With 28 flight tests under its belt, Terrafugia’s Transition proof of concept aircraft is retiring as the company considers making some design changes before building a prototype in the coming year. The flight tests so far have been largely successful, though confined to about 200 feet of altitude and always over a runway, keeping the duration of the flights relatively short, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association reported. The street-legal plane with folding wings has attracted 60 customers who have put down deposits. Deliveries of the $194,000 plane are slated to start in 2011. Terrafugia says the forthcoming prototype will use lighter materials to shave 120 pounds from its gross weight, so that it meets light sport aircraft requirements. Engineers also hope to trim a substantial amount from the proof-of-concept’s 2,000-foot takeoff run. And they’ll be tweaking the Transition’s elevator, which had to be fully deflected upward on takeoff. The prototype is expected to start flying in late 2010.

The second crash of the Cessna SkyCatcher during spin testing has sent the light sport aircraft program back to wind tunnel testing as engineers tweak the plane’s design. Cessna announced the shift in the plane’s development schedule in a news release during Sun ‘n Fun last week, but did not say how long the plane’s deliveries would be delayed. The plane was once slated to be certified later this year. In September, the first test plane was destroyed during spin testing; the pilot parachuted out safely. In the March accident, the pilot was able to deploy the plane’s ballistic parachute, which then dragged the plane across the ground, seriously damaging it. In between the two crashes, Cessna tweaked the design of the vertical stabilizer.

The news was better for Cirrus Design at Sun ‘n Fun. The company announced that its SR22 models are now certified for flight into known icing. The system uses TKS fluid dispersed along the leading edges of the wings, horizontal stabilizer and vertical stabilizer. This is similar to the older system available on Cirrus’ planes, but which was only designed to help pilots leave icing conditions when accidentally flying into them. The newly certified known-icing system includes LED ice lights and equipment to spread the de-icing fluid across the front windshield and along the propeller blades. Pilots will be able to fly in icing conditions for up to 2.5 hours.

NTSB wants Zodiac LSA grounded after string of in-flight breakups

Six crashes of the Zodiac CH-601XL in the last three years are all related to an aerodynamic design problem and the planes should be grounded, the National Transportation Safety Board said last week. The light sport planes are vulnerable to aerodynamic flutter, in which the ailerons and elevator vibrate in flight, over-stressing the plane and causing structural failure. Ten people died in the six crashes the NTSB reviewed; in all of the crashes, the planes broke up, often during cruise flight. In two of the accidents, the wings “collapsed” or “folded up,” the NTSB said. Because the Zodiac was certified as a Special LSA, it did not have to go through the FAA’s certification process. Instead, the manufacturer just had to say the plane met industry design standards. In a posting on its Web site, Zenith said it doesn’t think flutter is an issue if the plane’s control cables are adjusted correctly. The company is considering the issues the NTSB raised, though it noted that the probable cause of every accident has not been established yet. The FAA is reviewing the NTSB’s recommendations but has not taken any action and therefore, the planes can continue flying for now.

Though it keeps receiving orders, Florida’s Liberty Aerospace has had to lay off the majority of its workers in the last year because buyers who want the company’s planes can’t get financing. In the latest round of layoffs last week, Liberty’s payroll shrunk to 32, down from 180 a year ago, Florida Today reported. The company delivered its 100th plane in February and continues to operate its production line at a slow rate with its drastically reduced staff. Executives say they aren’t shutting down, but merely trying to weather the economic downturn that has hit all general aviation manufacturers hard.

The Cessna 162 SkyCatcher damaged in a crash March 19 was conducting power-on, cross-controlled spin testing beforehand, the NTSB and Cessna said last week. When the plane couldn’t recover, the test pilot deployed a ballistic airframe parachute, the NTSB’s preliminary report said. But when the plane stabilized, the pilot found he was unable to jettison the parachute and resume normal flight. The plane landed in a field and wind dragged the plane and parachute about half a mile before it came to a rest upside-down against a fence. Two SkyCatcher test planes have now been involved in crashes during spin testing, but that isn’t deterring the company from pushing forward with certifying the model, Cessna said in a news release. The company said it has collected valuable information about the plane’s spin behavior and about the function of the parachute as a result of the two crashes.

