First Flight for New Twin Otter Series 400

[V1... Ooops]

Hi All:

I'm happy to announce the first flight of the new Twin Otter Series 400, which took place early this afternoon in Victoria, Canada.

Physically, the aircraft is the same size as the Series 300. Significant changes include a fully updated flight compartment equipped with Honeywell Primus Apex avionics, use of composites for non-load bearing structures such as doors, and fitment of PT6A-34 engines, which will give 620 flat rated horsepower for takeoff up to ISA + 24°. Other minor but useful changes include updating of all the aircraft wiring to the most recent industry standards, deletion of the AC electrical system, deletion of the beta backup system, and improvements to the heating and ventilation system, including provision of dedicated gasper outlets on the instrument panel for the crew and doubling the quantity of fresh air provided to the flight compartment. All interior and exterior lighting is LED, except for the landing lights, which will be high intensity discharge (xenon).

We flew the aircraft for 2.7 hours today, both the aircraft and systems performance was flawless in every respect. First customer delivery will be in 2009.

I'll try to get a decent photo of the flight compartment sometime in the next few days and post it here. In the meantime, here are a couple of photos of the actual first flight.

http://dubfoto.com/albums/userpics/10003/First_Flight_1.jpg (http://dubfoto.com/displayimage.php?pos=-3842)

http://dubfoto.com/albums/userpics/10003/First_Flight_2.jpg (http://dubfoto.com/displayimage.php?pos=-3843)

[Sir Osis of the river]

That is one sweet looking Twotter.

Well done guys

[flux]

LEKKER! Looks like a whole bag full of fun.

[chuks]

What are those thingies hanging down underneath? Wipline amphibious floats? Your first customer ordered it that way for service in the desert?

Nice-looking bird. Wanna bet some Beech 1900 drivers are going to down-grade for a while just to enjoy the new cockpit glass?

You must have forgot to mention the air-conditioning system; how is that coming along?

[I.R.PIRATE]

Glass in a Twotter, what next, a fanny on Barbie?

[Lifes-a-Beech]

Oh WOW - That looks likes quite a machine! Must have been an awesome flight! Look forward to seeing the pics of the flight compartment

[chuks]

I was having a guided tour of a hangar full of small aircraft the other week, since the weather was too foul for my planned 5 hours in a Cessna 152.

The amount of "glass" on display was really something! These small airplanes have stuff that is way beyond what was "state-of-the-art" not very long ago.

As already pointed out here, the modern stuff has next-to-no moving parts so that it's intrinsically very reliable. In the old-fashioned panel you have five or six different little doo-hickeys stuffed full of sensitive mechanisms that really do not take well to vibration and dust. The new panel just has one display unit to take their place.

Once you get past the initial "burn-in" for the solid-state components then the failure rate can be very low, plus the modern stuff uses the same display units for different functions. You can either flip a switch to bring up the information you need on a different screen or else get Avionics to just pull the failed box out and put another identical one in its place.

One big display beats having to stock five or six little instruments, I think and anyway a lot of the stuff your average Twotter uses is out of production by now. How often do you see a Collins FD-109, what used to be standard fit, I think?

Moore's Law is paying off for Aviation, I guess.

I am looking forward to this new Twotter with "glass", having already got through that awkward period of adjustment on a different "glass cockpit" type. There we considered that it took about 300 hours to fully adjust to the flood of information provided compared to the old separate displays. The most commonly heard flight deck phrase was, "What is it doing now?"

The younger guys, already comfortable with computers, had it easier than we older guys, since not all of us were big fans of modern technology. I have to get my teenage son to sort out my PC when it throws up a problem!

[I.R.PIRATE]

Out in the sticks where the Twot is supposed to work, I will choose steam over glass any day. Much easier to maintain, find spares for, and trust me, glass don't like spirals, lots of dust and being rattled by bush strips too much...

[chuks]

The old-fashioned stuff is gone from the market! I think we are just going to have to hope they get it right in their choice of avionics and then adjust to using it.

Those "young guys" coming along are going to increasingly find "glass" to be the norm anyway so that we will just have to get into step.

I remember the first time I had to fly a Beech BE-95 Travel Air without the "Basic T" panel layout. What in the world?

Then there was an early Baron with the throttles in the middle, the props on the left and the mixtures on the right, the gear on the right and the flaps on the left. Those whacky Kansans, what jokers!

