Galaxy Aerospace guarantees that the operating costs of Israel Aircraft Industries' Galaxy business jet will average below $850 per hour over a five-year period or 2,000 hours. The guarantee program is an unusual as well as gutsy move. While such guarantee programs are not uncommon, they are usually established close to or after an aircraft enters service. The Galaxy is not yet halfway through certification test flying and is not scheduled to enter service until early 1999.
Nashville, Tenn.-based Aerostructures Corp. signed on as a risk-sharing partner for the Bell 609 civil tiltrotor, and will take over some of the fuselage fabrication that originally was assigned to Boeing. In February, Boeing quit the commercial helicopter business and turned its 49 percent share of the 609 program over to Bell. Aerostructures, formerly a unit of Bell Helicopter parent company Textron, was at one time a subcontractor on the Bell/Boeing V-22 military tiltrotor. As of early March, Bell had commitments for 61 tiltrotors from 36 customers.
The NBAA is sharpening its focus on business aircraft safety matters through the formation of a Safety Committee to provide its membership with "advice and guidance on all matters relating to the safe operation of aircraft." John Lauber, Airbus Industrie vice president-training and human factors, will chair the group. Pat Andrews, Mobil's manager of global aircraft services, is co-chair. The committee's members come mostly from the ranks of NBAA companies.
February 22, 1994 proved to be both a terrible and a grand day in Starship history. A Starship, serial number NC-35, dropped onto a snow- and ice-covered runway in Roskilde, Denmark from about 50 feet after an aborted takeoff. The airplane slid along the remaining runway and continued for about 100 yards before coming to rest, its landing gear collapsed and its wings and belly smashed up. Fortunately, no one was injured.
During the next few months, Jet Aviation will build three hangars and renovate its existing maintenance and completions facilities at the company's West Palm Beach International Airport base. The hangars, two of which are scheduled to be completed by November, are intended for tenant operators and will be large enough for Global Express and G-V aircraft. Construction of the third hangar is set to start in early 1999.
Air taxi operators are exempt from new rules that require enhanced passenger manifests on international flights. Although the FAA did not exclude on-demand operators from new rules requiring installation of fire prevention systems in certain aircraft cargo compartments, the agency delayed rulemaking for further comment from the air taxi industry. Comments are due June 17. For details, contact the FAA at (425) 227-2114.
An FAA/industry task force analyzing the FAA's National Air Space modernization efforts concluded that the agency's current course is unachievable because of technical risk, disagreement among users, bureaucratic infighting and insufficient funding. The task force recommended slowing development of the wide-area augmentation system, datalink, and ADS-B air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities critical to free flight.
On October 1, 1999, all aviation medical examiners are scheduled to start using a new, mandated Windows-based software package from the FAA. The new technology is intended to streamline the pilot medical examination process and improve the accuracy of data.
If you're flying in the area of Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes, Del. on May 9 or 10, you may share the airspace with a high altitude rocket-even if only for an instant. The weather rocket is scheduled to blast off from the park on the afternoon of May 9 (or May 10 as the backup launch day) and climb to a height of 45 miles. Watch for a temporary restricted area to be established that will also include Warning Area W-108, and segments of V-139, J-121 and J-124. For schedule updates, contact the FAA at (718) 553-4521.
Deliveries of the Learjet 45, which received certification in September 1997, are delayed until mid-month at the earliest because of recurring bleed-air tube coupling leaks in the anti-ice system. The high-pressure engine bleed air used for anti-icing is hotter and of higher pressure than on most previous Learjets, resulting in more stress on the couplings. New design couplings currently are being evaluated. Function and reliability tests must be completed before upgraded parts can be retrofitted, thus allowing initial deliveries to begin.
Where have we heard this before? High-performance airplanes for the owner-pilot. General aviation aircraft deliveries exceeding 20,000 a year. Low-cost small turbine engines. Personal jets.