A proof-of-concept plane that can fit in a garage and has wings that unfold at the flip of a switch made a successful first flight earlier this month. Terrafugia announced on Wednesday that the plane had flown a brief series of test flights at the beginning of the month, CNet reported. One video showed the plane taking off and flying down the length of a runway in ground effect at Plattsburgh International Airport in New York. Photos also showed the plane at low altitude flying in formation with a chase plane. Terrafugia aims to have its $194,000 “roadable aircraft” on the market by 2011. Over the last six months, the company has been working slowly through a slew of tests on roads and taxiways. The plane is designed to meet light sport aircraft standards, much like the amphibious Icon A5 that is also in the midst of flight testing. The Terrafugia features a conventional steering wheel for driving on the road and a control stick coming up from the floor for use in flight. While its profile appears bulbous, its designers say the Terrafugia will be able to cruise at 115 mph in flight.

A Cessna test pilot was uninjured Thursday when he pulled the emergency parachute on a Cessna 162 SkyCatcher, bringing the plane down in a field about 20 miles northeast of Wichita, Kan. This was the second crash of a SkyCatcher during flight tests; the pilot in a September crash parachuted out after entering an unrecoverable spin, which prompted a redesign of the plane’s tail section, the Wichita Eagle reported. Cessna has not said what the test pilot was doing leading up to last week’s crash. Now that both flight test planes have been damaged or destroyed in accidents, Cessna said it is likely the plane’s production schedule will be delayed. The company had planned to ship 40 planes later this year, but it is unclear how many will actually be delivered in 2009. One of the last hurdles for the SkyCatcher is completing a regimen of spin testing, but the company is not saying if that’s what the pilot was doing before Thursday’s crash. The $110,000 plane is being certified as a light sport plane aimed squarely at the training market. The two-seat plane will include a Garmin glass cockpit but like all other light-sport planes, it will not be certified for instrument flight.

Economy hurts general aviation makers; very light jets take blows

The deep recession was bad news for every general aviation manufacturer as orders dried up and potential customers found they were unable to get loans for new planes. While manufacturers tried to downplay their problems, nearly every piston plane maker had to either lay off workers or reduce production schedules by this fall. Piston plane makers weren’t the only ones suffering, either. Much of Cessna’s business jet base dried up as well as corporations scaled back expansion plans and looked for ways to save as fuel hit record highs over the summer, a pattern that repeated itself at companies like Hawker Beechcraft and Bombardier.

2008 was a year of truth for the fledgling very light jet industry. While Cessna pushed steadily forward with deliveries of its Mustang VLJ and Embraer started shipping the Phenom 100 to customers earlier this month, other manufacturers didn’t do so well. Adam Aircraft went bankrupt in February; its new owners hope to certify the A700 jet by 2010 but have abandoned the centerline-thrust A500 turboprop. In September, air taxi company DayJet went belly up, foreshadowing Eclipse’s bankruptcy just before Thanksgiving. Eclipse’s assets are set to go on the auction block in early January, leaving the fate of the pioneering VLJ unclear for now.

Small planes offer promise in fold-up models

The bright spot for general aviation this year was in the progress made on small planes. Cessna’s light sport aircraft, the Model 162 SkyCatcher, began flight tests. One test plane was destroyed in a crash during spin testing (the pilot parachuted and landed unhurt), and Cessna said in response it was making minor design changes to improve the 162’s aerodynamics. Cessna plans to start delivering the planes in late 2009 or early 2010. Another segment that had the public’s attention this year: light sport planes that could fit in a driveway. Icon Aircraft began flight tests of its A5, an amphibious model with fold-up wings that will allow the plane to be transported on a small trailer. The company aims to have the A5 in production by late 2010. If being able to drive your plane into your driveway is more appealing, Terragufia hopes to have an answer. The company is in the early phases of testing a plane that could convert into a small car after it lands at an airport. Its makers call the plane a “roadable aircraft” to separate it from the ill-fated “flying cars” that have failed to take off in the past. The Terrafugia would be certified as a light sport aircraft with a 460-mile range in the air. Motors would fold the wings after landing and it would fit in a standard automobile garage.

FAA, Air Force find themselves in hot water

StudentPilot.com readers agreed that the scandal involving Southwest Airlines and the FAA was one of the most newsworthy government-related aviation stories in 2008. Mid-level managers at the FAA tacitly let Southwest skip mandatory fuselage inspections that would have checked for fatigue cracks, and the airline flew dozens of flights on planes that weren’t airworthy as a result. When the news broke, the scandal quickly broadened. Whistleblowers throughout the FAA said they had been pressured to turn a blind eye on maintenance lapses. As a result, American, Delta and United all grounded planes for various reasons, resulting in thousands of flight cancellations last spring. The FAA fined Southwest more than $10 million for its inspection lapses and pledged internal reforms, including new systems that would let employees report incidents without being intimidated by their bosses.

