Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC
Quiet Technology Venture (QTV), a unit of Fine Air Services, has become the first company to be awarded a supplemental type certificate by the US Federal Aviation Administration for a Stage 3 hushkit for the McDonnell Douglas DC-8-50/61.
Martin Gardner, QTV's director of engineering, says the five-year development will extend the life of DC-8s powered by the "short duct" Pratt & Whitney JT3D-3B, for at least a decade, without loss of performance and complying with stringent noise reduction regulations. A hushkit developed by Burbank Aeronautical was certificated in 1990 for the DC-8-62/63, which is powered by JT3Ds equipped with full length nacelles.
Fine Air Services will install the hushkits on its fleet of DC-8 freighters beginning this month. Work on six of the four-engine aircraft will be completed by the end of the year, with all 14 hushkitted by August 1999, says Gardner.
About 70 DC-8 Series 50/61s are still flying, with 80% of them operating to the USA. Gardner says the hushkit shipset costs $2.75 million, including installation, which takes about two weeks to complete.
QTV has previously developed a hushkit for militarised Boeing 707s and has installed the kit on one Boeing OC-135BOpen Skies treaty-verification aircraft under a $7 million contract. A contract option for two additional installations never materialised after the Stage 3 requirement was dropped, but QTV now plans to offer the installation to commercial operators as well.
QTV is also expecting more sales to the military and is targeting the US Air National Guard (ANG), which continues to operate about 150 militarised 707s/KC-135s equipped with noisy, unmodified JT3Ds. QTV is proposing an unsolicited offer to provide Stage 3 hushkits for $2.5 million for each set as an alternative to more costly re-engineing.
Source: Flight International
