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Aviation History
1985
1985 - 0040.PDF
Ag aviation blossoms in Las Vegas Spring came early to Las Vegas: as weathermen forecast record-high winter temperatures across the southern United States, Air Tractor, Ayres, and Schweizer yellows vied with Helio green under a blue Nevada sky. Visitors to last month's US National Agricultural Aviation Association convention doubled the number who attended the event two years ago. Ian Goold reports from Las Vegas, with photographs by Howard Levy. Ag safety trend is down, says FAA Agricultural aviation in the USA has been getting safer in recent years, according to Bernard Geier (general- aviation and commercial division manager in the FAA flight-operations office). Reviewing the past 15 years, Geier points out that the overall trend has been down ward. The annual accidents total was above 400 a year between 1972 and 1979, peaked at 481 in 1974, and had been falling since then. The "high" for fatal acci dents in the same period was in 1971, when 48 were recorded. More than 30 were noted in each year from 1970 to 1977, since when the number has been falling until 1984. The total number of accidents to ag aircraft last year (by mid-December) was 233, compared with 236 in the whole of 1983. The number of fatal accidents had risen from 1983's 11 to 13 last year. Considering cause factors, Geier mentions 64 cases of engine failure or power loss in 1984. Leo Weston (GA and commercial manager, aircraft maintenance division, FAA airworthiness office) says that many of these involved cylin der and master-con-necting- rod failures. Geier emphasises that the incidence of wire strikes during ag operations has remained high in the past year at 25 cases. In a further 21 instances aircraft "flew into the ground". Twelve aircraft hit trees or other objects. The higher awareness of the dangers of misfuelling— which has followed campaigns by, particularly, the US National Air Transport Asso ciation and US Aircraft Owners and Pilots Associa tion among others—had resulted in no cases of avgas being put into turbine- powered aircraft (at least up to mid-December). There were still too many instances of fuel exhaustion in 1984, says Geier. Some 15 aircraft had suffered this fate in 1983, and a further five were recorded in 1984. Appearing most often in the accident list are the AgCat (57 instances—no doubt a reflection of its greater numbers), Cessna (46), and Piper (21). For two or three years now, the US National Agricultural Aircraft Association has been running its Operation SAFE programme. This is aimed at making ag-spraying opera tions more efficient by educating pilots in the need to "tune" their rigs to obtain more even distribution of applicant and to avoid drift over other areas. It is to be extended to include piloting techniques. Under a "Wings" programme, pilots will attend a seminar and receive 3hr dual instruction. 38 Predator 480 progresses Agricultural aviation is still living in the 1930s, says David Record of Advanced Technology Aircraft (111755 Glendale Avenue, Hanford, California 9323; tel (209) 584-1591): "We've an oppor tunity to take ag aviation from the bottom to the top in terms of technology". Accordingly, Record has retained Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites to produce the aircraft now flying as the Predator 480 (Flight, Novem ber 3, page 1159). Prime requirement is that it should be stall-limited, he says. "I know from my own experi ence that this is what we need. FAA records won't show [it, but] 50+ per cent of acci dents are from stall-related phenomena". Another area of concern is engine performance. While engaged as an ag pilot himself, Record suffered three engine failures in ten days, all with the same type of engine. The company for whom he worked suffered seven "premature failures" within 3,500hr during a single year. The engine is the most important factor in an ag design, he argues: "You must FLIGHT International, 5 January 1985
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