Eviation’s Electric Alice Catches Fire During Tests
A fire broke out during ground testing of Eviation’s all-electric Alice aircraft on Wednesday at Arizona's Prescott Regional Airport. The company said the fire is believed to have been caused by a fault with a ground-based battery system. It has yet to confirm how extensively the prototype aircraft might have been damaged in the incident.
The Prescott Fire Department was on standby for the planned test and extinguished the fire, which caused no injuries. Eviation has begun an investigation into the full cause and has not said how the incident might affect plans to begin flight testing.
Israel-based Eviation is aiming to complete type certification of the fixed-wing Alice before year-end 2022 under FAA Part 23 rules. The first prototype arrived in Prescott in late 2019, and two more prototypes are due to be delivered to the U.S. this year.
Alice is being designed to carry nine passengers on flights of up to around 650 miles and at speeds of up to almost 280 mph. The aircraft is powered by three electric motors provided by Magnix.
U.S. operator Cape Air placed the launch order for an undisclosed number of Alices in June. The company claims to have total “orders” for 150 aircraft with more than one customer but has not disclosed the names of any other prospective operators.
AINsight: Safety Differently, by Learning from the Good
For decades, aviation safety practitioners have poured resources into investigating incidents and accidents looking for what went wrong. From that work, lessons are learned with the hopes that those mistakes won’t be repeated, preventing a future tragedy.
Now there is a move afoot to do safety differently. Researchers have flipped the script and are looking at routine flights to learn what pilots are doing right. Early results show promise—apparently, there is a lot to learn from studying success.
Research suggests there are many opportunities to learn from the behavior of those pilots that excel in very complex and dynamic operating environments. One powerful analogy by Leiden University’s Marit de Vos describes our current system as “it’s like we’ve been trying to learn about marriage by only studying divorce.”
This same research supports using both systems to improve safety—each has its own merits. It isn’t a case of “out with the old and in with the new,” but creating a balance of the good and bad. Both systems can peacefully coexist.
The origins of this new concept–called Safety II–are deeply rooted in improving safety in the health care industry. Safety II is a significant mind shift moving from “as few things as possible go wrong” to ensuring that “as many things as possible go right.”
A crew flying a Cessna Citation 560 to New Jersey's Teterboro Airport (TEB) on Monday had to divert to Westchester County Airport in White Plains, New York, because the jet’s flight management system (FMS) did not store the RNAV (GPS) X Rwy 6 approach procedure in use. At the time, there was more than 10 miles of visibility, with north winds at 12 knots.
According to the Teterboro Users Group (TUG), a center controller told the Citation pilots that if they were unable to fly the RNAV (GPS X) approach, they would have to fly to another airport. The pilots asked if they could fly the (GPS) Y Rwy 6 approach but they were told this wasn’t possible, so they diverted to Westchester County. TUG said the TEB (GPS) Y Rwy 6 approach's missed approach procedure conflicts with the final approach courses in use at the time for the two approaches at Newark.
The FMS’s software limitations mean it couldn’t “process multiple approach indicators for the same type of approach, e.g. RNAV (GPS) X Rwy 6 and the RNAV (GPS) Y Rwy 6,” TUG noted. This also affects other airports with multiple approach indicators, and TUG said that a software or hardware upgrade might be necessary to avoid this problem.
Long-awaited consolidation of the offshore helicopter market began this morning with the announcement that the Era and Bristow groups would merge in an all-stock, tax-free transaction to create a publicly-traded company with global operations, expected annual revenue of $1.5 billion, and more than 300 helicopters. Its merged helicopter fleet will be more than 80 percent company-owned, with the remainder under “attractive lease rates.”
The combined company will be named Bristow, and Era Group CEO Chris Bradshaw will serve as CEO. Other senior management will be named “at a later date,” according to a statement issued this morning by Era. Combining the companies is expected to achieve $35 million in annual cost savings via the elimination of redundancies and through “synergies.”
Boards of both companies unanimously approved the merger, which is expected to close in the second half following regulatory approvals. The combined company will have a nine-member board of directors, including seven members from Bristow and two members from Era, including the CEO. The board’s chairman and vice-chairman will be appointed by Bristow.
At closing, the new company is expected to have “a strong balance sheet” with $250 million in cash. The new Bristow will have significant operations in the Americas, Nigeria, Norway, the UK, and Australia.
