The A30 launch was a hard secret to keep. It wasn’t the first new product announcement the company has made in 13 years, and even before I got the inside scoop from Bose, I’d predicted that we’d see a successor to the A20 at Sun ‘n Fun. (It was an impressive prediction; just don’t ask to see my March Madness debacle of a bracket.)

It seems that the A20 was around forever, and 13 years is a good stretch in an aviation marketplace where new headsets appeared from Bose’s competitors far more frequently. The extended reign of the A20 made sense, though. When it hit the airways in 2010, it  immediately displaced the company’s Aviation Headset X as the headset to have in your flight bag. Rightly so. The A20 was a far better headset than the X in just about every way. It was more comfortable, had better passive and active noise reduction, and added features like Bluetooth wireless connectivity. If you were flying with Bose Aviation Headset X’s, you just had to get the A20s. And while Bose improved the A20 incrementally over that time, the bones of the product were great from the get-go. I have worn the A20 for around 1,000 hours in loud single-engine airplanes. It’s a great product.

I know that one big criticism we’ll hear early and often on the A30 is that it’s just a warmed-over A20, and I get it. It looks very similar, it does the same kinds of things, there are no fancy features, just the usual ones, beautifully implemented as they are on the A20. So, should you replace your A20s with A30s? I don’t think anyone needs to. But believe me, people will want to. And once they slide one on, they’ll really want to.  

Features
What is the killer feature on the A30? Nothing. But at the same time, everything. And Bose knew it would be a challenge to update the A20, and to its everlasting credit, it didn’t try to make a whole new headset but, wisely, a whole better headset.

This they did not by focusing on one feature but on all of them, seriously. When you look at the A30, even when you put your hands on one, you’ll wonder how it’s different from the A20 at all. The answer is, it’s different in just about every conceivable way. And better, too.

That said, some of the improvements are specific to certain needs that not everyone will have. The top feature, though—improved comfort over an already supremely comfortable headset—will be one that just about every pilot will love. This they accomplished while still keeping the A30 very slightly lighter than the A20. At the same time, they somehow managed to make it feel, well, not heavier, but more secure. One of the most important tests of any aviation headset is comfort, and for those of us who have been flying small planes for a while have had the unpleasant pain of wearing early-tech noise cancelling headsets on a long day’s flight. The A20s are the most comfortable headset I’ve ever worn for multiple-leg cross countries, and so far, the A30 feels even better. Beta testers tell Bose that they are having the same early impression.

Noise-wise, the A30 is different, and in ways that might or might not benefit you directly. There are three levels of noise cancelling in the new digital chipset that Bose uses—low, medium and high—though pilots of small, single-engine planes will most likely keep it parked on the high setting, which is even more effective than its impressive predecessor at blocking unwanted audio intrusions through the magic of active noise reduction. Unlike the A20, for which Bose’s senior product manager Matt Ruhe used analog circuitry, the A30 is a digital headset, which allowed Bose to target noise more specifically than the A20 can.

The A30’s mic is totally different than the A20’s, and it, too, is an improvement, with better intelligibility and ease of use. Despite the move to a digital design, the A30 keeps the warmth of the sound of the A20, which also helps with fatigue. Another quality-of-life improvement is the new cord, which is better, lighter, more flexible and less noticeable.

Other features that you might or might not use are tool-less interchangeable cord attachment, so you can mount it on the side closest to the jack, and a tap-to-talk feature that lets you make the noise cancelling transparent for easier conversations inside or outside of the cockpit.

The bottom line is, the $1,295 Bose A30 aviation headset is a step up in comfort, utility and features, and while it lacks the bells and whistles of some of its competitors’ premium headsets, it is everything, at least in our book, that a headset should be and nothing that it shouldn’t. The A30 is available now from your favorite pilot supply outlet.

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Coming out on top was Philip Johnson for his “Jolley Roger in the Sky,” a brilliant shot of a North American F-86 Sabre, flown by Steve Hinton. Taking home second prize was Adrien Penhoet, for their photograph entitled “Evening at KGAI” (Montgomery Country, Maryland). It’s a really compelling shot of airplane silhouettes behind a long line of chain link fencing—we’ll let you work out all the symbolism on your own. Finally, in third place was Kristina Rosenfeld for her shot, “West Coast Sunrise. “We like sunrises in general, but this one is fantastic.

As it has been in the past, the idea behind the theme of this year’s Your Flying World Photo Contest was to open up entries to any part of this amazing activity that we all love—aviation! And this year’s winners and finalists show the breadth of scope of this flying world we share and on which we spend so much time.

Here are our 2023 Your Flying World photo contest finalists!

