Business aircraft and airline passengers now can use Airshow 400 video monitors to catch up on the latest CNN news, stock quotes, sports and weather while en route. The recently introduced live update service is called Airshow Network, and it joins the Dow Jones stock quotes, Accu-Weather and WSI weather graphics already available to Airshow On Line subscribers. CNN video text will become available this year.
When it comes to ground deicing aircraft, the menu of options available to operators is expanding rapidly. Helping spread the word about some of the advances was the goal of a recent seminar at New York's West-chester County Airport hosted by Joseph E. Seagram&Sons' flight department.
In consolidating its corporate headquarters and other functions at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport in January, Dassault Falcon Jet left behind the spares distribution center in Moonachie. However, this facility will be absorbed within the company's new headquarters later this spring, said Falcon Jet. The new main phone number for all of Dassault Falcon Jet's offices is (201) 440-6700.
Operators can obtain a copy of the Pilots Guide to Large Aircraft Ground Deicing (FAA AC 120-58) from B/CA. The 40-page booklet, published by the FAA in September 1992, contains general information in addition to specific procedures concerning ground deicing operations of transport-category aircraft. Single copies of the Guide are available, while they last, for $1 each (to cover postage and handling) from B/CA, 4 International Dr., Ste. 260, Rye Brook, N.Y. 10573.
The same big aviation issues confront mostly the same aviation leadership in the 105th Congress as it begins its 1997 season. When lawmakers went home in October to campaign for reelection, they left unanswered a question that nagged them throughout 1996: how the FAA will be funded. Aviation taxes expired at the end of December 1996, as they had a year earlier, and the same forces that produced an eight-month lapse last year appear to be just as strong this year.
If slick dudes wear sharkskin suits, does it follow that slick airplanes should too? Possibly. A research program involving 3M and Europe's Airbus Industrie is trying to answer that very question. Officially dubbed the Airbus Industrie Riblet Investigation Program, the program involves applying a special drag reduction film to surfaces of airliners operated by Cathay Pacific and Lufthansa. The film is textured with tiny peaks and valleys--or micro-grooves--that create a boundary layer of laminar airflow, improving fuel efficiency.
Magellan Systems has produced one of the first three-in-one avionics units combining two-way digital communications, GPS-based navigation and automatic dependent surveillance capability. Developed in cooperation with ARINC, the 7.8-pound CNS-12 communicates via ARINC's GLOBALink/CNS two-way datalink service targeted to business aircraft fleet operators. Its multiple capabilities allow pilots to receive and transmit operations reports, position updates, weather reports and other flight information.Price: $17,595. Magellan Systems Corp., 960 Overland Ct., San Dimas, Calif.
Universal Avionics Systems of Tucson, Ariz., says that in December 1996, its Canadair Challenger made an historic transoceanic flight using combined data from GPS and Russia's GLONASS satellite navigation systems. The GPS and GLONASS data were received by an Ashtec GG24 engine feeding into a Universal UNS-1D FMS. Officials for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Ashtec said the GG24 provided horizontal position accuracy within 16 meters for 95 percent of the time.
With a stated purpose to ``improve customer follow-up'' as well as to consolidate its U.S. presence, French manufacturer Socata Aircraft recently set up shop at Florida's North Perry Airport. By midyear, the company says, it will have its own repair station, increase its spares inventory and eliminate delays in updating technical publications and the processing of warranty claims. Socata builds the TBM-700 turboprop and piston-engine aircraft. A TBM operators conference is scheduled for the second quarter.
From AlliedSignal Aerospace comes an accumulator staging valve (ASV) for helicopters that can be retrofitted on nearly all Allison 250 series I, II, III and IV engines. The purpose of the installation is to reduce rotor droop. The valve changes the volume of the engine control accumulator, according to the power demands on the engine. Price: $3,000 to $5,000, plus installation, depending on application. Allied-Signal Aerospace, 2525 W. 190th St., Torrance, Calif. 90504. (310) 323-9500.
The Dassault Falcon 20 aircraft, arguably the matriarch of the mid-size class, seems to age as well as vintage Bordeaux wine. It offers one of the largest cabins in its class. It has airliner-like systems, such as fully-powered hydraulic control actuators, leading edge slats and glass windshields. It's light on the controls, it's easy to fly, and it's hard to make a bad landing because of its long-travel, trailing-link landing gear.