Then we had the rare privilege of being a human autopilot on a DC-3. Oh, also I was the flushing mechanism for the bucket that served as a lavatory. The bucket I understood, the rest of it such as the gear, the flaps, the feathering buttons, that crazy AVGAS-fired heater... that was a bit daunting and mysterious. I could get the round engines running, thanks to my early experience as a Beaver mechanic but that was about all!

Compared to all of that sort of nonsense just switching from one glass panel to another, all sharing very similar symbology, should be not such a challenge.

Not so sure about those floats though... What is that all about?

[flyhardmo]

Thanks V1. Brilliant pics. Looking forward for some pics o the cockpit. Does it still have the same Y control yolk or have they stuck 2 seperate ones in the floor. Glad they got rid of the beta back up sys. That was a pain in the a$$.
Glad the legend is back. A whole new generation can now enjoy their flying. :D

[MamaPut]

What a beautiful aircraft. A lot of the Nigerian oil industry was built on guys getting to their oil bases in the hot, vibrating old Twotters taking them to both big and small strips. As for the floats - lovely for companies like Chevron which still operate float planes here in Nigeria.

Out here in the swamps of the Niger Delta we second-class rotary-wing guys increasingly fly equipment in our 'furious palm trees' with glass instrumentation and it's a lot more reliable than the 'classic' instruments it replaced, despite people's fears and convictions that the contrary would be true.

I'm told that Caverton will be the first operator of the type here. If it's true, I wish them every success with it. It's always been a great machine of the 20th century and now it looks to be a great machine of the 21st century. I wish Viking and anyone involved with it every success in what looks to be a great niche machine :ok:

[V1... Ooops]

I have flown this aircraft for 10 hours over the past two days - left Victoria, Canada this morning en-route to Orlando, Florida, where the technical demonstrator will be on display at the 2008 NBAA Convention. The new avionics have exceeded all of our expectations. You can't really appreciate the contribution that four big displays, each the size of a large laptop screen, make to situational awareness until you have flown with them. The beauty of the Honeywell Primus Apex system is that you can use it as if it was a conventional avionics fitment - twirl the dials and tune the radios or navaids - or use it exactly like its big brother, the Primus Epic system, by just moving the cursor around with the joystick and clicking.

We were all set up for a standalone GPS approach earlier this evening, and the controller switched runways when we were 15 miles out. It took about 4 'point and click' actions to change the arrival, the STAR, and the approach. Everything showed up in graphic detail on the screen, and we were watching the flight plan view on the top middle screen and watching the aircraft symbol overlaid on the actual Jeppesen chart on the lower screen.

It's a heck of a lot less work to fly the Series 400 than the older Twin Otters - fewer daily tests, the aircraft turns the transponder on and off automatically when you takeoff and land, the whole flight log is on display all the time showing ETE, ETA, heading, etc.

Think of the difference that Garmin 430s made (compared to older GPS units), then imagine the same huge jump ahead once more. Or, just ask a G-550 or a Falcon 900 or 7X pilot if they like their aircraft - it is the exact same system, just on a smaller scale.

[chuks]

So if we have one of those "What is it doing now?" moments we know just whom to blame, I guess! The other Moore...

Too many SDRs and you may want to ask the wife to start the car, mornings.

No, no, just joking there. All this high-tech stuff: nothing can possibly go wrong. And when it does we just get out Michelin maps Number 953, "Afrique Nord et Ouest" and 743 "Algérie Tunisie" to carry on in that time-honoured manner of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Zut alors!

Why the "Viking" colour scheme? Is this a development aircraft rather than the first production aircraft, meant to go to another customer entirely?

What of the environmental system? Fresh air outlets on the panel, yes, but were you able to come up with some sort of affordable air-conditioning system? (You can see the way my mind works, I guess. Next we want an espresso machine!)

[Rat Catcher]

Hey V1
Great pics and glad you had a flawless first flight!:D:D:D
Missed your pm, sorry about that, will be at the "old version box" site 10 - 17 Oct if your around! Fly safe..
Rat

[9-er]

Nice to see the 400 finally airborne,she looks lovely. Can't wait for the panel pics. Congratulations on the first flight!:D

[TWOTBAGS]

C-FDHT is the technology demonstrator which is actually sn 434. I had the pleasure of putting several hundred hours on it in a former life in the Maldives before someone else bent it rather badly.

