I really don’t understand rotor failure unless something large hits it. It’s not rocket science to run a segmented drive shaft to the tail. They can be damped by rubber flex plates like they use in automotive steering shafts. Heck, they made a flexible drive shaft for the 64 Tempest with the transaxle. Gear boxes are old-school simple and should never fail. This is where a little engineering goes a long way.
And I’ve often wondered why there seems to be a lot of commercial helicopters that don’t do well during an auto rotation event. Many of them medical helicopters. After watching them in my area via Flightradar 24 I think it might be an altitude issue. They’re always flying at what I would consider a low altitude. Considering the horsepower these things have they could easily fly at higher altitudes to add a margin of safety.
As for the crash of the experimental Curtiss-Wright XP-55 it was a flyover in formation with a P-38 and P-51 in an earlier May show of the same year at Wright Field. It crashed on field and went over the fence and hit a car killing 4 people. What was remarkable was that there was an infant in the car and family friend Kathleen Eyrehad the presence of mind to throw her out the window. She survived.
The page you’ve linked to is his home page, which I assume was where the page you’re referring to was first posted. But he’s updated the home page with a new entry.
Do you have a direct link? All I saw was a bunch of models, a few period photos, and attractive women in uniform on the link you posted. It’s a long page, so I did skim quickly; but I didn’t see anything about the Ass-Ender or the planes on your list.
Yes, commasense got the right link. Not sure what happened. I was thrilled to see the event as it’s in my neck of the woods. I’ve stood where those pictures were taken. It makes me wonder where some of the planes are. Many of them are at the Air Force Museum on Wright Field but some of them are not and they represent the very beginnings of German jet and rocket science.
I had to laugh at myself about the aerial photo of the event at Wright Field. I like the little details and my first thought was that it was taken by a drone. The photo was taken from the tower next to the hangers which is visible in the picture of the V2. Up until recently those hangers were an extension of the Air Force Museum. The hanger to the right of them is where they did load testing on the B-36 hanging it from its nose.
Been 6 weeks since the overrun event. By happenstance was driving past the airport today, so I stopped to park near that end of the airport and walked up to the boundary fence to get the best look possible.
The EMAS still has the three furrows in it. No sign of repair work.
I was also able to see from a side view that the furrows extended from the end of the hard surface pavement only about 1/3rd of the length of the EMAS. At least for that airplane type & weight, even if they’d been going a good deal faster they’d still have gotten a complete save.
I’ll be interested to see if / when they ever get around to restoring it to pristine condition. If they ever do. This is the only EMAS I’ve ever seen in a used condition, so I’m sorta interested in how that’ll play out.
EMAS beds are only certified for that runway if all of the blocks are intact. The damage will also tear through the covering and will let rain into the EMAS bed, so that needs to get repaired asap too. The FAA Airports Division folks will make them repair the damage if it’s a Part 139 airport.
I’m very familiar with a ground vehicle, um, “incident” with an EMAS bed. It was about 15 of the blocks that were damaged but they replaced more than those. They cut back the vinyl-fabric-esque covering, used a mini excavator and manual labor to dig out the damaged blocks and some additional ones beyond the damage, and dropped new blocks into the slot. The blocks are the size of a small refrigerator and are glued together with some manner of adhesive in a tube. The ones closer to the threshold were thinner and wedge shaped, once you got like 7 or so blocks in they started to get a lot deeper. Repair the fabric covering and all was well - you’d never know a large lime yellow truck may or may not have stumbled into it. The damage was there for about 6 weeks before the EMAS people were on site doing the repair.
The AirNav: KBCT - Boca Raton Airport historically serves bizjets and light GenAv only. Of late JSX (airline) - Wikipedia has been operating seasonal service in there with EMB-135/145s but they’re deliberately operating in that gray area where they ought to be Part 121, but are verrrry carefully sliding in as Part 91 under the Part 121 radar. Which ought to be illegal, but there’s a lot more wrong with the Federal government right now than just this.
The current NOTAMs for BCT from Federal Aviation Administration: NOTAM Search include that the EMAS at that end of the airport is “nonstandard” and has “nonstandard lighting”. These two NOTAMs date from right after the mishap and will expire at year end. There’re no such NOTAMs for the other end, so I conclude that what’s non-standard about this end is that it’s used.
Hmm … A large lime yellow truck you say? Perhaps a Shell-branded avgas tanker? Yeah, that’s the ticket. Couldn’t possibly be one of the airport’s own vehicles.
If you’re in Airnav, you can shortcut the “is this a 139 airport?” question - under Airport Operations, if it says “ARFF index [A-E]” then it’s a 139 airport. That spreadsheet is a nightmare to sort, though interesting to browse through.
