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March 19, 2021

Skyfront Drone Sets Endurance-Distance Record of 13 hours, 4 minutes

Flying From Sunrise To Sunset, The Skyfront Perimeter 8 Flew 205 Miles

Skyfront broke the multirotor drone flight time record by staying airborne for 13 hours and 4 minutes and traveling a distance of 205 miles. The world record-breaking flight was achieved by the Skyfront Perimeter 8—the company’s most advanced eight rotor drone. The event was captured via the drone’s onboard 360 cameras. The rationale behind their flight is the Skyfront proprietary fuel-injected hybrid gasoline-electric powertrain. The powertrain replaces the battery and reportedly extends flight times by a factor of twenty. It is optimized for power and efficiency and is integrated into the UAV design to reduce weight and power consumption.

The Aircraft Can Lift Up To 6,000 Pounds

Kaman Air Vehicles has delivered a new medium-to-heavy lift K-MAX helicopter to Black Tusk Helicopter Inc. of Squamish, BC, Canada. Black Tusk performs various external lift projects of every scale, ranging from aerial timber harvesting, ski tower setting, firefighting, and hydroelectric projects. “Black Tusk is a highly respected operator and we appreciate the confidence they have placed in Kaman and the capabilities of the K-MAX,” said Roger Wassmuth, Senior Director of Business Development. “Operators are choosing K-MAX for its proven repetitive lift capability with unmatched performance in the most demanding environments.”

Despite Multiple Attempts, They Were Unable To Recover From The Spin

On March 5, 2021, about 1010 Pacific standard time, a Aermacchi Impala MB-326M airplane, N155TP, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Edwards, California. The flight instructor sustained serious injuries and pilot receiving instruction sustained minor injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight. The operator reported that the purpose of the accident flight was to conduct spin training. While conducting a left rotation inverted spin, the pilot and flight instructor noticed that the airplane did not feel normal, and the rotation of the spin appeared to accelerate.

AD 2021-06-06 Prompted By The Determination That Visual Inspections Do Not Adequately Detect A Crack

The FAA is superseding Emergency Airworthiness Directive (AD) 2021-05-52 which applied to certain Bell Textron Canada Limited (Bell) Model 505 helicopters. Emergency AD 2021-05-52 required a one-time visual inspection of the pilot collective stick and grip assembly (pilot collective stick), a fluorescent penetrant inspection (FPI) if no crack was found during the visual inspection, and depending on the inspection results, removing the pilot collective stick from service and reporting certain information to Bell. Emergency AD 2021-05-52 also prohibited installing any pilot collective stick on any helicopter unless the inspections had been accomplish