FAA Administrator David Hinson and his boss, DOT Secretary Federico Pea, are among top officials leaving the Clinton administration. Hinson told B/CA his proudest achievement was getting FAA employees ``to accept change as a way of doing business.'' One of his chief regrets is that not enough was done to improve GA safety. When asked how best to achieve a stable funding source for the FAA, Hinson deferred to a commission that will begin meeting in 1997 (B/CA, November, page 17).
Aviation safety information exchange and analysis prototypes were offered at the first Global Analysis and Information Network (GAIN) workshop hosted by the FAA's Office of System Safety and held in late October (B/CA, July, page 22). The FAA hopes to see the prototypes operating within a year. About 150 persons representing civil and military aviation attended the workshop, with (then) FAA Administrator David Hinson and NTSB vice chairman Bob Francis as speakers.
Customs service is now available from AMR Combs at Palm Springs Regional Airport. Advance notice is required and there is a fee. The amount of the fee depends on the aircraft model and the number of persons aboard. Note: the charge is doubled if customs service is provided outside of normal business hours-0800 to 1700 Monday through Friday. (619) 327-1201.
Henry M. Ogrodzinski was named executive vice president and chief operating officer of this trade group. Lloyd B. Parr, Missouri's administrator of aviation, is NASAO's newly elected president.
This FBO promoted Michael Rubin to president. The following staff changes were made at Hudson General LLC, the company's subsidiary: Paul R. Pollack was elected president, and Raymond J. Rieder was named executive vice president.
FAA denied Wilcox Electric's protest against the Wide Area Augmentation System contract award to Hughes Aircraft earlier this year. The agency said it did not have to bid the award and that its market analysis was sufficient. Wilcox protested the contract after the FAA canceled the original contract with the company to develop WAAS and retained Hughes, a Wilcox subcontractor, on a sole-source basis as the new prime contractor. WAAS is essential to enabling primary-means, GPS-based precision approaches.
Runzheimer International, the Rochester, Wisconsin travel consulting firm, has introduced a web site that, among other things, provides statistics and information on business travel costs. See www.runzheimer.com
Eleven member-nations of the European Joint Aviation Authorities have ratified the JAA's earlier validation of the McDonnell Douglas Explorer helicopter. The JAA validation allows owners of the Explorer to operate the aircraft within their own countries without additional national aviation authority certifications. Countries ratifying the JAA's validation are: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Monaco, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
The ability of the FAA to shut down airlines with the flick of a signature on an emergency order of certificate revocation or suspension has long created angst within the aviation community. Several relatively recent legal cases, however, have revealed chinks in the agency's armor. A common denominator in most such cases is Chapter 11 Protection from Creditors under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
AlliedSignal received FAA approval for its enhanced GPWS and the first installations of the system are on United Airlines Airbus A320s and American Airlines B757s. Enhanced GPWS (EGPWS) compares a digital database of the world's terrain with the aircraft's location and altitude to generate a map-like display of surrounding terrain. The new system gives an audible warning about a minute or more before the aircraft approaches threatening terrain. An EGPWS is priced at about $60,000 (B/CA, January, page 58).
Anchorage-based Peninsula Airways (PenAir) has acquired two used Saab 340s-the first to be operated in Alaska. They were modified at FFV Aerotech in Nashville and were to be placed in operation by year-end. PenAir dates back to 1950 and serves more than 50 Alaska communities with a fleet of 39 aircraft of nine different types. The carrier grew by about 30 percent in 1995, with nearly 80,000 passengers.
The acquisition of FlightSafety International by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is not expected to affect the day-to-day operations of the Flushing, New York-based pilot training company. In fact, Al Ueltschi, the 76-year-old former Pan Am pilot who founded FSI in 1951, is expected to remain chairman and CEO of the firm.
A year ago, aviation lost one of the most beloved figures from the golden age of aviation, Douglas ``Wrong Way'' Corrigan. Perhaps no one epitomized better the daring, seat-of-the-pants flying of the 1930s than the impish Irish-American. He became an instant celebrity in July 1938 when he flew nonstop from New York to Dublin after allegedly getting lost on a transcontinental trip from New York to California. The diminutive mechanic-turned-pilot earned his nickname and captured the imagination of a Depression-weary world by defying U.S. aviation authorities.
This avionics and flight-control systems maker has made the following staff changes: Dennis Tolleson has come aboard as dealer sales manager; Ron Tesdal was named director of engineering and Jim Odom was moved up to director of flight engineering and special projects.
Next time you go to the supermarket, take a walk down the cereal aisle. It will be a long walk, because of the literally hundreds of different ways the basic cereal grains are processed and packaged. Manufacturers are very creative in re-labeling and ``reinventing'' a very basic food product that can be--without excess sugar--very nutritious. Yet what food hasn't been challenged at one time or another as to its nutritional value or the concerns it raises about wholesomeness?
Effective December 16, new FAR Part 16 directs the FAA to make decisions on tenant complaints against airport operators within six months. Previous disputes have taken years, said the National Air Transportation Association. But NATA cautions that the FAA will have to increase its staff to make the rule work. Separately, an airport owners minimum standards handbook has been jointly produced by NATA and the American Association of Airport Executives. Holding to the standards has been shown to diminish the number of complaints from tenants, according to NATA.
Colombian regional SATENA (Servicio Aerie a Territories Nacionales) has placed an order for three Dornier 328s-the first for the aircraft in Latin America. The aircraft will be delivered by year end.
The key enabler for the Hawker Horizon and the Premier I programs is Raytheon's move toward highly automated composite construction. If the Starship was an opportunity for the company to cut its teeth on composites, the new programs show signs that Raytheon's wisdom teeth are coming in. The difference boils down to automation: The Starship was essentially hand-built; the new airplanes are largely built by an industrial robot.
In addition to the usual fare that greets passengers when they board an aircraft--such as the safety briefing cards, newspapers and magazines--Nouveautes suggests a solid chocolate hangar filled with miniature chocolate airplanes. Operators can choose from two designs of this novelty gift item: a large, solid chocolate hangar packaged in a larger finished-wood box (18 ounces for $20.95) and a diamond-shaped chocolate hangar in a decorative candy box (12 ounces for $11.95). The goodies are made from European chocolate.
The air taxi industry says it has had it with independent auditors it fears are creating a ``blacklist'' of allegedly unsafe operators. The National Air Transportation Association (NATA), which represents the interests of on-demand operators, says certain auditors are misrepresenting charter safety when selling their services to corporations.
Having two totally new aircraft on the boards at the same time is almost unprecedented in the business aircraft industry. In the case of Raytheon Aircraft Company (nee Beech) decades once separated clean-sheet turbine airplanes. The Starship was announced in the mid 1980s, and before that you have to go all the way back to the inception of the King Air in the early 1960s to find a new turbine aircraft, and even it was a derivative of the 1950s-vintage Queen Air. Times have changed.
The Philadelphia area was chosen as the site for a round of tests scheduled in the next few months for the purpose of expanding the existing VFR helicopter route system in the northeast corridor. Recently, the FAA concluded the first phase of tests and authorized the use of a route system for VFR helicopter operations between Norfolk, Virginia and Boston. For more information on the test program or about the routes, call HAI Flight Operations Committee Chairman Thomas P. Salat, Jr. at (201) 288-8464.
