All General aviation articles – Page 633
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News
Dunlop brakes Nimrod
Dunlop Aviation has been selected to supply carbon brakes and a modular brake control and anti-skid system for the British Aerospace Nimrod 2000 replacement maritime-patrol aircraft. Source: Flight International
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Sabretech talks
Sabre Tech, the maintenance operation which lost business after being linked with the ValuJet crash investigation last year, is due to be acquired by Commodore Aviation, the overhaul subsidiary of Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) also based in Miami, Florida. Commodore, which had sales of $35 million in 1996 and expects ...
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UK CAA insists on stick-shaker for Falcon 2000
Dassault has delivered the first UK-registered Falcon 2000 business jet, but has been forced to equip the aircraft with a "stick-shaker" stall-warning device to meet the UK Civil Aviation Authority's "additional requirements for import". These come despite the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) declaring that such a device is unnecessary. ...
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Cessna expects Bravo approval
Cessna has received basic US certification for the Citation Bravo light business jet. Full certification, for flight into known icing and clearance of the flight-management system and autopilot, is expected by the end of this month, and first deliveries are scheduled to begin in February. Cessna says that ...
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Conventional simplicity
The Cessna 172R is an all-metal, high-wing monoplane which, unlike the more-recently designed pretenders to its throne, is utterly conventional in design. The wing is a simple two-spar structure of 10.29m span, built in two halves which are bolted to the cabin frames and joined by a carry-through ...
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ValuJet disposes
ValuJet has sold three additional surplus aircraft, including its last remaining McDonnell Douglas MD-83, as part of a US Federal Aviation Administration order to reduce its fleet. The airline has also pre-paid the debt on a fourth aircraft, which it will sell. Source: Flight International
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Sophisticated Skyhawk
What was Cessna Aircraft thinking, critics asked 25 years ago, believing that it could sell sophisticated business jets? This was a company known most for its simple single-engine aircraft. When Cessna Citation 500s started showing up on ramps in the early 1970s, sceptics ridiculed the straight-wing aircraft's lack of sophistication ...
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Germany to certificate Cessna 150 upgrade
The German aviation authority LBA is to certificate a Rotax-powered Cessna 150 upgrade with a Hoffmann constant-speed propeller by June, says the propeller manufacturer. The upgrade is to be offered by German engineer Guido Sperl at a target price of DM50,000 ($32,000). Hoffmann says that the new engine ...
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AMRAI works to salvage N250 schedule
American Regional Aircraft Industries (AMRAI) is to form a joint task force with IPTN in an attempt to get the N250 flight-test and certification programme back on schedule. The Indonesian manufacturer and its US-based subsidiary agreed to the recovery effort in mid-December, shortly after the much-delayed maiden flight ...
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FAA orders FJ44 turbine solution
The US Federal Aviation Administration is requiring immediate inspection and replacement of high-pressure turbine disks used in Williams Rolls-Royce FJ44 turbofans which have twice failed on Cessna CitationJets. The airworthiness directive (AD) affects the early-model FJ44-1A turbofan engines which power some CitationJets. The Directive orders immediate and recurring ...
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Comsat picked on WAAS
COMSAT Mobile Communications has been selected by the US Federal Aviation Administration to provide satellite-communications services for the Hughes Aircraft Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), ex -pected to begin operations in December 1998. Under a contract potentially worth $100 million if all options are exercised, COMSAT will furnish satellite and ...
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FAA softens order on Lycoming crankshaft
A PROPOSED airworthiness directive(AD) requiring repetitive inspection, and possible replacement, of crankshafts in certain Textron Lycoming engines has been modified to reduce its potentially serious impact on operators. The AD was prompted by failures of hollow-end crankshafts caused by corrosion-induced cracking. The original notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) ...
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Mercury could be target for fifth Discovery
NASA will make a final decision in April whether to launch the Hermes Global Orbiter spacecraft to map the planet Mercury as the fifth mission in the Discovery series. The Hermes has been proposed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California and spacecraft-builder Spectrum Astro in Arizona. The ...
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Five UK police forces opt for Skyquest moving-map systems
Five UK Police helicopter-support units have ordered Skyquest Aviation's EuroNav III moving-map system, for use during airborne-surveillance missions. Using the EuroNav III, an onboard police observer is able to pinpoint a location such as a house address, and provide the pilot with instant navigation data to reach the ...
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ValuJet progress
ValuJet Airlines is again serving West Palm Beach and will resume flights to Fort Myers, Florida, on 16 January. The low-fare Atlanta, Georgia-based airline continues to rebuild its route structure under the watchful eye of the US Federal Aviation Administration which has now given permission for ValuJet to add three ...
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Socata spares costs
Aerospatiale subsidiary Socata is to continue its two-year-old policy of holding down spares prices throughout 1997, in an effort to reduce the operating costs of its Rallye, TB-series and TBM 700 light aircraft. Source: Flight International
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Deja vu with age-60-years ruling
Sir - A US Federal Appeals Court panel will rule shortly on whether the US Federal Aviation Administration can continue to bar pilots of 60 years old from commanding US passenger aircraft. The general consensus seems to be that the "Age 60" rule is not based so much on medical ...
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Toyota is cleared to produce piston aero-engine
TOYOTA HAS RECEIVED US Federal Aviation Administration production certification for a piston aero-engine developed jointly with Hamilton Standard. The 270kW (360hp) FV2400-2TC is a twin-turbocharged Vee-8 based on Toyota's Lexus car engine and equipped with a Hamilton Standard full-authority digital engine-control (Flight International, 24-30 April, 1996). US type-certification ...
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Australia considers making GPWS compulsory
Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has begun industry consultation on proposed new standards for the installation of ground-proximity-warning systems (GPWS) on Australian commercial aircraft. The move to adopt the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) approved standards follows a coroner's re- commendation after the crash of a third-level ...
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Caravans make Costa Rican journeys
SANSA, the domestic regional-airline division of Costa Rica's LACSA Airlines, has taken delivery of its first four Cessna Grand Caravans. The four aircraft will replace some of the older turboprops in SANSA's fleet. According to the chief executive of LACSA's parent company, El Salvador-based TACA Group, Federico Bloch, the Caravans ...