Jolley Roger in the sky by Philip Johnson

This was an air-to-air mission with the F-86 Sabre from the Planes of Fame Museum with Steve Hinton as the pilot. We were flying along the Pacific coastline near the Santa Maria Airport.

Sony a1 with 24-70 f/2.8 GM lens     

1/3200sec at f/8 with an ISO 800

Evening at KGAI by Adrien Penhoet

I came in from flight training and noticed the beautiful silhouettes of the aircraft. I didn’t even realize that I caught the moon, too, until much later.           

iPhone 10s, Automatic

West Coast Sunrise by Kristina Rosenfeld

My husband and I flew out of our north coast California airport (KFOT) very early one summer morning to surprise my dad in Coeur d’ Alene for his birthday. The sunrise was absolutely spectacular!         

Phone camera – Samsung SM-G960U, focal length 4.30 mm         

Shutter speed 1/1167 s, aperture F2.4, ISO 50        

No flash, auto WB, no filter, photo not edited.

The post We Proudly Announce the Winners of the 2023 Your Flying World Photo Contest! appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

The sequence started with the plane, landing light on, approaching, its retractable wheels still up in the wells, and as it crossed the ridgeline that runs along the shore, the plane begins to descend more quickly, at an apparently slow airspeed and sinking fairly fast. Just before the plane lands, when it is perhaps 50 feet in the air, the gear comes down that seemed to sharpen its sink rate. Its landing gear extended, the V-tailed Bonanza, a 1966 model, hits hard, the nose gear digging in, and it partially cartwheels, luckily staying upright, as it spins into the water.

A small plane crash landed on a beach in Shoreham, NY. (eastern LI’s north shore) There were 2 men on the plane but thankfully they escaped with just some minor cuts and bruises. pic.twitter.com/SMrN0IEpaM

— Michael DelGiudice (@michaeldel22) March 17, 2023

The FAA is investigating the mishap. 

Video: No-Engine Beach Landing

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Videos that came to light shortly after the crash showed the flight was in trouble. One of them, taken by a resident who lived nearby, shows the plane slowing considerably and then going out of control. The other was a Facebook livestream taken from inside the plane’s cabin by a passenger who perished moments later. 

Investigators quickly recovered the flight recorders, and to everyone’s surprise, they showed that the plane’s two propellers had been brought to zero power output, in a condition known as “feathering,” which is used in flight only after an engine has failed. Featherning it keeps the non-working engine’s propeller from created excessive drag. When both propellers are feathered, neither engine will produce any power, and for a plane like the accident ATR 72, that can be catastrophic. But why did it happen? 

There’s a new theory, and it makes a lot of sense to investigators. 

The flight had originated in Kathmandu and was headed to Pokhara, a 30-minute flight. Pokhara is the gateway to the Himalayas and a popular trekking jumping-off point. The weather looked a little hazy but otherwise excellent, and from the video taken by the Pokhara resident, the wind didn’t appear to be a factor.

That ground-perspective video below, which stops just as the ATR is dropping a wing and before it spirals out of control, shows the regional airliner clearly flying very slowly before disappearing behind a structure. At that point, its bank angle was greater than 90 degrees, meaning it was on its way to being inverted.

Horrifying last moments of an ATR plane crash from Nepal in Pokhara that was bound for Kathmandu. All 72 people on board are dead. pic.twitter.com/4JZIvnThPQ

— Wajahat Kazmi (@KazmiWajahat) January 15, 2023

The video from the cabin, likewise, shows the plane at an unusually high angle of attack as it is flown slowly for some reason. After watching the videos, a former NTSB official remarked that the plane’s wing flaps didn’t appear to be fully extended on the airliner and that the engines, or at least one of them, appeared to be functioning. Twin-engine commercial planes like the ATR 72 are fully capable of all phases of flight even with one engine not producing power.

If the flaps had not been fully extended, that would have raised the minimum speed at which the plane would still be controllable. It appears from the video that the plane did indeed go out of control, seemingly from being flown too slowly. Airline pilots are trained to be rigorous in their attention to the plane’s configuration (such as flap settings) and its airspeed. The cabin video goes all the way into the crash, and the passengers, all of whom would die in the crash, seemed unaware until the very last seconds that they were in trouble.

The latest theory takes all of that into account. It proposes that one of the pilots, when the other called for the deployment of 30 degrees of flaps, but the flight recorder shows that instead of deploying 30 degrees of flaps (they remained unchanged) the pilot accidentally pulled back on the condition levers, which are located directly next to the flaps. There’s no safety mechanism in place to prevent an accidentally grab, as the theory suggests, to turn disastrous. 