V1 can put it right from there, but it certainly needed a lot of work and was perfect for a rebuild as a technology demonstrator which Viking will keep for a while I should assume.

SN 845 will be the first new one and I cant wait to get my fingers on it when it comes to Zimex.

Congrats to all at Viking, keeping the legend going for a lot longer.

http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z96/redlum5x5/Power_On_Press_Release_Photo_1_resi.jpg

[V1... Ooops]

Hi All:

Yes, that photo above is the flight compartment of the Series 400. I didn't know that Viking had released a photo to the public, which is why I have not posted one myself.

The photo above is a pretty good representation, but as all of you who are familiar with Twin Otters will recognize, the flight compartment is not fully assembled. The glareshields are missing, and the right hand audio panel is not installed. The two small holes above the PFDs are for the master caution and master warning annunciator lights. Disregard the two small buttons below the L3 GH-3100 standby instrument - those are unique to the technical demonstrator because it is still considered an 'experimental' aircraft. Needless to say, the production aircraft won't have P-Touch labels over the switches :)

I've now flown the aircraft about 25 hours, and it has performed extraordinarily well. Average indicated airspeed from the west coast of Canada to Orlando, FL was 133 KIAS, and that's with the big amphibious floats installed. The aircraft is lighter than the Series 300, and because we are building to one one-hundredth of an inch tolerances (vs. one-tenth of an inch back in the 70s and 80s), the aircraft flies straight and true with no trim input of any kind needed during straight and level.

The avionics suite is just amazing. Cross cockpit viewing is remarkable - notice in the picture how clearly you can see the right side PFD, even though the picture is taken at quite an angle.

The photo below shows the upper MFD (the situational awareness display) as we were flying over northern Florida earlier today.

http://dubfoto.com/albums/userpics/10003/Center_Display.jpg (http://dubfoto.com/displayimage.php?pos=-3844)

[Witraz]

That looks real neat. I did a couple of thousand hours in the Twin Otter around Scotland. Also the BN Islander. What aircraft do you replace these fine work horses with.......a new one as there is nothing else to touch them.

[flyhardmo]

nice looking setup. I particularly like the MCP in the top centre. I see they still kept those bloody Y yokes. Surely they could have put in 2 sereate yokes without a certification problem and it would help to have a better view of the lower MFD.

[chuks]

I showed the Chief Engineer the pictures and he liked what he saw so that I guess you can take that for a definite "Carry on as you are doing."

[V1... Ooops]

Here's a really good YouTube video showing the interior of the Series 400 Technical Demonstrator, and discussing some of the changes made to the Series 400:

YouTube - Viking Reinvents The Twin Otter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2vwMg8Q7uw)

[grensloos]

V1, I have to admit more than a little bit of jealousy.

Can't wait to start seeing them in the field!

[V1... Ooops]

It's a very nice aircraft to fly. The FMS is like an Advent calendar - you find something new every day.

Below is a picture of the upper FMS display during a GPS only (RNAV) approach to an airport in Kansas. The landing runway is 18, but the display is shown 'track up', as you can see from the compass rose overlay.

The complete approach is shown on the FMS, including the turn to final just inside the FAF, which is the DAKPY intersection. The green dotted line shows the point at which the aircraft will reach the presently-cleared altitude (4,000 feet) at the current rate of descent. Raise the nose and the dotted line moves out, lower the nose and the dotted line moves closer.

The number '2700' at the FAF is the crossing altitude of the FAF, taken from the Jeppesen database. It's really not necessary to look at the Jeppesen charts when flying an approach set up this way on the FMS, but if you do want to look at a Jepp chart, you can display the chart on the lower screen (second photo - but not the same airport).

http://dubfoto.com/albums/userpics/10003/GPS_Approach.jpg (http://dubfoto.com/displayimage.php?pos=-3845)

The MAP / CHARTS button (bottom button on right hand side of display) allows you to toggle between what you see in the upper photo (FMS display) and what you see in the lower photo (the actual Jeppesen chart for the approach, or airport, with your aircraft shown in the exact correct location).

http://dubfoto.com/albums/userpics/10003/Jepp_Chart.jpg (http://dubfoto.com/displayimage.php?pos=-3846)