Avicopter had a very good opening day at the recent China Helicopter Exposition, booking orders for 18 rotorcraft and announcing a launch customer for its prestigious AC352 super medium size transport.
There is no shortage of inventive ideas in the commercial UAV sector, but many of them go well beyond what civil aviation regulators are expected to allow for the foreseeable future.
Flight testing continues on Enstrom Helicopter Corp.’s new TH180 aircraft, designed for ab-initio flight training and the light commercial and private owner markets, the company says.
Declines in demand at its two largest airframe business units, Haeco Xaimen and Haeco Americas, contributed to an overall 1.8% year-over-year decline in total airframe worker-hour services sold through the first six months of the year, and those markets are not expected to rebound before 2016, Haeco Ltd., executives say.
China’s helicopter market achieved sales increases of 20% per year between 2009-13, and last year grew by 30%, says Chris Jaran, Bell Helicopter Vice President for China. But this year the growth won’t be the same.
Against a background of growing concern over “rogue” UAVs near airports and in other sensitive areas, NASA has conducted a dress rehearsal for the upcoming demonstration of the first version of an airspace system designed to enable safe UAV operations at low altitudes.
StandardAero has signed an agreement with SmartSky Networks to certify and install SmartSky’s high-speed wireless Internet system in a variety of business aircraft.
Textron Aviation could announce two new aircraft in the large business jet segment during the Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition in November, am analyst wrote in a memo to investors on Sept. 9. Plus, the National Business Aviation Association says it is ready to follow up on a recommendation by the National Transportation Safety Board following a fatal Gulfstream IV runway overrun accident in May 2014.
Selex-ES has developed a system designed to detect, track and if necessary disable consumer-type UAVs, protecting civilian targets such as public events, airports and other infrastructure targets from illegal or threatening activity.
Astronics Corp. has introduced a Max-Viz enhanced vision system specifically for experimental and homebuilt aircraft, which often operate from unimproved airstrips with wildlife and other obstacles.
The National Transportation Safety Board will hold a one-day forum focused on loss-of-control crashes in general aviation fixed-wing aircraft and explore possible solutions.
