Are you ready to go?
Branson unveils passenger spaceship
By Julie Summers Walker
Less than two years after its first SpaceShipTwo was lost in an accident, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic rolled out Virgin Spaceship Unity, a two-pilot, six-passenger spaceship designed to offer its occupants an unparalleled view of Earth from 62 miles above the planet. Some 700 people have signed up to slip the surly bonds of Earth. Are you ready?
The spaceship was unveiled February 19 with all of the fanfare expected of a Branson product. The gleaming spaceplane looks nearly identical to its predecessor, lost in an October 2014 accident that the NTSB ruled was a result of pilot error. The Spaceship Company, Virgin Galactic’s manufacturing division, had already begun work on this second spaceship when the accident occurred (see “To Infinity and Beyond,” October 2015 AOPA Pilot).
“I have always dreamed of spaceflight, but for so many years I thought it was just that—a dream,” Hawking said in a recorded message played at the unveiling. “If I am able to go, and if Richard will still take me, I will be proud to fly on this spaceship.”
The unveiling featured Branson’s employees at the Mojave, California, spaceport as well as many family members—including his mother, Eve, and granddaughter Eva-Deia, who helped her grandfather christen the aircraft with a bottle of milk. It was her first birthday.
Test flights of the spaceship have not been set.
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The unveiling of Virgin Spaceship Unity in Mojave, California, February 19, was cause for celebration by Richard Branson (top right). Branson's granddaughter, Eva-Deia, christened the silver-and-white craft with a milk bottle on her first birthday (bottom photo).
Industry News
Singling out what’s important
PS Engineering adds IntelliAudio to popular panel
By Alyssa J. Miller
PS Engineering is offering multi-dimensional audio, dubbed IntelliAudio, in its new PMA8000BTi audio selector panel. The IntelliAudio technology, licensed from the U.S. Air Force, transmits Com 1 to the 10 o’clock position of the left ear and Com 2 to the 2 o’clock position of the right ear.
“Your brain can instantly ignore the com that’s not important,” PS Engineering Founder and CEO Mark Scheuer said, explaining that a pilot listening to air traffic control and weather information at the same time can single out the most important communication—ATC when the aircraft’s N number is heard or weather when controllers are talking to other aircraft. (Pilots can download a simulator and listen to transmissions with and without IntelliAudio to hear how multidimensional audio would sound through the panel. Stereo-capable headphones are required for it to work.)
The PMA8000BTi’s IntelliAudio does not break intercom transmissions into multi-dimensional audio, Scheuer explained, because he believed that would make the audio inputs too confusing to process. Intercom and transmit side tones will be heard in both ears.
IntelliAudio can be turned on or off by pushing the Com 1 and 2 buttons at the same time; it also can be turned off by deselecting one of the communications radios, Scheuer said.
The unit is designed to compete with Garmin’s GMA 350, which does include intercom transmissions in its 3-D Audio. The PMA8000BTi is a plug-and-play replacement for the PMA8000BT and the Garmin GMA 340, requiring owners who upgrade to the PS Engineering product only to make a logbook entry for swapping out the equipment.
The new offering replaces PS Engineering’s PMA8000BT, but it is offered at the same price of $2,095. Scheuer said that people who had ordered the older audio panel will instead get the PMA8000BTi at the same price.
Scheuer, a private pilot and small aircraft owner, said he didn’t raise the price of the more technologically advanced unit because “flying isn’t getting easier. It’s getting more expensive. Being an aircraft owner myself, I’m very sensitive to price.”
The PMA8000BTi retains all of the features of the PMA8000BT, including Bluetooth, digital aircraft radio recorder, split mode for the pilot and co-pilot, and more.
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Bringing military technology to GA cockpits
PS Engineering wasn’t the first to offer multi-dimensional audio in light general aviation aircraft. Garmin began offering its 3-D Audio in 2011, and PS Engineering came to market with its product in 2014 thanks to an agreement with the Air Force.
PS Engineering Founder and CEO Mark Scheuer said a conversation at the AOPA Aviation Summit in Palm Springs, California, in 2012 opened the door for the small company to enter the multi-dimensional sound arena. A pilot and patent attorney who was consulting with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base approached Scheuer to inquire if PS Engineering would be interested in licensing the Air Force’s multi-talker technology in its audio panels. Scheuer entered a cooperative research and development agreement with the Air Force and was able to implement the patented technology in 2014.
