A very good year: Raytheon Aircraft leads 1995 sales
As Frank Sinatra says, "It was a very good year" for the general aviation industry in 1995, according to an industry review by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA).
"Last year we said that our industry was poised for recovery and was at the threshold of a new era. This recovery is well under way," said Edward W. Stimpson, president of GAMA.
Total general aviation aircraft delivered reached 1,077 in 1995, up 16.1 percent from 928 in 1994. Total dollar billings for the industry were $2.8 billion, up 20.6 percent from $2.4 billion the year before. Piston-engine aircraft shipments reached 576, up 15.4 percent from 1994, while business jets were up 10 percent, to 246 units. Turboprop deliveries were up 23.2 percent, to 255 aircraft, led by deliveries of 19-passenger regional aircraft and utility turboprops.
"In 1995, the general aviation industry delivered the highest number of aircraft since 1990 and had the best dollar volume year since 1981," Stimpson said.
Gulfstream Aerospace delivered 26 aircraft last year, all of them Gulfstream IVs. Learjet delivered 43 aircraft, including 19 31A models and 24 Learjet 60s.
Figures provided by GAMA and Raytheon Aircraft show the company to be the industry leader for number of units delivered. Of the total 409 aircraft, 271 were twin-engine turbine-powered aircraft. Raytheon Aircraft had $2 billion in sales, a record since the company began as Beech Aircraft in April 1932. Military sales accounted for 46 aircraft, GAMA said. The leading civilian aircraft was the Beech Bonanza, with 89 delivered. Beech 1900D Airliner deliveries totaled 65.
Cessna was second, with 200 deliveries, including 87 Caravans, 42 CitationJets, and 56 Citation Ultra aircraft. New Piper Aircraft led in piston-engine sales but came in third overall, with 165 aircraft delivered, including 40 Malibu Mirages, 37 Archer IIIs, and 30 Saratoga II HP aircraft. Piper also delivered 18 Warrior IIIs and 28 Seneca IVs.
Mooney Aircraft delivered 84 aircraft last year, while Maule Aircraft delivered 68, American Champion delivered 46, and Aviat delivered 42.
G-202 makes first flight
Giles Aerobatic Aircraft's two-seat G-202 recently made its long- awaited first flight. A spin-off of the single-seat G-200 unlimited aerobatic airplane, the G-202 claims a VNE of 220 knots and a 2,800-foot vertical climb capability. For more information, call AkroTech Aviation Inc. at 503/543-7960.
Toyota, Honda eye aviation markets
Two major car manufacturers, Toyota and Honda, have dipped a toe in the aviation market with the development of aircraft engines.
A 360-horsepower Toyota engine was certified for aviation use in December by Hamilton Standard of Windsor Locks, Connecticut.
Vin Misciagna, Hamilton Standard's project manager for the water-cooled V-8 engine program, said it will receive further refinement and product improvements, but no production is planned by Toyota.
"We're watching general aviation closely," Misciagna said. "If the market develops, we'll respond."
The engine has been tested to 30,000 feet at Windsor Locks while mated to one side of a Cessna 340 during a 50-hour test program, but it is intended for a more typical cruise altitude of 18,000 feet. It features full-authority digital engine controls (Fadec) that Hamilton Standard uses on turbine engines. No details were provided on the cost of the engine, but Fadec controls are generally expensive.
Honda Japan has completed two flights of a 485-pound turbofan aboard a Boeing 727. A Honda engineer at the test site said the 1,800-pound-thrust engine performed as predicted during the first two flights of 2.5 hours and 3.5 hours' duration. The engine has been in development for 10 years, but flight testing began only last December. It has a 4.3:1 bypass ratio, a takeoff fuel burn of 810 pounds per hour, and a length of 46.3 inches. Testing is scheduled to continue through the year.
Honda engineers promise low noise and emission levels. As is the case with Toyota, no decision has been made to place the engine in production.
