The Brainchild of Genius...
An independent design by Bill Lear in 1976, who had resigned as Chairman of Lear Jet seven years previously, the CL-600 was originally dubbed the '''LearStar 600'''. But Lear sold exclusive rights to produce and develop the design to Canadair, who renamed it the '''CL-600 Challenger'''.
While similar in general configuration to many of Lear's previous designs, several changes were made that distinguished the new aircraft from the Learjet’s, including a widened fuselage that allowed a 'walk-about cabin', a feature not shared by any other business aircraft of the time.
Ship of the Line...
The first Canadair Limited CL-600 built, serial number 1001 and registered as C-GCGR-X, began assembly in September of 1977, and proceeded to make its first flight a year later, on November 8th, 1978, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Powered by two Avco Lycoming ALF-502L turbofan engines, each with 7,500 foot-pounds of thrust, the “Challenger”, as it would later be known, had a top speed of 478 knots and a range of nearly 3,500 miles.
On the morning of April 3, 1980, C-GCGR-X, took on a test flight from Mojave Airport in California. The routine test flight was slated to evaluate the craft's reactions to stalls in various configurations.
According to statements from the surviving co-pilot and flight test engineer, the flight crew was troubleshooting a noise associated with stalls conducted during previous flight test activities. A non-scheduled stall was conducted after the scheduled testing and the plane's angle of attack, the difference between the plane's flight path and its wing's chord line, increased past the maximum allowance of 34 degrees.
All is Lost...
The flight crew lost control of the Challenger. Following the recovery procedures set in place, they were unable to regain control, going so far as to, in a last ditch effort, deploy the plane's emergency spin recovery parachute. Control was temporarily regained, but now the deployed chute fouled the flight characteristics. Unable to release the chute, with with the plane's starboard engine failing, the flight crew was forced to bail out of the doomed aircraft.
The plane impacted the desert floor near the village of Cantil at 9:10 in the morning. Unfortunately, the pilot, Eric Norman Ronaasen, was killed when his chute failed to deploy, and the copilot, Dave Gollings, received minor injuries. The flight test engineer, Bill Scott, was not injured
Months after the crash, a Canadair flight engineer examined computer information that had been available before the crash and discovered the banging was caused by an engine problem
Aceh has already purchased a 1940s aircraft for Indonesia
The Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Helsinki in August 2005 ended more than 30 years of armed conflict and suffering in Aceh. It also provided a basis for reconfiguring politics in the province, by outlining principles for new self-government arrangements and provisions for political participation, revenue-sharing, reintegration and human rights.
Accord 20, edited by Aguswandi and Judith Large, analyses developments leading to this peace agreement and how it has been put into practice. It examines ongoing and important challenges for Aceh’s future such as the successes, difficulties and controversies of:
translating the agreement into law
contesting elections
enabling reconstruction and reintegrating ex-combatants
Written by people with first-hand experience of this process and from different political perspectives, the publication includes interviews with the mediator and negotiators. It also discusses crucial peacebuilding issues that often receive less attention such as:
women's roles
the impact of Shar'ia law
the consolidation of political parties
Aceh is a rich country