Even in the unlikely event that neither of the National Football League teams playing in the Super Bowl reaches the end zone on January 25, there will be plenty of touchdowns in San Diego on "Super Sunday," as hundreds of business aircraft bring people to this Southern California city for the big game.
Representatives from the aviation training community, universities involved in flight training, FBOs and small FAR Part 135 operators are invited to gather January 20 and 21 at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. for a GA safety workshop. Participants will explore ways to improve safety through research on training. Attendees will discuss their training needs and problems. Researchers from U.S. universities will respond to the concerns and will recommend which issues are amenable to research. For details, phone NASA's Rebecca Chute at (650) 604-0771.
Boeing Business Jets and Aviation Partners are investigating modifying the BBJ with winglets, with the goal of increasing range by four to seven percent. However, Boeing engineers are said to be cool to the idea. "There is a tremendous resistance toward vendor modifications on Boeing aircraft," said a Boeing spokesperson. "Even though we have been working with Aviation Partners, [Boeing] could shut it off at any time." Aviation Partners is the Seattle company known for its winglet mod on G-IIs.
Pilatus is making most of its sales of the PC-12 to owner/operators who tell us they are impressed with the aircraft's range, payload, cabin volume and cargo door. But along with the big-airplane attributes come some big-airplane operating realities like parts costs and systems complexity.
A recent Wall Street Journal article titled "As Air Fares Soar, More Companies Cancel Trips" described a survey of U.S. firms and how they are reducing business travel because of increasingly expensive air fares. Firms are resorting to a host of alternatives, from the increased use of corporate aircraft to drastic measures like requiring salespeople to phone rather than visit prospects, and asking staff to rely more on e-mail and tele/video conferences to conduct business.
The National Civil Aviation Review Commission completed its eight-month study of the U.S. aviation system and issued a final report that drew a mixed reaction from general aviation trade groups.
Efforts to establish fractional ownership programs with pre-owned aircraft and for regional geographic coverage continue. Two of the latest efforts are Executive AirShares from Executive Aircraft Services in Scottsdale, Ariz. and Business Jet Co-Ownership offered by ExecAire in Ronkonkoma, N.Y. Executive AirShares will sell shares in previously owned "mid-range, medium cabin" aircraft for use by owners throughout the Southwest. ExecAire hopes to sell shares in five Gulfstreams and "additional smaller jet aircraft" that the company currently operates.
At the recent World Radiocommunication Conference in Geneva, U.S. delegates narrowly averted a proposal from Inmarsat to allow satellite-based mobile communications services to share a radio spectrum reserved for GPS use. Global Positioning System proponents worry that sharing the frequency band might cause interference with GPS signal reception. The proposal was deferred until the 1999 WRC to allow for more technical studies of the issue.
New York Center's Oceanic Control can now use satellite-based telephone service (satvoice) to call aircraft, but only when other means are not available and communication is required for distress or urgency situations. Aircraft must be logged onto the Atlantic Ocean Region West satellite while operating in the New York flight identification region in order for ATC to initiate calls.
Aviation authorities in Europe are taking the opposite view of Australia regarding single-engine aircraft operations. Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority intends to proceed with legislation that will permit single-engine, commercial passenger flights in IFR and at night. On the other hand, the JAA is planning to include a rule in its JAR-OPS scheduled for implementation in April that will ban commercial passenger flights at night in single-engine aircraft.
The Flight Safety Foundation, itself in the safety audit business, says that routine FAR compliance inspections should be conducted by independent auditors, leaving FAA personnel to deal with more-urgent safety issues. FAA Administrator Jane Garvey's initial response: "It's worth exploring." While safety audits have long been an accepted practice in aviation, they are not without their detractors and controversy. Meanwhile, the General Accounting Office suggests that the "team" approach to assessing compliance is more effective than visits by individual FAA inspectors.
Twenty-four Falcon 2000s will join the NetJets fractional ownership program, with the first aircraft being delivered in the fourth quarter, under a recent deal between Executive Jet and Dassault Falcon Jet. One-eighth shares will cost about $2.7 million, carry a monthly management fee of approximately $14,800 and entitle the owner to 100 hours of flight time at an occupant hourly fee of about $2,150. The addition of the Falcon 2000s brings NetJets' order book up to 220 aircraft of nine different models.