Swearingen groundbreaking set
Sino-Swearingen has scheduled a March 29 groundbreaking for a new production facility in Martinsburg, West Virginia, where the company plans to produce the SJ30 and SJ30-2 business jets. The prototype SJ30 is being converted to -2 status, which involves stretching the fuselage 42 inches and hanging a pair of 2,300-pound- thrust Williams-Rolls FJ44-2C engines. The $3.5-million SJ30-2 is expected to achieve Mach 0.83 (476 knots) and have a 3,000-nm range. First flight of the -2 airplane is scheduled for midsummer. Certification is set for early 1998.
When Swearingen announced its partnership with the Taiwanese firm, Sino Aerospace Investment Corporation, in January 1995, it promised a groundbreaking last March. At the NBAA convention in Las Vegas last October, Ed Swearingen said that he wouldn't set a date for the Martinsburg groundbreaking until the bulldozers were there.
Firm gets second Agate grant
Using its second grant in two years from NASA, Stoddard-Hamilton will research composite construction technologies as part of the Agate (Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments) program.
Stoddard-Hamilton, maker of the Glasair and GlaStar kit aircraft, is involved in the Integrated Design and Manufacturing division of Agate, which focuses on quality control and non- destructive testing for composite structures that may be used in future general aviation aircraft.
Stoddard-Hamilton plans to use the grant money to research low-cost resin transfer molding for large composite aircraft primary structures.
The Agate consortium consists of more than 100 members of the general aviation industry working to improve aircraft design.
High school students get Second Wind
A program designed to get high school students involved in aviation is being developed on New York's Long Island.
Second Wind, a not-for-profit organization, has enrolled 40 students in aviation, communications design, and engineering courses at Sachem High School in Lake Ronkonkoma. As part of the program, students plan cross-country flights and fly them with an instructor. Later, the students take their parents on an introductory flight with an instructor. In working with the school district and county, Second Wind has enabled students to take flight lessons at half the usual cost.
As part of its FAA Apprenticeship Program, Second Wind teaches students about all aspects of air traffic control with tours to a flight service station and to air traffic control centers and towers.
Founder Fred Coste hopes to make the program available to high school students nationwide. For more information, contact Second Wind at 800/298-6750.
Maker of Berkut kit files for Chapter 11
Experimental Aviation, maker of the Berkut kit, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after losing a court battle with company co-founder Don Murphy. Dave Ronneberg, president of the company and the designer of the Long-EZ-derived canard kitplane, recently issued a statement indicating that "EAI was and continues to be financially solvent."
The company has been working against the odds since the crash of its only demonstrator aircraft last year, which killed airshow pilot Rick Fessenden. In addition, a lawsuit filed by investor Murphy had threatened to claim the firm's assets. At press time, Ronneberg said that all the current orders for customer kits had been fulfilled and that the firm will continue to take orders for future kits.
Work will also continue on the next demonstrator aircraft, to be powered by a 260-hp Lycoming IO-540; the previous Berkut carried a slightly modified Lycoming IO-360. Ronneberg is also completing work on a molded wing kit, which will replace the glass- over-solid-foam arrangement that was one of the Berkut's last construction links with the EZ. — Marc E. Cook
Maury County Regional Airport, serving Columbia/Mount Pleasant, Tennessee, has received the FAA Southern Region's 1995 General Aviation Airport Safety Award for numerous improvements.
Squawk Sheet
Bellanca model 17-30, -30A, -31, -31A, -31TC, and -31ATC Vikings are the subject of a proposed airworthiness directive that would require repetitive inspections, testing, and possible replacement of the nose landing gear strut and brackets. The AD follows the collapse of a Viking's nose gear upon landing.
An AD aimed at Maule models M-4, M-5, M-6, M-7, MXT-7, MT- 7-235, and M-8-235 will require a one-time inspection or replacement of wing lift struts because of corrosion. An in-flight failure of the right forward wing strut that led to a fatal accident last October prompted the action.
Owners of Lycoming O-235 series engines should have received a Priority Letter AD that requires a one-time inspection of the engine pushrod part numbers within the next five hours' time in service. If the pushrods are denoted by part number 73806 with revision letters "V" or "W," they must be replaced. The faulty pushrods were installed on engines shipped from the factory between February 22, 1993, and September 2, 1994.