Pulling both propellers back to a feathered condition would explain the plane’s slowing before going out of control and crashing. The question that remains is, if it was accidental, and there’s no evidence that authorities have shared to suggest it was intentional, could the mistake have been fixed, that is, why didn’t one of the pilots have simply advanced them again to regain power? And if that was attempted, how long would it have taken for those engines to spool back up to producing a usable amount of power, all while airspeed was decaying as they attempted in vain to hold the plane’s altitude. In this case, the pilots might not have realized the mistake that had been made, and by the time they figured it out, if they ever did, the plane had descended below 500 feet AGL, was on the verge of an aerodynamic stall, so it’s unlikely that the flight could have been saved. 

WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT

The plane crashed in a steep ravine near the new Pokhara Airport, which opened just a few weeks ago. It is not clear how flying into a new and therefore somewhat unfamiliar airport might have affected the flight, though investigators will surely be looking into that factor.

All 72 bodies have been recovered, as were the flight recorders, which might provide answers. In most cases, the cockpit voice recorder holds few clues, but this case feels very different than most.

On a particularly tragic note, shortly after officials released the names of the crewmembers who died in the crash, it became known that the pilot killed in the crash, Anju Khatiwada, was the widow of the captain who died in the crash of a Yeti Airlines flight in 2006. The pilot who was killed on Sunday became a pilot only after her husband died in the crash of a Twin Otter (an even smaller twin-engine plane) more than 15 years ago.

There are conflicting reports about the seat that Khatiwada was occupying on Sunday’s flight, though some outlets have reported that she was flying with a check pilot before earning qualification to fly as captain of the ATR 72. If that were the case, the qualification process might hold clues as to why the plane went out of control, though standard procedures would call for the flight to be flown by the book regardless of the nature of the crew. Khatiwada earned her ratings in the United States and had more than 6,000 hours of flight experience, reportedly being qualified already as captain on other aircraft in the Yeti Airlines fleet.

Following Tara Disaster, Nepal Wants to Change the Way it Clears Flights

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The small plane was on a sightseeing flight over the Dolomites, a spectacularly scenic mountain chain in the north of the country, when the plane’s engine quit. It’s not clear how high the plane was when this happened, but it was essentially amidst the peaks, which rise to 11,000 feet. To say there was nowhere to land is a huge understatement, and the word “land” is wishful thinking; it was a forced reunion with terra firma. The terrain is beyond jagged; the Dolomites are renowned for their exquisite cragginess, but somehow, De Bon spotted an area that looked like a possibly survivable place to put down—a steep, snow-covered slope. The landing on the slope must have been picture perfect; there’s only the after photos to share; in the video here around two-thirds in, you can see an angle that shows the slope. Steep! And it is just over 9,000 feet in elevation.

So, De Bon, who says the plane’s power loss gave her no choice but to put it down somewhere, aimed for that spot. Now, we’re used to landing on a flat surface, but De Bon, who had surely never landed on a steep upslope before, somehow knew she had to raise the nose very high at touchdown, and she did. The plane landed in deep snow. And all three aboard were able to walk away with minor injuries.

The last, really lucky part? There was a hikers’ cabin just a couple hundred yards up the slope.

The rescue came soon, and De Bon has become a bit of a celebrity in Italy for her quick thinking and preternatural flying acumen. She told a local news site that her father wants her to stop flying now, but she says, in true pilot fashion, that she thinks she’ll keep on flying anyway.

A Bad Weather Report Leads To a Fatal Crash on A Snowy Flight

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We’re compiling a list of unusual airports in the United States for a future story, and we’d love to get your input. Email us at ppeditorial@madavor.com (please include “AIRPORTS” in the Subject Line), and tell us about a weird or memorable airport that you know and (hopefully) love. And tell us in a few sentences what makes it weird!

Thanks!

The post America‘s Most Unusual Airports appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

As part of its investigation, the NTSB conducted a simulation of the views each pilot had of the other plane before the collision. The study found, “!that for the 53-second period before the collision, the PA-12 would have been unobscured and visible to the DHC-2 pilot through the DHC-2 left windshield. The DHC-2 would have been unobscured and visible to the PA-12 pilot through the PA-12 windshield for 28.3 seconds before the collision. Federal Aviation Administration guidance indicated that 12.5 seconds is the minimum time for a pilot to visually acquire another aircraft, judge a collision course, and take evasive action. Therefore, there was adequate time for both pilots to see and avoid the other airplane.”