Civil Air Navigation Services Organization recently was created to be a voice for private air-navigation service providers. Two of CANSO's goals are to represent the views of its members before ICAO, Eurocontrol and other similar entities, and develop common industry positions on future technologies. CANSO will be based in Geneva, and Derek McLauchlan, former chief executive of the U.K.'s National Air Traffic Services, Ltd., will be secretary general.
Unleaded avgas won't be available for at least another five years, according to Phillips 66 Aviation Manager Jill Bogan. After nearly seven years of research and testing, oil companies have not been able to reach the minimum requirement of 97 or 98 lean octane, she said (February 1993, page 20). In addition, Bogan said, costs to produce unleaded aviation gasoline could increase avgas prices by an estimated 40 to 50 percent.
A total of 3,789 business jets will be manufactured from 1997 through 2006, predicts the Teal Group in its latest annual forecast. Although actual figures were not in at press time, the Fairfax, Va. company had projected that manufacturers would deliver 408 business jets valued at $5.08 billion in 1997. Teal believes that deliveries over the next decade will peak at 420 this year followed by a gradual decline in 1999 through 2002, before climbing up to 400 units in 2004 and ending the 10-year period with about 365 units in 2006.
Los Angeles City Council is expected to approve an extension of the curfew for nighttime departures at Van Nuys Airport from 2300 to 2200 local, but the L.A. Airport Commission has postponed action on a "non-addition rule" that would prohibit airport tenants from locating additional FAR Part 36, Stage 2 jets at the airport. The rule would allow only limited visits for refurbishment or major repair.
Department of Transportation (http://dms.dot.gov)- The agency's latest addition to its Web is a site that contains rulemaking and other legal documents, including public comments on DOT decisions, Federal Register notices, legal pleadings, and other documents produced during regulatory or adjudicatory actions.
The Safety Board issued recommendations calling for the FAA and DoD to tighten up their ATC coordination and for improved training of military pilots on how TCAS works. The NTSB's action follows a February 1997 incident in which an F-16 flying in a warning area over the Atlantic Ocean "intercepted" a Boeing 727. The conflict activated the 727's TCAS, prompting the pilot to make several evasive maneuvers.
Time will tell if Roy Norris, former president of Raytheon Aircraft, is correct. Upon his joining the executive board of Century Aerospace in December 1997, he said, "I'm convinced that the Century Jet is going to be even more successful than the CitationJet." Based in Albuquerque, Century expects to fly the six-place, single-engine (FJ44-1) business jet in mid 1999 and obtain certification in late 2000. To date, Century claims 15 orders for the $1.85-million aircraft (September 1997, page 62).
Mesa Air Group this month begins operating its growing fleet of Canadair Regional Jets throughout the Northeast in the livery of US Airways Express. The move followed closely the ratification of a contract by US Airways pilots permitting the use of 50-passenger jets by Express carriers. Mesa lost no time in doubling its CRJ commitment to 32 aircraft. The carrier currently has 11 and will take nine this year and 12 in 1999.
England's Hunting Aviation continues to sell businesses that are not seen as core. The latest to leave the parent firm is the In-Flight Systems subsidiary to IEC International, Ltd., a components manufacture and materials machining company on the south coast of England. In-Flight Systems supplies entertainment and cabin control equipment for business jets. Three other units-Hunting Corporate Completions, Hunting Airport Systems and Hunting Avionics-were sold in 1997 (November 1997, page 32).
Peter Schiff Enterprises is now marketing Struts Up, a kit that uses compressed nitrogen gas to pump-up leaked-down airplane struts or tires. Each kit contains a bottle of two cubic feet of nitrogen gas at 1,800 psi, fil-ling hose, six-inch wrench, return shipping label (for returning the bottle) and lightweight carrying case. The kit weight is four pounds. Price: $149. The company refills the nitrogen bottle and ships it back for $35 in the continental U.S. Peter Schiff Enterprises, 4900 Forrest Hill Rd., Cookeville, Tenn. 38501. Phone/fax: (615) 537-6505.
Organizers of General Aviation Team 2000 said that student pilot starts were up 7.9 percent from January 1997 through September 1997, compared to the same period in 1996. The increase contrasts with declines of 7.4 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively, in 1996 and 1995. GA Team 2000 is an industrywide program aimed at increasing student starts to 100,000 in the year 2000 (May 1997, page 47 and August 1997, page 24).