A revision of an earlier proposed AD regarding Cessna oil filter adapters has been expanded to include all oil filter assemblies manufactured by Cessna. The FAA estimates 70,000 aircraft of U.S. registry will be affected by the NPRM. It would require repetitive inspections and the application of torque paint between the oil filter adapter and the oil pump housing on Continental 200, 470, 520, and 550-series engines.
The FAA issued a special airworthiness information bulletin regarding AD 95-26-13, which requires repetitive inspections of clearances between the oil-cooler hose assembly and the front exhaust stacks of Piper PA-28 and PA-32 airplanes. The bulletin eliminates the repetitive inspections for those aircraft whose oil coolers are mounted at the rear of the engine.
The National Transportation Safety Board is urging the FAA to require inspections of wing strut fittings on American Champion (Bellanca) 8KCAB, 8GCBC, 7GCBC, and 7ECA aircraft. The in-flight breakup of an 8KCAB (Decathlon) that killed one occupant and seriously injured another prompted the action.
Bob Hoover will perform at the 1996 EAA Fly-In Convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, now that he has regained his medical certificate from the FAA. He is expected to perform during the first weekend of the show, which will take place from August 1 through 7, and on two or three additional days. Also performing in solo acts will be Charlie Hillard and Gene Soucy, formerly of the Avemco Eagles aerobatic team.
Quicksilver reorganizes
Quicksilver Enterprises is dead; long live Quicksilver Aircraft. At least that's the plan of Ken Strong, who rescued the assets from the company at a foreclosure auction in December. Quicksilver of old had run into great economic troubles, in part stemming from a flood three years ago that all but wiped out the Temecula, California, facility.
Eventually, the debt load caught up with Quicksilver, and the assets — including the building, tooling, and type and production certificates for the GT-500 — were seized. So far, eight of the ultralight-based production GT-500s have been sold, and two are nearing completion. It's too soon, according to Strong, to fix a price for the GT-500 or even guess at availability. — MEC
Bell Helicopter Textron is certifying two new helicopters, the Bell 407 and Bell 430. Both have four-blade main rotor systems. The 407 can carry up to six passengers and one pilot. The 430, a stretched variant of the 230 series, can operate off skids or retractable gear, and is designed for corporate transport and medical service evacuation.
Pushy Galore goes record crazy
Bruce Bohannon flogged his nitrous-oxide-sniffing, record-hungry racer, Pushy Galore, to a new Federation Aeronautique Internationale altitude record of 33,800 feet on January 23. The old record was 30,798 feet, set in 1972. Along the way, he broke both the 9,000 meter time-to-climb record set in the same aircraft by Hoot Gibson in 1994 and the 1992 altitude record for horizontal flight of 33,300 feet. The flights were made 50 miles offshore from Galveston, Texas.
All records will require two to three months for verification and are for class C1.A aircraft. The single-place pusher-prop aircraft, also known as the Aeroshell Special, is powered by a Continental O-200 engine. Bohannon pumped two cylinders of nitrous oxide into the engine for extra power during the one-hour climb, a technique used by drag racers and World War II German fighter pilots. The unpressurized, unheated cockpit reached minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit at altitude. He coaxed maximum performance from the engine by keeping cylinder temperatures at 600 degrees Fahrenheit; piston walls melt at 605 degrees.
Robinson named president of Learjet
Jim Robinson, former executive vice president of Learjet, has been named president by parent company Bombardier Aerospace Group- North America. He replaces Brian E. Barents, who resigned at the end of January.
Barents joined Learjet in 1990 after a stint with Toyota and a career at Cessna Aircraft. His departure from Learjet surprised members of the aviation industry. Barents indicated that he and Learjet's board of directors did not agree on the direction the company should take in the future. "I wasn't having much fun anymore," Barents said, "so I decided that it was time to do something else." Nonetheless, he had great praise for Bombardier and the Learjet management team.
