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Aviation History
1978
1978 - 2436.PDF
1380 Fatal-free 1977 for UK airtransport PASSENGER services by public-trans port aircraft on the British civil regis ter suffered no fatal accidents in 1977, according to the Civil Aviation Authority. The authority's annual accident survey, just published*, says that there were three notifiable acci dents to fixed-wing aircraft grossing over 2,300kg. Ten people were killed in two fatal cargo-aircraft accidents, six of them when the tailplane and elevator of a Dan-Air 707-320C detached as flaps were selected on the final approach to Lusaka, ZamMa. Four crew were killed when a Transmeridian CL44 crashed into Hong Kong harbour. The number of scheduled flights was slightly reduced at 347,600, com pared with 361,000 during 1976. There was a comparable drop in revenue hours flown. The number of non- scheduled flights increased to 138,100,, amounting to 349,000hr. The heli copter effort, virtually all non- scheduled, totalled 73,600 flights/ 68,800hr, and the passenger uplift rose by 50 per cent over the previous year to 884,000. The CAA estimates that general- aviation aircraft grossing below 2,300kg flew 604,000hr during the year. There were 197 accidents notified, which kept the rate substan tially the same at 32-6 accidents/ 100,000hr. Fatal accidents declined sharply to nine, for a rate of 1-49/ lOO.OOOhr. * CAP 4ia Civil Aviation Authority, Greville House, 37 Gratton Rd, Cheltenham; price £3-50. FUGHT International, 14 October 1978 Minnesota-based Wipaire converted this Nomad to operate off water. The Wipline 9812 floats pick up on the conventional undercarriage sponsons with the minimum of modification. Directional stability is restored by the large ventral fin Professor sounds off on noise "I ESTIMATE that the development cost of modifying [current high-by pass-ratio] engines for low noise would be some £1 million per deci bel reduction," said Prof J. E. Ffowcs Williams on October 6. Addressing the annual general tech nical meeting of the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators (Gapan) in London, the speaker, who is Rank Professor of Engineering (Acoustics) at Cambridge University, added that he thought that if a reduction of more than 5dB was sought, the development effort would probably cost some £10 million/dB "and I doubt if even then the 5dB goal is achievable." The pro fessor noted that the human ear could only just detect a change of 3dB and considered that such a change was of no significance; lOdB, on the other hand, was important. Techniques available to pilots were more likely to produce improvements than the efforts of the technologists. A 5° approach at a minimum-noise power setting was worth 5dB; doubling overflight height was worth 6dB. Aopa hits attendance jackpot at 1978 convention THE US Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association set an all-time attend ance record at its 23rd Industry Ex hibit and Plantation Party last week, reports Cliff Harnett from Las Vegas. Registrations at the convention centre in the MGM Grand Hotel approached 4,000, with over 1,000 members' aircraft parked at nearby McCarran Airport. Fifty exhibition aircraft from all the major US manu facturers taxied under escort through the outskirts of Las Vegas to go on show in the MGM parking lot, and indoor trade exhibitors in the Grand Ballroom totalled over 110 for the five-day event. The recent Boeing/Cessna collision at San Diego was a frequent topic of discussion at the many forums and lectures, although Aopa president John Baker emphasised that Aopa had "no reason to be apologetic." He was adamant that general aviation should not be maligned, since, to judge by the available facts, it had done nothing wrong to cause the accident. In his address at the awards presentation, FAA Administrator Langhorne Bond stressed his inten tion of backing general aviation, and pledged to make the FAA "leaner and more responsive" towards GA. Avionics and aircraft equipment were the main attractions in the trade show, where the prototype of a new nav system called Skymap attracted a lot of attention. Using the inputs of just two VORs, Skymap gives a con stant moving-map display of position on a rad/nav chart, plus a digital readout of bearing and distance data. The whole unit, including display screen and two nav/com sets, goes into one box and should fit the panel of most high-performance singles. Production examples are expected to sell for under $10,000. A production go-ahead for Canada's Trident Trigull single amphibian, on display at the convention, has been announced, and the first production aircraft should now be ready in 1980. Amongst the other new aircraft were a 1979 Piper Seneca H with • next year's three-bladed propeller option, an early production model of the latest Cherokee derivative, the Dakota, and a 1979 Cessna Skyhawk. Lectures and pilot clinics covered meteorology, air traffic control, federal taxation, insurance and liability, engines, FAA enforcement, and aerodynamics. The National Association of Flight Instructors' sessions included detailed presenta tions by Cessna on spinning and by Beechcraft on asymmetric twin train ing. Newcomers to the convention in cluded the Civil Aviation Medical Association and the Soaring Society of America. Flight and ground schools run by Aopa's Air Safety Foundation covered mountain flying, instrument refresher courses (mainly aimed at Instrument Rating renewals), training for survival of forced landings in hazardous country, and the "pinch- hitter" course, designed to enable a passenger to get an aircraft down safely in the event of pilot incapaci tation. A detailed on-the-spot report of the speeches, discussion topics, general-aviation statistics, equipment and aircraft at one of the world's biggest meetings of light aircraft pilots will follow in an early issue.
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