PS Engineering first offered IntelliAudio through the PMA450 audio panel at EAA AirVenture in 2014; the unit became its second-highest-selling product in just one year, Scheuer said. —AJM
FAA NEWS
Reauthorization bill released
A mix of positive and negative provisions, AOPA says
By Elizabeth A. Tennyson
A long-anticipated FAA reauthorization bill that calls for creating a federally chartered not-for-profit organization to manage air traffic control functions was announced recently by Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
The proposed Aviation Innovation, Reform, and Reauthorization (AIRR) Act of 2016, H.R.4441, also includes third class medical reform, certification reform, and user fees for airlines and Part 135 charter operators (see “‘We’re Profoundly Disappointed,’ Baker Says,” p. 30), and would set priorities for the FAA for the next six years.
“There are some very good things for general aviation in this bill. I think everyone can agree that the FAA can be more efficient and effective, and this legislation creates opportunities for both third class medical reform and certification reform that have the potential to make flying safer and more affordable,” said AOPA President Mark Baker. “But there are other provisions we will firmly oppose, such as user fees for any segment of GA, including business aviation. And still other elements, like the plan to separate air traffic control from the FAA, raise important questions that demand meaningful answers. Ultimately, we need to know that any FAA reauthorization legislation will protect the interests of general aviation now and into the future.”
The proposed air traffic organization would be governed by a board that includes representatives from the airlines, air traffic controllers, GA, and others. AOPA is carefully studying the bill’s language and its potential consequences.
Aviation groups including AOPA have been asking House transportation leaders to make sure all stakeholders have adequate time and opportunities to weigh in.
“This is extremely complex legislation and we need to be sure we get it right and fix only the things that are actually broken. So we will be going over it with a fine-tooth comb,” said AOPA Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Jim Coon. “This bill is an important starting point and there are many more steps to go before it is finalized. AOPA is going to be actively involved in the process, representing the needs of our members at every step along the way and opposing any provisions that would harm GA.”
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AOPA 172 Sweepstakes
We have an airframe
The AOPA 172 Sweepstakes airplane is coming out of hibernation
By Jill W. Tallman
First, it has to be reassembled and an annual inspection will be completed here in Maryland. Then it will be flown to Wichita, and handed over to the team at Yingling Aviation (see “Reborn in the U.S.A.,” February 2016 AOPA Pilot), which will complete a top-to-bottom restoration. We’re not talking about a fresh coat of paint and new tires. Virtually everything on this airplane will be replaced or improved.
In future issues of AOPA Pilot, we’ll tell you more about N739HW and its donor, the Yingling Ascend 172 program, and how the airplane will morph from a weather-beaten bird to a head-turning beauty. Stay tuned!
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First Look
Dynamic ‘destination’ planner debuts
AOPA offers exciting flight-planning tools
The fuel-planning warning zones will consider winds aloft at your planned altitude. The zones also consider the climb and descent fuel required, based on the values entered into your aircraft profile. If your departure time is too far in the future and outside a valid winds-aloft forecast period, the zones will be calculated as a no-winds route. Special warnings are presented when winds aloft are not being considered in the calculations.
AOPA’s Eric Rush, manager of the flight planning team, declares the AOPA Flight Planner “awesome.” Previously you might have wondered where you were going to stop for fuel, but now, according to Rush, “We identify the available stops—and we find you the best deal” on fuel prices. A video tutorial is offered on AOPA Online (www.aopa.org/aifp).
The flight planner works with two of the leading electronic flight bags—ForeFlight Mobile and WingX Pro 7. A feature enables you to Email a link with route details that can then auto-populate to the EFB.
More clever features are in the works from the AOPA flight planning team, says Rush. Stay tuned for more options to be added to this exciting “destination planner,” he says.
This month in aviation
April 20, 1930
Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh set a transcontinental speed record from Los Angeles to New York. Flying their Lockheed Sirius airplane, the Lindberghs flew for 14 hours and 45 minutes at 14,000 feet and at speeds up to 180 miles per hour. Mrs. Lindbergh was seven months pregnant. Of flying she said:
“Flying was a very tangible freedom. In those days it was beauty, adventure, discovery—the epitome of breaking into new worlds.”
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