Other government agencies had their share of trouble in 2008, too. The U.S. Air Force struggled, and failed, to seal the deal on a $35-billion contract to replace its fleet of aging KC-135 midair refueling tankers. The two bidders were Boeing, which proposed a modified 767, and Airbus, which would have used a variant of the larger A330. When the Air Force awarded the contract to Airbus, Boeing cried foul, arguing that the Pentagon had changed the rules in the middle of the bidding process and had given Airbus more credit for its larger airframe. The Air Force initially said it would reevaluate both planes, but then scrapped the entire contract when Boeing said it would need more time to tweak the 777 for the tanker program. With all efforts stalled for several months, it will be up to Barack Obama’s administration to pick up the pieces.

Boeing struggles through challenges

If the tanker contract put Boeing in the defensive for the first part of the year, a crippling two-month strike left it in that position for the rest of the year. Its Machinists union, which includes many assembly line workers, hit the picket line in early September. Concerns over how Boeing would outsource future aircraft manufacturing work were among the top concerns for the union. In early November, Machinists voted overwhelmingly in favor of a four-year contract — one year longer than usual — that assures substantial pay raises but does not give workers much protection from outsourcing. The two-month strike meant Boeing’s production lines were idle for that time, setting the company behind in orders it had booked and giving Airbus a chance to pull ahead in deliveries for the year. The strike also meant another delay for the 787 Dreamliner, now expected to fly for the first time in mid-2009.

A Chinese manufacturer could be a future competitor for the likes of Bombardier when it comes to regional jets. The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China announced in November that the nation’s first regional jet had completed its maiden flight. The ARJ21 will seat up to 90 passengers with a range of about 2,000 nautical miles. So far, the ARJ21 has booked more than 200 orders, mainly from Chinese airlines. If it looks like an MD-90, that’s because it uses much of the same fuselage tooling, though the ARJ21 has a completely new wing design. Expect the plane to take to the skies with passengers aboard in the next year.

2009: The year of green aviation?

When Jet-A prices spiked in the summer of 2008, airlines responded by raising fares, tacking on fuel surcharges, and making customers pay for checked luggage. But industry executives also acknowledged that they needed to start looking for ways to save fuel in the long term. Different fuels could be one solution. Early in 2008, Virgin Atlantic successfully tested a 20-percent biofuel mix in one of the engines of a 747 on a flight from London to Amsterdam. Sometime in early 2009, Continental, Air New Zealand and Japan Air Lines are all expected to make test flights using biofuel mixtures. The promise of using a blend of biolfuel and Jet-A is that it would save money without requiring substantial alterations to jet engines. The tests in the coming year could provide an indication of how realistic those hopes are. Simpler changes could save airlines money, too. Air New Zealand showed off how an optimized descent at the end of a long-haul flight could save thousands of pounds of fuel. The test required hefty coordination with air traffic controllers beforehand, though. Making the practice widespread would require that controllers move away from issuing step-down descents, which use more fuel because jet engines must spool up each time a plane levels off at a lower altitude.

For more year-in-review recaps, take a look at the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization, which highlighted some of its successes in 2008. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association took at look at many of the low points in general aviation in the past year and also reviewed some of the pilots who made the news.

Jessica Cox was born without arms, but hasn’t let that stop her from leading a relatively normal life, driving her car with one foot on the wheel and even putting in contact lenses with her toes. Cox, 25, recently became the first person without arms to earn a pilot certificate, using her feet to handle the controls of her vintage Ercoupe, Fox News reported. Finding a plane that would let Cox use her legs as she’s accustomed to was one of the more challenging parts of her training, since many light sport planes are too small and cramped for her. She used prosthetic arms until she was about 14, but found them to be too restrictive and cumbersome. Cox’s story is an exceptional example of what’s possible under sport pilot rules, which allow pilots to use their driver’s license in lieu of a medical certificate. To move on to other ratings, Cox would likely have to go through a more intensive medical review process with the FAA to prove she’s capable of flying. Then again, with her sport pilot certificate and a black belt in tae kwon do, it may only be a matter of time.

Cessna’s light sport plane, the Model 162 SkyCatcher, is supposed to have a built-in ballistic airframe parachute. The test plane that crashed and was heavily damaged Sept. 18 also had one, but it never deployed, Wichita’s ABC affiliate reported. The SkyCatcher was going through a series of spin tests on the day of the crash, and the plane entered a cross-controlled flat spin from which the test pilot couldn’t recover, Cessna officials said. The pilot bailed out of the plane and deployed his own personal parachute, landing without injury. The plane was heavily damaged when it tumbled to the ground, landing in a rural area south of Wichita. Officials from Ballistic Recovery Systems, which makes the SkyCatcher’s chute and many like it in other general aviation planes, said they did not know why the rocket-powered airframe parachute did not deploy in the spin.