Engineering With an International Perspective
If hands-on engineering experience with a variety of aircraft types and an international perspective are helpful in providing first-rate technical support for owner-pilots and business, commercial, and government operators worldwide, then Twin Commander Aircraft's new in-house engineering manager is well qualified.
Levan Tabidze comes to Twin Commander with engineering design and support experience involving military and civilian aircraft projects ranging from attack and competition aerobatic aircraft to business jets and light piston singles. A native of the Republic of Georgia in the former Soviet Union, he is an aeronautical engineering graduate of the Technical University of Georgia in Tbilisi. After earning his degree he worked for several Soviet aircraft manufacturers including the Sukhoi Company and Yakolev.
When the Soviet Union began to disintegrate in the early 1990s, Tabidze emigrated to the U.S. “I came to seek a better life for myself and my family,” he says. He wanted the route to that better life to pass through aviation.
His first engineering job after moving to the U.S was a four-year stint at the resuscitated Luscombe Aircraft Corporation in Altus, Oklahoma. The company redesigned the legacy Luscombe 11A taildragger as the tricycle-gear 11E, with Tabidze serving as a design and liason engineer providing production support and vendor coordination.
From there he went to Tiger Aircraft in Martinsburg, West Virginia, which had acquired the rights to the original Grumman Tiger AG-5B and put it back in production. Tabidze spent five years at Tiger in production support and engineering liason, helping to upgrade and modernize the piston-single design.
His next assignment was with Sino-Swearingen, which was developing the SJ-30, a new, fast, long-range single-pilot jet. He was a liason engineer initially, then worked in stress engineering, and later was named engineering manager for the company's Martinsburg, West Virginia, facility, where the airplane was to be produced. After Sino-Swearingen Tabidze worked with Sierra Nevada Corporation, which performs modifications on military and government special-missions aircraft. Earlier this year he accepted an offer from Twin Commander.
Tabidze says that, as engineering manager, his first responsibility is to customer support. “I am here to support the Twin Commander fleet,” he says. “My job is to provide our customers with good service and spare parts, and take care of maintenance issues.” He also is keen to extend Twin Commander's initiative in using contemporary technology when developing updated parts and introducing new upgrades. Recent examples include replacing older-design cast-metal parts with new-design machined parts, and developing new products such as High-Intensity Discharge lights and electronic fuel quantity sensors.
Although not a certificated pilot, Tabidze is no stranger to flight—he used to hang glide as a young man in Georgia. “My heart is in flying,” he says. “I'd love to learn some day.”
Tabidze will be participating in the Twin Commander University, a biennial gathering of Twin Commander owners and operators, scheduled for April 28-30 at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort & Spa in Bonita Springs, Florida.
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