The sands may be shifting beneath the regulations governing fractional ownership, but the concept itself has established a firm beachhead in business aviation. By year-end 1997, more than 1,000 owners had shares in 166 aircraft in EJA NetJets, Bombardier FlexJet and Raytheon Travel Air, according to data presented at New York-based Strategic Research Institute's fractional ownership conference in March. Raytheon forecasts fractional ownership overall will grow to 550 aircraft and 3,300 fractional owners by 2001.
Cessna expects full certification of its Citation Excel later this month at the earliest and retail deliveries to begin this summer, several months later than originally planned. When the Excel program was announced in October 1994, Cessna scheduled certification for fall 1997 and slated customer deliveries to begin in December 1997. The latest delay was caused by the need to fine-tune the Honeywell Primus 1000 flight director.
You'd think that the Clinton administration had more than enough to worry about these days without futzing around with issues that already have been resolved.
The ground-based infrastructure designed to support wide-area augmentation of GPS position information data is now being fielded. Raytheon, which recently acquired the Hughes division responsible for developing the WAAS infrastructure, had five reference stations in place as of mid March, and a total of 25 are scheduled to be installed by June 3. The FAA plans to begin commissioning sites in May. The reference stations calculate a correction to the GPS signal, and broadcast a correction matrix to aircraft via a geosynchronous communications satellite.
If you are noticing excessive EMI in your avionics while operating on an airport at night and don't understand why, the cause might be constant current regulators (CCRs) in runway landing lights, according to FAA Southern Region officials. Region officials say the FAA is developing an advisory circular that will describe new technical specifications for CCRs to reduce their potential for causing radio interference.
Trajen Flight Support opened its new general aviation terminal in early March at Sacramento Mather Airport, formerly Mather Air Force Base. The 15,000-square-foot facility includes a crew lounge, flight planning room and tenant offices.
When you go it alone on a trip, you have to shoulder it all: flight planning, securing weather information, fueling the aircraft and piloting. Hiring a second pilot can go a long way toward easing that workload. But how do you find a qualified pilot, what can you do to check out their qualifications, and under what circumstances does it make the most sense to hire a second crewmember? B/CA asked several owner/pilots about their experiences. While safety was always the paramount issue, the specific reasons for hiring a safety pilot varied:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta ruled in late February that TPI International Airways should have a 1993 DOT Inspector General report that it said would exonerate the small cargo carrier from alleged violations leading to its FAA shutdown in August 1990. The decision has major ramifications and will become "case law" regarding the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), B/CA was told.
The 42 aircraft reported stolen in 1997 is nearly double the 24 reported in 1996, an upturn in thefts not seen since statistics were first compiled in 1980, says the Aviation Crime Prevention Institute of Hagerstown, Md. ACPI figures show that California led the nation with 20 thefts. Single-engine Cessnas accounted for 29 aircraft. A King Air and a Learjet also were reported stolen (February, page 24).
Photograph: SJ30-2 certification target remains mid 1999. Whether the SJ30-2 is certificated under the commuter standards of FAR Part 23 or the normal standards of Part 23, the business jet will be a performer and will be certificated, Sino Swearingen asserts. As the San Antonio-based company awaits an FAA decision on its request to permit certification of the SJ30-2 to the commuter standards, Sino Swearingen continues to develop the aircraft to meet its latest revised cer-tification target of mid 1999.
SkyWest surprised the regional airline industry in late February with a firm order for 20 new Embraer Brasilias plus 40 options just as some of the industry's more knowledgeable pundits were declaring the turboprop dead, mort, finis! The age of the regional jet has arrived. Right?
Mesa Air Group has told the SEC that the termination of its new jet hub at Fort Worth and the loss of its United Express agreements on the West Coast and at Denver could cost the carrier more than $110 million. The company said in its quarterly 10-Q filing that it will recognize a loss provision in the March quarter of about $4 million related to its five-CRJ operation at Fort Worth Meacham Field, which was shut down in late February.
SkyWest surprised the regional airline industry in late February with a firm order for 20 new Embraer Brasilias plus 40 options just as some of the industry's more knowledgeable pundits were declaring the turboprop dead, mort, finis! The age of the regional jet has arrived. Right?
This FBO and completions center has made two new appointments: Terri Beck was hired as marketing coordinator and Lora Shelton is the designer/ facility management for completions.
A proposed AD requires operators of some 454 Eurocopter AS-350B/D and AS-355E/F1/F2/N helicopters to inspect the main gearbox bi-directional cross-beam for cracks. The FAA AD echoes a French AD ordering a visual inspection every 30 hours, or 150 cycles. On cross-beams with more than 5,000 hours in service, dye-penetrant inspections would be mandated within 550 hours or 2,750 cycles. If cracks are found, the $6,000 beam must be replaced. For more details, contact the FAA at (817) 222-5123.
A fine letter from an old friend caused memories to surface of two episodes in his aviation career-which, I may observe, was merely spotless. Jack King was chief pilot for C.J. Langenfelder Co. out of Baltimore, a major construction company whose largest project at the time of this episode was the building of Dulles Airport. The AOPA's Max Karant termed it a "vast wasteland" (Max lived to see he was wrong). In the late summer of 1959, the great long runways were virtually completed. So, Jack suggested to Mr.
VisionAire Corp. says its Vantage single-engine business jet will have a guaranteed IFR range of 1,000 nm with a 1,000-pound payload, an increase of 100 nm over the previous guarantee. The St. Louis-based company says the 10-percent increase in max range also translates to a zero-payload, full-fuel range of 1,575 nm. The new numbers are based on revised calculations for fuel volume, fuel burn and gross weight.
Over a dozen witnesses-mostly pilots and maintenance technicians-watched Alberto-Culver's Gulfstream IV back-taxi on Runway 34 at Palwaukee Municipal Airport then swing around to begin its takeoff roll. Wind was out of the west-280 degrees at 20 knots gusting to 35. The departure seemed normal enough for the first few moments, but as the aircraft accelerated through the intersection of 12L-30R, it began to track to the left of the centerline toward the runway edge.