Let's hope the new FAA administrator is kind to business aviation, because under the FAA Reauthorization Act, the term of office is extended to five years. David Hinson was the last termless appointee, and he resigned in late 1996 after serving only about three years. People being considered for the post include Assistant DOT Secretary Frank E. Kruesi, former NTSB member Carl Vogt and American Airlines senior executive Robert W. Baker.
A coalition of air-tour companies has filed suit to block the FAA from enacting new rules that further restrict commercial sightseeing flights at Grand Canyon National Park. The new regulations, scheduled to go into effect May 1, virtually double the size of the Canyon's no-fly zones to cover over 87 percent of the park. Meanwhile, the United States Air Tour Association is suing the FAA over its new regulation that bans air-tour flights over Rocky Mountain National Park. No such operations currently exist there.
What are the real reasons to wear sunglasses? -- Glare or bright light is more than a nuisance, especially at altitude where the air is clear. Even though the sun's rays may not shine directly into the eyes, the light can reflect off clouds, the airframe, snow, sand and other sources of reflected light. Flying west, literally following the sun in front, can be fatiguing without protection. Low-level light, however, is not a reason for using sunglasses, since reduced illumination will impair visual acuity.
Jeppesen has expanded its JeppView software package to include geographic chart database coverages for the entire United States as well as 15 different regional coverages. JeppView is a program for desktop or notebook PCs and is contained on a single CD-ROM. It requires Microsoft Windows 3.1 or 95. Subscribers can access, display and print current charts, NOTAMs and more. Updates are every two weeks. Price: $329 for the software; $508 for the U.S. chart database. Jeppesen, 55 Inverness Dr. E, Englewood, Colo. 80112. (303) 784-4274.
Cessna's Citation Bravo and Dassault's Falcon 50EX business jets have received FAA certification. The Bravo certification, originally scheduled for April 1996, is a provisional approval, but deliveries of fully certificated aircraft are expected to begin this spring (B/CA, October 1994, page 21), said Cessna. The Falcon 50EX has full certification, and the first delivery of the tri-engine aircraft was expected to have been made at the end of January to an operator in Europe. The first U.S.
FAA has contracted with Los Angeles-based Teledyne Controls to produce and install improved low-level wind-shear alert systems at 43 U.S. airports and FAA facilities by 2000. Except for the FAA Technical Center in Atlantic City, N.J., all of the installations will be at airports in the West, Midwest or South. Some airports will receive their first LLWAS, while others will obtain replacements for older systems. Between 1976 and 1992, LLWASes were installed at 110 U.S. airports.
Professional aviators have become inured to a seemingly endless stream of disparaging comments and concerns about aviation safety. They expertly parry and thrust, fending off and slaying the ill-founded fears of passengers, neighbors and family members. Answers to common safety questions spring to mind as quickly as engine-out checklist memory items. And the fears are easily dispatched with truth: Airplanes, especially corporate airplanes, are a mighty safe way to fly.
Deliveries of new U.S.-built GA airplanes in 1996 will top out at 1,104, about 2.5 percent or 27 units more than in 1995, according to preliminary figures from the Aerospace Industries Association. The last year in which shipments exceeded 1,100 units was 1990. U.S. helicopter builders did not fare as well as airplane manufacturers. The AIA's preliminary count is 273 civil rotorcraft in 1996 compared to 292 units in 1995.
February 28 is the deadline for nominations for the 1997 Helicopter Heroism Award. Russell Lee of the Smithsonian's U.S. National Air&Space Museum will head the team of judges. The award will be presented at a special ceremony on June 4 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. This is the second year that the award is being sponsored by Rotor&Wing magazine. To obtain nomination forms, phone Janis Davis at (301) 340-7788, ext. 2073.
FAA said the 1997 annual random drug-testing rate will remain at 25 percent of covered employees, even though preliminary data indicate 1996 will be the sixth straight year that the random drug-testing-positive rate continued to be below 1.0 percent. The industry repeatedly has called on the FAA to lower the drug-testing rate to 10 percent. The agency lowered the rate from 50 percent to 25 percent in January 1995 (B/CA, December 1994, page 17).
Jet Aviation Group's Jet Maintenance Pte. Ltd. at Singapore's Seletar Airport recently was named an authorized Learjet service center. Under the agreement, Jet Maintenance will provide ``full technical support'' for all Learjet models. Jet Maintenance, a year old this month, is already qualified as an authorized Gulfstream service and warranty repair center. The company says it also provides ``complete support'' for Falcon, Challenger, Citation and Hawker aircraft (B/CA, March 1996, page 26).
