The Aero Commander 500 family is a series of light-twin piston-engined and turboprop aircraft originally built by the Aero Design and Engineering Company in the late 1940s, renamed the Aero Commander company in 1950, and a division of Rockwell International from 1965. The initial production version was the Aero Commander 520. Piston-engined versions manufactured after 1967 are known as the Shrike Commander.
Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
Design and development
The idea for the Commander light business twin was conceived by Ted Smith, a project engineer at the Douglas Aircraft Company. Working part-time after hours throughout 1944, a group of A-20 engineers formed the Aero Design and Engineering Company to design and build the proposed aircraft with a layout similar to their A-20 bomber. Originally, the new company was going to build three pre-production aircraft, but as the first aircraft was being built, they decided to build just one prototype. The final configuration was completed in July 1946 and was designated the Model L3805.
Registered NX1946, the prototype first flew on 23 April 1948. The L3805 accommodated up to five people and was powered by two Lycoming O-435-A piston engines., it was an all-metal high-wing monoplane with retractable undercarriage using components from a Vultee BT-13 Valiant. The market segment planned for this aircraft to be sold to small feeder airliner firms and was originally designed to carry seven passengers, but instead found use in the private business aircraft and military market. Walter Beech test flew the aircraft in 1949 and expressed interest in buying the project, but passed on to develop the Beechcraft Twin Bonanza. Fairchild Aircraft also evaluated the prototype at its Hagerstown, Maryland, headquarters.
The prototype flew successfully and the company leased, at no cost, a new 26,000 square-foot factory at Bethany near Oklahoma City to build a production version, certified on 30 June 1950. Nearly 10,000 hours of redesign work went into the model, including more powerful Lycoming GO-435-C2 engines, with a combined rating of 520 horsepower. The production model was named the Commander 520. The first Commander 520 was rolled out of the new factory in August 1951. Serial number 1 was used as a demonstrator, then sold in October 1952 to the Asahi Shimbun Press Company of Tokyo.
Ac Repair Oklahoma City Video
Operational history
In military service, it was initially designated the L-26, though in 1962 this was changed to U-4 for the United States Air Force and U-9 for the United States Army.
Under ownership of Rockwell in the 1960s, World War II pilot R. A. "Bob" Hoover demonstrated the Shrike Commander 500S for decades in a variety of "managed energy" routines, including single-engine and engine-out aerobatics. His Shrike Commander is displayed in the colors of his last sponsor, Evergreen International Aviation, at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Bob Odegaard continued the tradition in 2012, flying a 1975 Shrike 500S in a Bob Hoover tribute routine.
One U-4B became a presidential transport aircraft for Dwight D. Eisenhower between 1956 and 1960. This was the smallest "Air Force One," and the first to wear the now-familiar blue-and-white livery.
As of 2004, Shrike Commanders remained in service with the United States Coast Guard and United States Customs Service.
A single 560F was operated by the Belgian Air Force as the personal transport of the late king Boudewijn from 1961 to 1973.
The unpressurized, long-fuselage 680FL was operated as a small package freighter by Combs Freightair in the 1970s and 1980s, and by Suburban Air Freight in the 1980s and 1990s. The aircraft was popular with pilots, because it was extremely "pilot friendly" and with its 380 hp supercharged engines did well in icing meteorological conditions. A number are still operated on contracts for cargo and fire control applications, as their piston engines offer good fuel specifics at low altitudes and longer loiter times.
Safety concerns
Single engine safety
In 1950, when the developers were working to satisfy Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) regulations for certification of the 500, they chose a novel method of demonstrating its single-engine safety and performance: they removed one of the two-bladed propellers, secured it in the aft cabin, and flew from Bethany to Washington, D.C. on one engine. There they met with CAA personnel, then replaced the propeller and returned to Oklahoma in the conventional manner. The flight received nationwide coverage in the press.