The recommendation seems to acknowledge that the common collision avoidance technique known as “see and avoid” has limitations. Indeed, in this crash, investigators determined that both pilots should have been able to see the other plane, which would have allowed them to take evasive action to avoid a collision. That didn’t happen in this accident. In fact, eyewitnesses indicated that the two planes continued with their respective flight paths, the Beaver heading west and the Super Cruiser traveling to the north, each at the same altitude of around 1,175 feet MSL, until they collided.

According to the report, “A witness located near the accident site observed the DHC-2 traveling in a westerly direction and the PA-12 traveling in a northerly direction. He stated that the PA-12 impacted the DHC-2 on the left side of the fuselage toward the back of the airplane. After the collision, he observed what he believed to be the DHC-2’s left wing separate, and the airplane entered an uncontrolled, descending counterclockwise spiral before disappearing from view. Both airplanes sustained substantial damage during the collision and impact with terrain.”

In looking into the pilot’s certification and history, the NTSB found that the pilot of the PA-12 had been turned down for an FAA medical certificate eight years prior to the accident due to “open-angle glaucoma” and “severely limited peripheral vision.” Investigators postulated that the PA-12 pilot’s central vision was likely significantly impaired, too.

The safety recommendation is for the installation of ADS-B traffic awareness and alerting gear for Part 135 (on-demand charter) operations. Neither plane had ADS-B installed, but if they had, investigators found that the pilot of the Super Cruiser would have gotten traffic alerts 26 seconds before the crash and another one nine seconds prior to the collision. The DHC-2 pilot would have gotten alerts at 26 and 19 seconds before impact.

According to a story on Alaskapublic.org, there were 14 midair collisions in Alaska between 2005 and 2020, resulting in 35 fatalities and 15 injuries that the NTSB classified as “serious.” Of those 14 midair collisions, the site reported, 12 of them took place in uncontrolled airspace, as was the case for this mishap.

The NTSB found that the probable cause of the accident was, “!the failure of both pilots to see and avoid the other airplane. Contributing to the accident were (1) the PA-12 pilot’s decision to fly with a known severe vision deficiency that had resulted in denial of his most recent application for medical certification and (2) the Federal Aviation Administration’s absence of a requirement for airborne traffic advisory systems with aural alerting among operators who carry passengers for hire.”

Facts About Midair Collisions

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The main mystery behind the midair crash is this: Why did the pilot of the P-63 hit the B-17 in the first place? The NTSB is investigating, but it admitted early on that since neither plane had any flight data recording equipment installed, it would depend on eyewitness video—and luckily a lot has surfaced. The first of the two videos below appears to be authentic. The second video, which has been edited, shows a cutaway closeup of the P-63 as it seems to hit an object.

The original video has no cuts and coincides with the positions of the planes as seen in other videos of the disaster. 

In the second video, the close-up view appears to show an object that collides with the fighter:

Possible cause of the collision of the B-17G bomber and the R-63 fighter at the air show in #Dallas. Fighter apparently collided with a #drone and stalled pic.twitter.com/gAl7LfBy9V

— Arthur Morgan (@ArthurM40330824) November 25, 2022

Edited video of the Dallas midair disaster that purportedly shows a foreign object hitting the WW II-era Bell Kingcobra shortly before it crashed into a Boeing B-17 bomber, killing all six aboard the two planes.

Upon zooming in on the first, original video, we were unable to see the objects shown in the second, edited version. The authenticity of either video hasn’t been confirmed by officials, leading to widespread skepticism of the second video. However, at the point at which the mystery object supposedly struck, the Kingcobra began a very rapid, steep descent of perhaps 150 or 200 feet over less than half a mile that set it on the fateful collision course with the bomber.

The videos released this week, if authentic, offer the best look at the vintage fighter’s flight path to date. Both clearly show that something must have happened at that moment, whether it was the pilot inexplicably choosing to descend very rapidly and suddenly, a collision with an object, pilot incapacitation or some other unknown cause.

So, while there is zero official evidence as of now of a drone or bird strike, both videos—if real—offer a look at the last moments before the tragic midair collision.

The post Dallas Midair Tragedy: New Videos Show Startling Change in Flight Path of P-63 appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

The company that Robinson founded in the early 1970s wasn’t just another aircraft manufacturer, and Robinson knew it. A lifetime aviation enthusiast, Robinson was a talented engineer and beginner pilot when he departed a fledgling career working for aviation giants like Cessna, Bell and Hughes to stake a claim out west. What he wanted to do sounded easy enough—to build a small light and affordable personal helicopter that would democratize the world of rotary flight, a segment of aviation that was and remains dominated by large manufacturers of multi-million-dollar craft targeted at military and commercial users.