In its legislative agenda for this year, the National Air Transportation Association intends to make it clear to Congress that its members do not want to be lumped in with the airlines when it comes to taxation and regulation. And it will continue to fight "an as-yet-undefined user fee scheme that proposes to switch excise tax funding to user fee funding by the year 2000," said NATA President James Coyne. "It's an issue we hoped would have gone away."
Dassault Aviation is wind-tunnel testing several wing planforms for the supersonic business jet the firm is studying (December 1997, page 33). A final decision is years away, but it's expected that Dassault would select a delta wing and an active canard. Limited volume of the wing would require all fuel to be carried in the SST's fuselage. A full fuel load would account for half of the Falcon SST's 80,000-pound-plus MTOW. Each of three non-afterburning engines would generate more than 10,500 pounds of thrust.
All of EJA's aircraft in the NetJets shared ownership program now include Phoenix-based Medaire's MedLink Worldwide emergency medical program at no cost. Medlink includes specialized medical training for NetJets crews, a 24-hour emergency medical hot line to physicians and enhanced inflight medical emergency first aid kits.
Bell Helicopter expects to announce by the end of the year whether it will proceed with development of a new entry-level helicopter and with a successor to the Model 412 medium twin. At the low end, Bell is looking for a more powerful helicopter with a new main rotor and possibly with either a shrouded tail rotor or the NOTAR system it is acquiring with the purchase of the former McDonnell Douglas helicopter line from Boeing.
Kansas City, Mo.'s Aviation Department set aside its grant request to the FAA for funds to resurface 7,001-foot Runway 1/19 at Downtown Airport because it didn't like the chopping clause. Provisions of the FAA grant award would have required the runway to be shortened to 5,000 feet to allow for overruns. Executive Beechcraft, an FBO on the airport, and the NBAA opposed the decrease, arguing that the shorter runway would not allow safe takeoff and landing distances for business jets. Now the grant project is on hold pending the drafting of a master plan for the airport.
No tuition hikes or schedule changes are planned for FACTS training, now that the Olympia, Wash. emergency-procedures training company has been purchased by AirCare International. Beau Altman, Ph.D., FACTS founder (in 1981) and president, will be retained as a program consultant. FACTS/AirCare International, the new company, is headed by Douglas Mykol, a FACTS trainer, who in fall 1997 spun off an inflight telemedical assistance program, called AirCare, for business aircraft operators.
Inadequate financing has forced Burkhart Grob of Mindelheim, Germany to scuttle plans to develop the GF200 all-composite executive aircraft. The firm had previously anticipated certification this summer for the four-place, 270-hp piston single. Grob is now turning its attention to building the GF350, a six- to eight-place 350-hp version, which would cruise at 350 knots and fly up to 1,400 nm (July 1997, page 12).
John Ferrie is the new executive vice president of business operations. Terry Graham, former chief operating officer, left the company to pursue other opportunities. S. Michael Hudson, president and chief executive officer, will also assume COO duties.
At press time, FAA approval was pending on expanding the major periodic inspection interval on AlliedSignal TFE731-5B turbofans to 2,500 hours. The change will require compliance with service bulletins on new carbon seals and controlled fit combustors. Following approval of the MPI interval extension, AlliedSignal will pursue FAA approval of a boost in the time between compressor zone inspections to 5,000 hours.
A line of flat-panel displays to be marketed by Universal Avionics Systems for corporate and regional aircraft will be unveiled at the Aircraft Electronics Association annual meeting this month. The displays, to be available in four-by-five-inch, 5-ATI, five-by-six-inch and eight-by-10-inch sizes, will be manufactured by Avionic Displays Corp., a leading supplier of such equipment for military aircraft.
Perry Bradley FAA IS CONDUCTING FREE-FLIGHT TRIALS
Since late 1997, the FAA has been testing a GPS-based route network in the Caribbean that the agency says is the first 100-percent use of GPS as a primary means of navigation using domestic route separation standards. The system is demonstrating the utility of moving toward "Free Flight" and is resulting in shorter flight times and fuel savings for the 11 airlines participating in the program.