Wing spar fatigue
Beginning in June 1991, senior engineers met with FAA officials to discuss concerns over the Aero Commander's main wing spar, which was believed to be susceptible to stress fatigue and subsequent cracking, and was believed to have resulted in a number of fatal crashes. From approximately 1961 to 1993, 24 aircraft crashed when spar failures caused the loss of the wing in flight. Thirty-five more spars were found cracked during inspections.
Notable accidents
World War II hero and actor Audie Murphy died in an Aero Commander 680 crash while flying as a passenger in a thunderstorm over Roanoke, Virginia, on 28 May 1971. Four others and the pilot were also killed.
On 19 June 1964, Senator Ted Kennedy was a passenger in an Aero Commander 680 airplane flying in bad weather from Washington, D.C., to Massachusetts. It crashed into an apple orchard in the western Massachusetts town of Southampton on the final approach to the Barnes Municipal Airport near Westfield. The pilot and Edward Moss, one of Kennedy's aides, were killed. Kennedy suffered a severe back injury, a punctured lung, broken ribs, and internal bleeding.
On August 11, 2002, photographer Galen Rowell, his wife Barbara Cushman Rowell, pilot Tom Reid, and Reid's friend Carol McAffee were killed in an Aero Commander 690 crash near Eastern Sierra Regional Airport in Bishop, California.
Variants
Operators
Military operators
- Argentine Air Force - 1 x 500B, 27 x 500U and 1 x 680
- Argentine Army Aviation - 680V, 690A
- Benin Air Force - 1 x 500B
- National Army of Colombia
- Hellenic Army - 2 x 680FL
- Indonesian Army Aviation - 2 x 680FL
- Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force - 3 x 681B
- Islamic Republic of Iran Army Aviation - 3 x 690, 2 x 690A
- Islamic Republic of Iran Navy Aviation - 2 x 500S, 2 x 690, 6 x 690A
- Ivory Coast Air Force - 1 x 500B
- Kenya Air Force - 1 x 680FP (no longer operated)
- Royal Lao Air Force - 1 x 560 (no longer operated)
- Republic of Korea Air Force - 3 x 520, 2 x 560F
- Mexican Air Force - 20 x 500S
- Niger Air Force - 1 x 500B
- Pakistan Air Force - 1 x 680E (with radar nose), 1 x 680F
- Pakistan Army Aviation - 1 x 690B
- Philippine Air Force - 1 x 690
- United States Air Force as the L-26 and U-4
- United States Army as the L-26 and U-9
Civilian operators
- Iranian Police Aviation
Samoa Operated by Talofa Airways
Specifications (Rockwell Aero Commander 500S)
Data from Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1976-77
General characteristics
- Crew: Two
- Capacity: four passengers
- Length: 36 ft 9¾ in (11.22 m)
- Wingspan: 49 ft 0½ in (14.95 m)
- Height: 14 ft 6 in (4.42 m)
- Wing area: 255 ft² (23.69 m²)
- Airfoil: NACA 23012 modified
- Aspect ratio: 9.45:1
- Empty weight: 4,635 lb (2,102 kg)
- Max. takeoff weight: 6,750 lb (3,062 kg)
- Powerplant: 2 × Lycoming IO-540-E1B5 air-cooled flat-six piston engines, 290 hp (216 kW) each
Performance
- Maximum speed: 215 mph (187 knots, 346 km/h) at sea level (TAS)
- Cruise speed: 203 mph (176 knots, 326 km/h) at 9,000 ft (2,750 m), 75% power, TAS
- Stall speed: 68 mph (59 knots, 109 km/h) flaps and landing gear down, CAS
- Minimum controllable speed: 75 mph (65.5 knots, 121 km/h)
- Range: 1,078 miles (936 nmi, 1,735 km)
- Service ceiling: 19,400 ft (5,913 m)
- Rate of climb: 1,340 ft/min (6.8 m/s)
Source of the article : Wikipedia
EmoticonEmoticon