Airlines Move To Adjust Schedules Amid Virus Scare
Airlines canceled more than 400 flights to and from Wuhan Tianhe International Airport at their discretion on Thursday, as Chinese authorities moved to partially quarantine the central city of Wuhan amid mounting fears about the spread of a flu-like virus that has claimed 18 lives and sickened 645. China Southern, the country’s largest carrier, axed all inbound flights, Shandong Airlines suspended all of its flights, while China Eastern Airlines and Air China canceled several and adjusted others. Meanwhile, airplanes bound for Tokyo, Paris, Anchorage, Rome, Singapore, Bangkok, and Sihanoukville, Cambodia, departed Thursday morning without incident.
Holding the distinction as central China’s busiest airport, Wuhan International offers scheduled flights to more than 70 domestic points, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. China’s big three airlines—China Southern, China Eastern, and Air China—account for the majority of Wuhan’s outbound/inbound flights, followed by Xiamen Airlines and Hainan Airlines. The airport also offers connections to more than 40 international and regional destinations.
The new coronavirus, first reported in late December 2019, comes as hundreds of millions of Chinese plan to travel over the Lunar New Year, one of the world’s largest annual migrations of people. Despite global concerns, the World Health Organization (WHO) has yet to declare a public health emergency.
Swiss helicopter developer Kopter made further steps toward final configuration of its light single-turbine SH09 with the flight tests of its new main rotor configuration on its third SH09 prototype (P3), including a modified main rotor head and new main rotor blades, it announced today. The new configuration was tested late last year in its whirltower in Ennetmoos, Switzerland, and installed on P3 in Pozzallo, Italy where Kopter has conducted its SH09 flight-test program since March 2019. Kopter had conducted flight tests of a revised main gearbox (MGB) on P3 last year.
With initial ground runs and flights of the main rotor configuration completed, Kopter said the expected improvements—part of an ongoing configuration update—have been confirmed. “The results of these first flights confirm our aircraft evolution roadmap is meeting the expectations,” said Kopter CTO Michele Riccobono. The new main rotor head improves handling qualities and reduces pilot workload in all phases of flight through the optimization of “dynamic behavior,” the company said. In addition, the blades are expected to improve high altitude to high weight performance.
“These recent modifications have addressed some characteristics we wanted to improve. Now, the aircraft is smoother and more stable, making it even easier to fly,” added Kopter chief test pilot Richard Grant. Full performance evaluations are ongoing.
Coulson C130 Waterbomber Down in Australia
All three crew aboard a Coulson Aviation USA C-130 waterbomber were killed yesterday afternoon when the aircraft crashed in the Snowy Monaro Area in southern New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The 1981 Lockheed EC-130Q, N134CG, had been in Australia since August under contract to the Rural Fire Service.
Coulson said the aircraft had departed Richmond NSW with a load of retardant. Radar data indicated the aircraft went down near Cooma. Coulson said, “The accident is reported to be extensive and we are deeply saddened to confirm there were three fatalities. The accident response team has been activated as well as local emergency services, and Coulson Aviation will be sending a team to the site to assist in emergency operations. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the three crew members onboard.” Coulson stood down its other C-130s in Australia yesterday for safety inspections.
Coulson Aviation (USA) Inc. was founded in 1990 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canada’s Coulson Aircrane Ltd. From 1990 to 1993 Coulson Aviation (USA) provided personnel for heli-logging operations in Alaska. Subsequently, it purchased C-130 aircraft for firefighting in the U.S. and Australia.
Jupiter Aviation Technology has launched a project to help continue the development of the SurePilot Online Pilot Assessment Tool and is inviting all pilots and non-pilots to take the assessment free of charge. According to Jupiter, the free assessment provides users “a unique opportunity to gain insight into their own core competencies.”
SurePilot is a tool aimed at airlines and flight training organizations to evaluate the core competencies required of commercial pilots. It offers an evaluation of hand-to-eye coordination—right-hand and left-hand motor skills—memory recall, reaction time, situational awareness, selective attention, and multi-tasking. Upon completion, it furnishes the user with a SurePilot score, a percentile ranking, and performance change (degree of improvement and training potential indicator).
The data that’s collected from the free assessments will be used by Jupiter for its Project 2020 Research & Development program to appraise reliability, refine the processes used to test candidates, and to help further validate SurePilot.
Clarification
In a story on the first sale of a preowned Cessna Citation Excel upgraded with a Garmin G5000 earlier this week in AINalerts, the story incorrectly related how the upgrade affected the sale price of the twinjet. The G5000 upgrade retained 85 percent of its cost in the transaction, resulting in a higher-than-usual actual sale price for the aircraft. As originally written, the story incorrectly said the aircraft retained 85 percent of its value.
AINalerts News Tips/Feedback: News tips may be sent anonymously, but feedback must include name and contact info (we will withhold name on request). We reserve the right to edit correspondence for length, clarity and grammar. Send feedback or news tips to AINalerts editor Chad Trautvetter.
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