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Aviation History
1983
1983 - 2232.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT Flight found it comfortable operating the sidestick Sidestick proves itself TOULOUSE When he took off as a passenger in Airbus Indus trie's test A300 he didn't know he was going to do it, but Air Inter pilot Hugues Jourion was to cut a small notch in the yardstick of aviation history. A little less than two hours later he would manually land the aircraft back at Toulouse Blagnac in "Cat 2|" condi tions using the new sidestick controller (previously referred to as the "ministick"). These facts alone may not sound particularly surprising, reports David Lear mount. So here are the additional facts which define the signifi cance. Jourion flies Mercures for Air Inter, and has only recently started A300 simu lator work to convert on to the conventional Airbus type—he had never flown the A300 before. His experience of the sidestick control was a brief ing that morning and about 20min airborne handling of it before making the instrument landing system (ILS) approach. Airbus had never used the sidestick for a land ing in fog with visibility as poor as this—runway visual range was about 300m, and right-hand-seat pilot Gilbert Defer told Jourion to look up at 40ft height as the runway profile began to assume a usable shape. Jourion's only help came from the auto- throttle. The landing was a fine one. During the same sortie, Learmount flew the sidestick A300 for Flight, sitting the aircraft on the stall at one end of that speed profile which the ministick will allow, and clos- 1586 ing on VD (structure design speed) at the other end. Airbus allowed Flight to swing the aeroplane from 60° bank left to the same angle right, and later Flight tried standing in the cabin while the same manoeuvres were made and found it unnecessary, because of the aircraft's all-axes stability, to hold on to anything or even move the feet to balance. While Flight was handling the aircraft it took about 60sec to forget that the control column was not in the conventional position. It took a little longer to become accustomed to the fact that, with the sidestick, you give pure flight path commands rather than a demand for a control surface deflection. The sidestick is not just a small control column posi tioned unusually. It is an inte gral part of Airbus' plans for the new-generation fly-by- wire airliner, the first of which will be the A320. In the test aeroplane the sidestick is rigged to give the same results as a proper fly- by-wire (FBW) airliner, but in fact uses the autopilot to do it. The sidestick was rigged in this aeroplane to carry out initial trials and to test the reaction to the system by pilots and certificating autho rities. UK Civil Aviation Authority and US Federal Aviation Administration offi cials both have flown it, and were enthusiastic about handling qualities. For further details on the system, on FBW plans, and on impressive flight safety margin improvements, see Flight next week. Dash 7 stretch- TORONTO After two rounds of intensive market research de Havilland Canada has decided on a major change to its proposed stretched Dash 7. The manufacturer is now approaching airlines with a 78-seat Dash 7 re-engined with Pratt & Whitney Canada PW115s. A second important feature of DHC's new proposal is extra cabin pres sure differential to let the aircraft cruise comfortably at 25,000ft. The extra differential is needed because the Dash 7- 300's climb performance and cruise speed will be consid erably better than those of the basic aircraft, so it will climb higher on a given sector. The Canadian manufac turer originally proposed to power the Dash 7-300 with a further-uprated version of the already highly developed PT6A. But airline reaction indicated that, although the PT6A is a vastly reliable and proven powerplant, a new engine was needed for a late- Eighties large turboprop aircraft. DHC believes fuel effi ciency will become an important issue again by the end of the decade, because it predicts that avtur prices will have begun to rise sharply by then. Re-engining with the PW115 will not only assure good SFC performance compared to jets and current turboprops, it says: by the time the Dash 7-300 appears, in 1988, DHC and Pratt & Whitney will be able to guar antee an initial engine TBO of at least 4,000hr. The Dash 7-300's PWllSs will only differ from those of the Embraer Brasilia in the* gearbox: DHC will want more gearing down for lower r.p.m.s' and thus lower propeller noise > levels. Unlike Fokker, the Cana-; dian manufacturer has not yet, made any definite commit ment to its derivative project: •' most of its resources will be tied up with the Dash 8 engineering and production' effort for the next two years. But the company believes time is on its side—it thinks , 1986 is too early to introduce a large turboprop aircraft, ' because jets will still repre- _ sent better value than turboprops over most sectors, -t If the Dash 7 stretch receives the go-ahead, DHC * aims to have it in service in t 1988. The company believes that the relatively small * development work necessary _y will allow it to launch the programme late in 1985 or early in 1986. That would dovetail nicely with the tail- off of design and engineering .* effort for the Dash 8. DHC marketing manager • Arthur Toplis tells Flight that , the final Dash 7-300 will undoubtedly feature detail changes from the current aircraft. But he believes that the proposal described here is almost certainly the basic design that DHC will adopt if 1 the production decision is taken. The Dash 7-300 as newly proposed will cruise some 50kt faster than the Dash 7, at 278kt TAS. Time to climb to , 15,000ft will be more than halved, but the aircraft will suffer little landing distance , penalty. The fuselage will be stretched by 182ft; both wing and fuselage are strengthened, but external planforms The Dash 7-300's payload-range graph shows a 700 n.m. maximum range with full passenger load. It can operate a 400 n.m. sector in lOOmin PAYLOAD RANGE 80 Pax f 190 lb each inclfc ISA conditions IFR reserves Max cruise rating 5O0 Range— nfm. ISA conditions Max cruise rating 500 1000 Range —n.m. FLIGHT International, 17 December 198i
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