Robinson was president of AlliedSignal Engines in Phoenix prior to joining Learjet only last year. He had been with AlliedSignal 21 years, serving in the areas of procurement, operations, and general management.
Aircraft Spruce to offer Tailwind
Aircraft Spruce and Specialty of Fullerton, California, is now offering plans and kits for Steve Wittman's Tailwind design. The Tailwind is one of many high-speed/low-horsepower racers designed by the late Wittman. Aircraft Spruce President Jim Irwin says, "Interest in the Tailwind remains very high."
Aircraft Spruce recently introduced a new facility in the eastern United States by purchasing Alexander Aeroplane of Griffin, Georgia. Both companies offer aircraft components for general and sport aviation. Irwin said that the move gives him an East Coast distribution center. The new facility, Aircraft Spruce & Specialty East, can be reached at 800/831-2949.
Full Lotus Manufacturing Inc. has introduced a float installation kit for the Murphy Rebel kitplane. Full Lotus says the model FL 2150 floats can be assembled and ready to install on a Rebel in about an hour. For more information, call 604/940-9378.
Cessna loses effort to overturn JPATS contract
The General Accounting Office has rejected a challenge by Cessna Aircraft against a $7 billion contract awarded to Raytheon Aircraft for the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System.
With the challenge settled, the Air Force awarded the first $4 billion of the contract for the Beech/Pilatus MkII trainer on February 5. The Beech MkII will replace the Air Force T-37B and the Navy T- 34C aircraft, which are 37 and 22 years old respectively.
The aircraft accommodates 80 percent of the eligible female population, a point of contention in the Cessna protest.
The program, managed by the Flight Training System Program Office of the Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, calls for a total of 711 aircraft; 372 for the Air Force and 339 for the Navy.
Final assembly has begun on the ultra-long-range Bombardier Global Express. The wing sections and fuselage were delivered from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. "I expect the aircraft to be fully assembled by late March and power-on testing to begin in late April," said John Holding, Bombardier's executive vice president of engineering. An answer to the already-flying Gulfstream V, the Global Express is designed to fly 6,500 nautical miles with reserves.
AOPA members in the news
Don Johnson, AOPA 1201368, president of Toyota Airsports, flew with Blue Angels lead solo pilot Rick Young. Toyota Airsports sponsors Johnson and national aerobatic champion Michael Goulian at several airshows each season.
Jimmy Buffett, AOPA 934950, of Key West, Florida, made national headlines after his Grumman Albatross amphibian was fired upon by Jamaican police who suspected that the airplane was carrying drugs. Buffett, Bono (of the rock group U2), and Chris Blackwell, chairman of Island Records, had just gotten out of the amphib when it was fired upon by Jamaican police. The bullets pierced the cockpit area and cracked the windshield. Neither of Buffett's two pilots was injured in the ambush. After realizing they had the wrong airplane, the Jamaican government agreed to pay for the damage to the Albatross.
Gregg Launer, AOPA 1154967, of Miami Beach, Florida, successfully landed a Piper Archer on Florida's Interstate 75 in Broward County following an engine failure. Launer and his two passengers were unharmed and the airplane was not damaged.
Dennis Gallifent, AOPA 836184, has been elected president of the Christian Missionary Pilots, based in Southern California.
Ralph Park, AOPA 927737, of Pensacola, Florida, has been selected as the 1995 FAA Aviation Safety Counselor of the Year. Park has been active in safety education programs operating out of the Birmingham, Alabama, Flight Standards District Office. Park is a former military, charter, and air ambulance pilot.
Richard Cook, AOPA 1052572, of Pembroke Pines, Florida, has published How to Get Published — Guaranteed. He writes under the name Chevy Alden. The book costs $20.95 and can be ordered from Chevy Alden, Post Office Box 840111-A, Pembroke Pines, Florida 33084-2111.
