FAA, AOPA: Comments Wanted On Cessna 177 And 210 Spar Cracking Following the fatal crash of a 1976 Cessna T210M in Australia, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau determined the aircraft had suffered a separation of the spar carrythrough structure, which prompted Textron to issue a Mandatory Service Bulletin to inspect the area on both the 210 and Cessna Cardinal/177 models. While[…] Read this article
Aspen Receives STC For Evolution MAX Displays Aspen Avionics says it has received STC approval for its Evolution MAX displays. The MAX name denotes a “bolder and brighter display with higher reliability and several customer-requested functions such as font and window enlargement and increased processing speeds.” Available now, the MAX system comes in a variety of configurations.[…] Read this article
FAA: GPS Outage Won’t Count As ADS-B Violations The FAA released a policy statement (PDF) last week assuring operators that “the FAA will not consider aircraft non-compliant with the ADS-B Out rule during periods of GPS performance degradation that are outside the operator’s control. The circumstances are identified in the policy and are valid provided the operator has[…] Read this article
Romain Trapp Succeeds Chris Emerson At Airbus Helicopters Longtime Airbus manager Romain Trapp will succeed Chris Emerson as president of Airbus Helicopters Inc. and head of the company’s North America Region for helicopters. Emerson is heading over as president of Airbus Defense and Space Inc. “Romain brings a keen understanding of the North American helicopter market, and I[…] Read this article
Headwinds For Dickson As Next FAA Admin It’s been more than four months since former Delta Air Lines executive Steve Dickson was nominated to take over for Dan Elwell at the FAA. But The New York Times is reporting that Senate Democrats on the Commerce Committee are “looking into claims that Mr. Dickson was involved in retaliating[…] Read this article
Thoughts Interrupted? Distractions are a dangerous element in flying, whether IFR or VFR. A distraction is the process of diverting one’s attention from a required area of focus or task— thereby hindering, or even completely blocking the reception of vital information or addressing a critical task. Mental interruptions may be caused by[…] Read this article
Accident Probe: Lack Of Peer Pressure When I was a student pilot, I was lucky to have some grizzled mentors. There were a lot of “do this” and “don’t do that” admonitions, a lot of tips regarding shortcuts and rules of thumb, plus some sage advice about decision-making. A lot of that advice could be broken[…] Read this article
Textron Service Letter Affects Cardinals, Centurions Some Cessna 177 and 210 owners will need an immediate inspection of the spar that holds their wings on after Textron reported potential corrosion and subsequent cracking problems on some aircraft. The company issued a mandatory service letter requiring inspection and repair of the carry-thru spar on the aircraft. The[…] Read this article
10 Dead In Texas King Air Crash (Updated) Local officials in Addison, Texas, have confirmed that all 10 people aboard died in the crash of a King Air 350 Sunday morning. The aircraft was taking off from the airport near Dallas when it struck a hangar and caught fire. There were no people in the hangar but at[…] Read this article
Rudders? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Rudders As the only U.S. citizen in Iowa who’s over 35 and not running for president, I have the freedom and civic responsibility to bring up delicate topics and speak, perhaps too frankly, about their effects on all our lives. One aviation topic was not even alluded to in this year’s[…] Read this article
Best Of The Web: How A Radial Engine Goes Together Ever wonder how a radial engine goes together, especially how those seven or nine connecting rods all merge at the crankshaft? Grab some coffee and sit through this master class video by Dan Cabral and you’ll find out. Carbral is a product design engineer and used Keyshot to render this[…] Read this article
Airbus Tests 'Flapping' Wingtips Airbus is testing a scale model of an A321 with “flapping” wingtips it says may lead to lighter and less draggy wing designs. The AlbatrossOne remote control aircraft has been fitted with semi-aeroelastic hinges on the wingtips. The hinges allow the tips to move in response to wind gusts and[…] Read this article
