iscover
Piper Aircraft Corporation has begun production of the Turbo Seminole, a four-place light twin, it was announced today. The Turbo Seminole will provide speed and systems redundancy comparable to many six-place twins at a price that is competitive with many high-performance singles. The Turbo Seminole uses turbocharged, carburated 180-horsepower Lycoming engines. The Turbo Seminole has a higher gross weight, service ceiling, useful load, cruise speed and single-engine service ceiling than the normally aspirated Seminole. "The Turbo Seminole is so outstanding, that its type of performance was previously possible only from sixplace twins costing as much as $40,000 more," noted Thomas W. Gillespie, senior vice president of marketing and sales. "As the price of fuel continues to escalate, we expect to see many pilots now flying larger twins opting for the Turbo Seminole. If their load factors do not justify hauling around six seats, it is the logical move. They can obtain competitive speed while saving as much as $10 per hour on their fuel bill," Gillespie continued.
Newsdesk – General Aviation
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Helicopters Boom:
Like turbine powered fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters are also in a boom state owing to their widespread acceptance as beasts of burden and utilisation rather than the notion that most helos were simply expensive luxuries which largely existed a decade ago. Bell simply cannot make enough of its Jetranger model (6000 built to date in all variants) while Hughes alone delivered more than 300 of its commercial version 300C and 5000 helos in 1979 alone. Hughes are predicting a production rate of 600 helos by 1983, many of which will be the nimble 5000 Defender anti-armour gunship.
Jetstream Launched:
British Aerospace, with the help of Margaret Thatcher, has found a kick-off order for the Jetstream 31 with the RAF taking 14 aircraft to fulfil the air nav training and liaison role. The RAF primarily favoured Beech with their King Air 200 but were prompted to buy British, an order that cost the RAF twice as much per aircraft but provided upwards of 2000 jobs at BAe’s Prestwick facility formerly owned by Scottish Aviation
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