Virgil I. Vogel, AOPA 785464, of Van Nuys, California, a well- known television director, died of cancer on January 7. Vogel was a Boeing B-29 pilot in World War II and completed 24 missions over Japan. After the war, Vogel was a director for MCA in the 1950s and 60s and MCA Universal in the 1980s, working as an independent director between those times. TV shows of note produced under Vogel's direction were Bonanza, Magnum P.I., Airwolf, Miami Vice, and Walker: Texas Ranger.
Frank Osborne, AOPA 771149, and his son David, AOPA 1030532, took first place at the Arkansas Aero Club Pilot Proficiency Air Derby, flying a Piper Warrior. Describing it as "dumb luck," the father-and-son team missed their 2-hour-and-29-minute trip time estimate by only one second.
New Piper offers financing program
The New Piper Aircraft, Inc. has set up a financing program for new aircraft sold through its distributor network. Piper wants you to know it is a 1996 program and thus set the terms at 9.6 percent down and 9.6 percent interest for up to 199.6 months (16.6 years).
The program is called Piper Financial Services. Under the program a $134,900 VFR Piper Warrior III requires a down payment of $12,950 and payments of $1,227 per month for 199.6 months. A VFR Archer III with a base price of $149,600 requires a down payment of $14,362 and monthly payments of $1,361 for 199.6 months. A Malibu Mirage costing $755,200 requires a down payment of $72,499 and a monthly payment of $6,868 for 199.6 months.
Piper plans to build 186 aircraft this year, up from 177 last year. Models to be produced in the greatest numbers include 56 Malibu Mirages, 42 Saratoga II HPs, 36 Archer IIIs, and 20 Warrior IIIs. The remainder of the year's production will be made up of eight Arrows, seven Seminoles, and 17 Seneca IV models. All of the Mirages and Saratogas have already been sold to distributors.
Canada Air RV Inc. is hoping to introduce its kit-built ARV Griffin aircraft to the North American market within the next few months. The Griffin will have a cabin eight inches wider than the Cessna 152. The company claims a 140-mph cruise speed with an 80-hp turbocharged Suzuki engine under the cowl. Continental O-200 and Subaru auto engine options are also available. Contact Canada Air RV at 403/944-9210.
Learjet in chicken fight
Learjet and an independent manufacturer of Learjet cockpit winshields are having a shootout, so to speak.
When Perkins Aircraft of Fort Worth, Texas, offered the winshields at $10,000 less than the Learjet parts price last year, Learjet fired back with a service information letter warning customers that the winshields were not chicken tested. That is, the FAA did not require Perkins to prove that the winshields could survive a bird impact at approximately 300 knots. To simulate the bird strike, Learjet tests its windows using a cannon that fires a chicken at 300 knots towards a stationary cockpit.
Now, Perkins crows, they have performed and passed the chicken tests, using what Perkins claims is the same Canadian laboratory as that used by Learjet. The Perkins price is $16,500 per side. Perkins makes the windows under PMA authority for Learjet models 23 through 36A. Perkins Plastics, a forerunner of Perkins Aircraft, made canopies for the McDonnell Douglas F-15 fighter.
Learjet officials said that the materials used and manufacturing processes are different from those used in windshields offered by Learjet. "We feel safety would be best served if the Perkins windshield were certified via the supplemental type certificate process, requiring full testing to prove the windshield's safety," a Learjet spokesman said.
A statue honoring women who served as ferry pilots in the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during World War II has been dedicated at New Castle County Airport in Wilmington, Delaware. The program began in 1942 at the airport, then known as New Castle Army Air Base, and ended in December 1944.
The IAI Astra SPX was granted FAA certification on January 8. The aircraft is made by Israel Aircraft Industries and marketed in the United States by Astra Jet Corporation. Meanwhile, the Astra Jet Galaxy has shifted from the design to the manufacturing stage. The fuselage and empennage are based on a design by the Yakovlev Design Bureau in Moscow.
The Flying Aggies Flight Team of Oklahoma State University has won the National Intercollegiate Flying Association's regional competition in Warrensburg, Missouri. The win qualifies them to enter the national competition in Daytona Beach, Florida, this May.
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