Regarding the EMAS whoopsie I’m familiar with, under advice of counsel, I choose to exercise my rights under the 5th Amendment….
Translated this means the military is limited in when they can turn off ADS-B OUT which would have made the helicopter visible to the American Eagle crew.
My limited experience with ADS-B was impressive. It was during a flight to the Oshkosh Air Show where it stood out. I was seeing aircraft around me that I had no idea were there.
Not really. Substantially zero airliners have ADS-B receivers or display systems. There are pilot projects and experiments, but no widespread equipage. The current TCAS via Mode S transponder is not the same thing at all. Most long-haul airliners have ADS-B out; it’s used internationally a lot. Many US domestic airliners don’t have ADS-B out.
Now what the bill says is the FAA, by 2027, has to write regs to require new built airplanes to have that capability. After a phase-in period. So starting in about 2029, new airliners will have ADS-B-in installed at the factory. And after that, if a crew is flying a new airliner, they’d have been able to see that helo had it been squawking properly.
So you’re 100% right they’re moving towards an equippage standard that would have made the helo appear on the AE jet’s screen. That’s certainly better than it not being there, but I’m not going to say that it would for certain have prevented the mishap. Reduce its likelihood? Sure.
The retrofit schedule to put ADS-B-in in every existing airliner starting in 2029 is the work of a decade at least.
A separate matter I’m not equipped to speak about is what is the equippage standard today, and what are the future plans, for military use of ADS-B -in or -out? FAA has no authority over DoD.
Congress could certainly mandate that the military achieve X equipage by Y date. But as a practical matter, that’s a game of chicken. When DoD isn’t budgeted to do all that work, they get to the magic date and tell Congress “Gee, sorry, are you sure you want to ground half our fleet for years until we catch up with your shortsighted, schedule-unrealistic, and unaffordable mandate you forgot to fund each and every year since?” Congress folds every time.
Still and all, that was a great cite; thanks for hunting that up. Congress seems (for once) to have the right general idea; the devil is always in the details and in the schedule.
You’re closer to this than I am, but my understanding, and my reading of the FAA’s site is that any aircraft operating in class A, B or C airspace plus the mode C veil must have ADS-B out by now.
Upon further review, you’re correct and I was wrong.
The ADS-B out implementation in airliners (any high altitude airplane really) is an additional data packet sent by the mode-S transponder. The preferred ADS-B out implementation for low altitude airplanes involves a separate transmitter system, not the Mode S transponder. That distinction is what tripped me up.
Yeah, that’s why I host a 978mhz UAT revceiver as well. That gets the low level aircraft and helicopters as well as the FAA weather data stream. But somewhat surprisingly to me, only a small fraction of the general aviation aircraft in the area are on 978. Seems like almost everyone, even the little guys, has installed the 1090-ES equipment.
The way it reads is new aircraft and existing aircraft. So that would be everybody.
From link above: the bill would require newly built crewed aircraft, along with existing aircraft already operating in ADS-B Out airspace, to carry ADS-B In equipment.
Sadly it’s $3,000 worth of uncertified technology that’s going to cost a lot of time and money to upgrade existing systems. At least most cockpits are glass. Slap a couple more antennas on and wire in the interface.
I know it’s probably not legal to bring your own handheld into the cockpit but years ago I know pilots flying overseas would take their handheld GPS with them. They wanted to know where they really were versus where the plane’s navigation system said they were.
I scanned it quickly but bill would apply to all part 91 aircraft which include anything from the little planes (normal category) through to big business jets (transport category).
Going to be a hell of a lot more than $3k at least for the transport category planes. You don’t just “slap a couple of antennas on” and randomly wire new systems and expect to get out of it at that price. More like an order or magnitude more!
Now, I assume a lot of the existing systems can get software upgrades to serve this function, but you’ll be paying an arm and a leg for that too, even without a physical change to the aircraft.
Not my specialty at all, but the EMC guys get squirrelly with new receiving and transmitting functions.
That’s why I said uncertified. It’s aviation so multiply it by 100 or more for something certified. And for good reason. It’s got to be robust and reliable. The certification process is where the cost is and a multiplier of 100 may be low.
I agree the article says that. It also says 1 paragraph later
Newly produced light sport and experimental aircraft with electrical systems would be included in the mandate if certified or registered after the rule takes effect
Which is drafted in a way that explains the apparent disconnect above. There are two separate provisions, one for new-built and one for existing. With different timelines. But big picture, you’re right that the mandate will eventually apply to both.
