Business & GA

Pilots, Toss Away Your Flight Bags

A typical scene at a major airport: Pilots walk to the gates dutifully carrying their black, near-suitcase-size bags bearing charts, flight manuals and aircraft technical manuals. Meanwhile, the business travelers walk to…

Business & GA

Refining Rugged Russian Rotorcraft

The Mil Mi-8 and its twin in appearance, the Mi-17, exist in numbers far greater than any other helicopter model–save, possibly, the ubiquitous UH-1 "Huey." The Russians built thousands of these twin-engine…

Business & GA

Pulling Aircraft Diagnostics Together Digitally

The longstanding war against flight cancellations and delays is being waged on many fronts. One battle being fought by aircraft operators is against maintenance-related delays. Their weapons are better diagnostic techniques, which…

ATM Modernization

New Products

Signal Conditioner Amplifier Hades Manufacturing Corp., Farmingdale, N.Y., has introduced a ruggedized thermocouple, signal conditioner amplifier, constructed to meet Mil-E-5400 environmental standards. The Model NCA150 has isolated input/output power and was designed…

ATM Modernization

People

Federal Aviation Administration: Peacock, ATS Director The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has Bill G. Peacock succeeding Ronald E. Morgan as director of the Air Traffic Service (ATS). Morgan retired after 32…

Commercial

Safety in Avionics: Watching Your (Aircraft) Weight

In an industry where safety is based on the twin pillars of precise procedures and accurate measurements, it seems strange that "informed guesstimates" are used to determine an aircraft’s weight and balance.…

ATM Modernization

Industry Scan

Caravan Fitted for IFR J.A. Air Center, West Chicago, Ill., recently completed a new Cessna 208B Caravan with a state-of-the-art avionics suite approved for instrument flight rules. The aircraft is fitted with…

Commercial

Avionics System Design: Designing with PC104 Technology

As people try and port various kinds of intelligent displays and systems into aircraft, especially for special-purpose data applications, they feel considerable pressure to use popular technology from the embedded microprocessor world–in…