And he did just that, though it wasn’t easy. After making the first flight of his two-seater Robinson R22, with just 60 hours in his logbook, it would be more than half a decade before the small craft would earn Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification.

But once it did, sales of the small helicopter literally took off, proving that Robinson’s dream—that if he built that field-of-dreams machine, customers would flock to it, and they did. The company today has delivered more than 4,600 R22s, a figure that towers over the next most-produced light helicopters. And to achieve that level of production, Robinson the company became a modern, sophisticated operation that today employs more than a thousand people at the same small Southern California airport where the R22 first flew in the early ’70s.

Robinson models, in fact, are annually the most-produced helicopters in the world. In part, that’s because Robinson didn’t let success change his vision. While other companies might have chased bigger clients with deeper pockets by developing ever more sophisticated and powerful craft, Robinson doggedly kept to his vision of building helicopters for the lower arc of the marketplace’s bell curve.

Not that he stopped innovating. By the ’90s, Robinson had led the company to the introduction of what is today the best-selling helicopter in the world, the four-seat Robinson R44, a larger, faster and more capable model. And he went on to innovate again, introducing an R44 model with hydraulic controls, which, while sounding like a modest upgrade, is a remarkable engineering achievement on a helicopter that is small and depends on its low weight to have the kind of performance that customers are looking for. This battle against weight gain is a primary focus for any aircraft designer, but for Robinson it was a life’s work, to the point that the decision of whether or not to add an ounce of gear was a weighed with a strong bias on the principles of simplicity, strength and low weight trumping all. Since the introduction of the R44 in 1993, Robinson has sold around 6,500 copies.

A little more than a decade after the launch of the R44, Robinson introduced the R66, a turbine-powered model that resembles the R44 from which it sprang while providing operators with far greater performance in nearly every operating environment while enhancing reliability.

There were controversies. The R22 was unlike any existing helicopter. With its small and lightweight rotor blades, the small ship requires a light touch. Following a rash of R22 crashes early on, Robinson redesigned the blades and later instituted mandatory trainin, a course of action that reduced the accident rate by a factor of 10. Today, Robinson models have a safety record that is the envy of many fixed-wing models. 

Robinson proved visionary in another controversial way, putting life limits on the aircraft the company sold. After a certain period of time, 2,200 hours or 12 years for the R22, the main components must be factory overhauled. The practice isn’t a way to keep customers paying, though. It ensures that Robinson Helicopter has control over the condition of helicopters in both the new and used fleet, a key part of a strategy to reign in litigation costs and keep Robinson in business but, more importantly, its customers flying aircraft that have been maintained to exacting standards. 

Frank Robinson, the recipient of numerous prestigious awards for his work, retired from day-to-day work at the factory in 2010. Today, his son Kurt has taken the reins, keeping the company focused on the principles his father lived by in creating the world’s most successful helicopter maker and keeping it a company that is loyal to this day to its founding values despite the success.

A Personal Note
For years, the single most enjoyable evening of the year for me was the annual Robinson Helicopter press dinner at the Helicopter Association International (HAI) convention. It was a small, informal affair generally held at a fine restaurant that served great steaks. As a journalist, I’m supposed to be at least a little unbiased, but I couldn’t help becoming a fan of the man who founded a company unlike any other in aviation. He was plain spoken, opinionated and very funny. His smile, wide and unfiltered, could fill the room. Those dinners were celebratory events even when no one was quite sure what we were celebrating.

The subject was clear, though. We were gathering to talk flying and life and family and aircraft. It wasn’t to advance any agenda, twist any arms or make any bold claims, and as such, it was a rare treat in an aviation world that so often functions in what is often a cold and calculating corporate climate. There was none of that with Frank. He was an engineer at heart, there was no doubt about that, but he was that rare engineer whose values were based always on the needs and interests of the customer and whose vision was informed at first and until 10,000 helicopters later and still counting, remained true.

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pic.twitter.com/5dCkfEa7a7

— Breaking Aviation News & Videos (@aviationbrk) October 27, 2022

The flight had originated in Santiago, Chile, and was on its way to Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, when it diverted because of weather to an airport in Brazil. After taking off again, it encountered the severe weather. There are conflicting reports on injuries, with some stories reporting that several passengers were seriously injured, while the airline said in a statement that no one was hurt.

The plane itself suffered heavy damage, with the hail nearly shattering both windshields, making it nearly impossible for the pilots to see ahead. They eventually managed to make a successful emergency landing in Asunción. Authorities are investigating the incident.

From thunderstorms to icy clouds, the weather presents numerous hazards to small planes. Read up on Weather Hazards here.

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