Two Pratt & Whitney J60 turbojets are now being added for extra forward thrust.
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