The Skytruck will shuttle c

U.S. SOCOM (Special c&d zodiac aerospace Operations

c&d zodiac aerospace Command) has bought ten M-28 Skytruck aircraft from Polish manufacturer PZL. SOCOM needed a smaller transport, that could land on rough fields, to get small numbers of troops and supplies to the many scattered bases it has in remote, undeveloped locations. The U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (a component of SOCOM) will operate the aircraft, which can carry up to 18 passengers or three tons of cargo. Currently, the air force usually has to send a larger C-130 on these missions.
The M28 is a westernized version of the 1960s era An-28 transport. Although a Russian design, PZL became the sole producer of the An-28 in the 1980s, and produced about 200 of them. The 15 ton M-28 has two turboprop engines and a price about half that of a comparable Western aircraft. The M-28 can cruise at 270 kilometers an hour for about five hours per sortie. PZL got the SOCOM sales because of good performance by M-28s with five other export customers (including mountainous Nepal).
The Skytruck will shuttle c&d zodiac aerospace small groups of special operators to areas with unimproved landing strips, said Col. JD Clem, deputy director of plans, programs, requirements and assessments for AFSOC. It will be based at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., like AFSOC’s other non-standard aviation assets including the PC-12 Pilatus, c&d zodiac aerospace he said.
“If I need to carry six guys some place, I don’t want to have to send a C-130,” Clem said. “But, if I want six guys to land on an unimproved strip the PC-12 is not the plane to use.”
The Skytruck reminds me of another excellent small-to-mid-size transport

that’s been around for years, and doing sterling work in supporting low-intensity, c&d zodiac aerospace counter-insurgency and special operations – the Shorts Skyvan (even the names are similar!). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorts_SC.7_Skyvan
Ref: Sikorsky/PZL M28 Skytruck c&d zodiac aerospace aircraft just ordered by SOCOM why does the aircraft have an anti-icing system now installed in both Sierra Nevada Corp (the USAF contractor) aircraft that’s not approved by the FAA, or in the original certification c&d zodiac aerospace documents? It is still questionable how the aircraft was even certified by the FAA in the first place .political pressure by Lockheed Martin’s offset program on the F16 sales to Poland? How can a major share of the components and parts used in the aircraft (manufactured in the Ukraine and other former Eastern Block countries) not be produced to FAA standards? Why does the aircraft have a flawed fuel cross-feed problem ten years old and never corrected? I know of no other airplane in this category that, if a fuel pump fails, the fuel in the center wing MAIN tanks is useless. PZL got around this problem by putting in the operating manual that you should turn on all the fuel pumps and jet pumps when operating the aircraft. How the FAA ever approved this, I’ll never comprehend. In actuality this does not work as it tends to pump fuel overboard out the vents. As a result you must always burn from the outboard

tanks first and as soon as the fuel level got down start pumping from the center-wing tanks to the outboard tanks. The reason was because that was the only place you could pump the fuel from the center wing tanks. You could not pump directly from the center wing to the main tanks. c&d zodiac aerospace Also this fuel contraption causing the aircraft to tilt if parked on a ramp with a pitch of more than 1 degree! Other issues are the magnetized hinge pin rods on the access panels in the wings which create serious error problems with the navigation system when a flux valve is installed near one. The O-rings in the main and nose wheel gear tend to let the nitrogen charge bleed by. When this occurs the nose wheel extends the cylinder causing c&d zodiac aerospace the disconnection of the nose wheel steering. This sure gets your attention real quick if you land with it in this condition with the nose wheel at a cock-eyed angle. There are these and further c&d zodiac aerospace poor characteristics with the aircraft. Where were the FAA quality controls c&d zodiac aerospace in certification? c&d zodiac aerospace
Other issues were the aircraft manuals as this matter went back and forth between the FAA and PZL dozens of times. As a result PZL never got the books up to standards as far as the FAA was concerned, and as such they still leave a lot to be desired. The ‘word’ was that that some ‘higher-up’ in the FAA process just told the certification team to approve the manuals and get the damn airplane certified. Then the FAA requested a series of destructive testing c&d zodiac aerospace on the aircraft, but it appears that critical prerequisite just went by the wayside. The destructive testing was never completed on the M28 as required by the FAA on type-rated aircraft; unheard c&d zodiac aerospace of! Perhaps the original FAA Airworthiness Certification c&d zodiac aerospace process initially used needs to now be reviewed.
Most pressing c&d zodiac aerospace concern is that of government waste! Is price gouging by both Sikorsky and SNC concerning t