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Aviation History
1998
1998 - 2597.PDF
&£jy£JtelL AVIATION "The Meridian is tailored to its mission and the people who will be flying it." Similarly, New Piper also has an eye on revamping the Warrior/Archer/Arrow models which evolved from the Cherokee, the first air craft produced at the then-new Vero Beach plant in 1960. The old Piper long ago dropped the original "Hershey-bar wing" that helped make the Cherokee one of general aviation's lowest-cost products. But even with a longer, slightly tapered wing, the 120kW Warrior III, 135kW Archer III and 150kW, retractable gear Arrow III remain Cherokees at their cores. New Piper believes it may be time for some thing new - but not something new for the sake of new alone. For Suma and his colleagues, that means something fresh in engine power to go into a new airframe. Fortunately for New Piper and the rest of the industry, development of new powerplants seems to be in high gear. Textron Lycoming and Unison Industries, for example, plan to deploy a new digital, single-lever, piston engine con trol system in 2000, as the Meridian programme is shifting from development and certification to production and delivery. Although built around the traditional flat-four and flat-six air- cooled technology in use for six decades, these piston engine advances offer the promise of more power, better reliability and improved operating economies. Similarly, improved economies, lower costs and higher reliability is the promise held by Williams International's FJX-2 small turbofan engine being developed under the auspices of NASAs General Aviation Propulsion (GAP) programme. Weighing under 45kg (1001b), the FJX-2 could deliver all the advantages of a tur bofan for under $50,000 per unit - and with a specific fuel consumption better than the previ ous best pistons. Also on the horizon are diesels and other kerosene-burning engines, including Renault/ Socata's new diesel; a GAP-funded two-stroke turbocharged diesel being developed by Teledyne Continental and a competitor being developed by Textron Lycoming; and a diesel- fuelled, spark-ignited rotary promised by Germany's Wankel. "Right now, it's a matter of watching what develops and polling our customers to see what they want out of any new design we might cre ate," Suma says. "Our customers will point the way, just as they did on the Meridian." On the Meridian, pilot input shaped the new turboprop considerably compared to the Mirage on which it is based. For example, cus tomers wanted a state-of-the-art instrument panel. New Piper picked Garmin International, Meggitt Avionics and S-TEC to fill the Meridian panel with all-new equipment. "Piper found diat these suppliers are truly on the leading edge when it comes to electronic component systems," says Larry Bardon, New Piper's director of sales and marketing. "They Pilatus has proved there is a market for pressurised turboprop singles by taking more than 100 orders for PC-12s in under three years - New Piper is aiming to take the concept into a new niche have a proven track record of bringing products to market on time," he says, adding: "They have leapfrogged over the competition to get where they are today." READY FOR WAAS Anew Garmin unit, the GNS 530, will provide navigation and communications, including a 12-channel global positioning system (GPS) and full-colour, large-screen moving map. The GNS 530 includes a VHF transceiver with 8.33kHzchannel spacing, while the navigation side integrates VOR, localiser and glideslope receivers into the same box with the GPS. The GPS and conventional navigation systems will be approved for instrument approaches, and the system will be capable of precision GPS ap proaches using the Wide Area Augmentation System when it comes on-line next century. S-TEC is to supply its System 550 autopilot, with a flight guidance computer that couples with the Garmin GNS 530. Meggitt is supply ing an engine instrument display system, con sisting of two liquid-crystal displays. In addition, Piper will offer as optional equipment a Meggitt electronic flight display system. This includes flat-panel primary flight and naviga tion displays for both pilots, plus an air data atti tude heading reference system. While it is prepared to leapfrog the competi tion in avionics technology, New Piper is poised to advance airframe and engine technology more cautiously. But with each leap, William Piper's namesake company expects to take a big ger share of the market as it moves to jets some time after 2000 and looks at building on its pis ton roots with new products after that. As Suma says: "We're excited about the future, about what's ahead, about being a factor in the market once again." J FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 16 - 22 September 1998 53
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