The 1995 record-setting convention in Las Vegas will be a tough act to follow. But this year's event promises to be just as big and exciting when the business aviation industry gathers November 19 through 21 in Orlando. Already this 49th annual meeting has surpassed the 1995 show in several ways. Exhibit booth sales and the number of exhibitors have exceeded 1995's record total of 2,760 and 745, respectively. For the second year in a row, more than 20,000 people are expected to attend the world's largest display of civil aviation products and services.
The largest static display of aircraft in NBAA convention history is being prepared for presentation by Showalter Flying Services at Orlando's Executive Airport. From November 19 to 21, during the 49th annual convention of the NBAA, ramps adjacent to Showalter are expected to be chock-to-chock with more than 180 aircraft on static display. In addition, Showalter expects to handle some 600 transient aircraft. Executive Air Center, the other corporate aircraft FBO on the airport, also expects a heavy transient aircraft turnout.
William W. Greer, Learjet Incorporated's vice president of engineering, doesn't hesitate when asked why Learjet 45 deliveries didn't begin this year. ``Our initial [development] targets were overly ambitious. There's no way you can take an airplane from a clean sheet to certification [in less than four years].'' Yet, that's precisely what Learjet's top management had hoped to do when they discussed their plans at the September 1992 NBAA convention.
There seem to be two undeniable truths about fractional ownership: First, the concept is here to stay and, second, a lot of corporate pilots don't like it.
London's Heathrow Airport is celebrating its golden anniversary this year. The popular European gateway handles more international passengers than any other airport and ranks fourth worldwide in total passengers.
The second-generation AlliedSignal TFE731-20, slated for certification in December, looks a lot like the -2 engine that powers 30-series Learjets. The gear-driven fan and four-stage axial compressor are powered by a three-stage, low-pressure turbine. The single high-pressure centrifugal compressor is driven by a single high-pressure turbine.
Kemmons Wilson Companies, founder of the Holiday Inn hotel chain, officially opens an FBO this month at Memphis International Airport. The most distinctive feature of the new Wilson Air Center facility is its enormous 150-by-175-foot canopy for shielding aircraft during passenger embarking and debarking. At 27-feet high, the canopy can accommodate all but airliner-size corporate jets. The Wilson operation includes two hangars for storage and maintenance in addition to its two-story terminal building.
A display of real-time position data of any general aviation aircraft on an IFR flight is now available from Flyte Trax, an on-line system introduced in May with similar information for airline flights (B/CA, July, page 26). After obtaining clearance from Flyte Trax, subscribers can see the position, destination and ETA of aircraft on a map covering the entire U.S. national airspace system. Flyte Trax is a unit of Flyte Comm of Florida. Phone: (703) 836-1243; URL is http://www.amerwxcncpt.com.
For more than a decade Piper Aircraft's pressurized, single-engine Malibu airframe has intrigued modifiers and pilots as a potential candidate for gas turbine power. In fact, Piper itself even experimented with the concept briefly in the late 1980s, evaluating a Malibu equipped with an Allison 250 turboprop, but the company abandoned the project when it became preoccupied with internal financial problems.
The last major piece of the FAA's long-overdue program to modernize the flagging ATC network clicked into place recently with the award of the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS) contract to Raytheon Company of Lexington, Massachusetts. The company's task will be to replace obsolete displays, software and computers at 172 FAA ATC facilities and 199 Defense Department facilities. The first system is set to be operational by December 1998 in Boston.
It is hard to believe, but the FAA's DUATS program is almost seven years old. And at last, GTE DUATS, one of the FAA's two DUATS providers, has just released a new, Windows-compatible interface to DUATS. The new software, called Cirrus, enables its users to automate most of the process of dialing up and downloading DUATS briefings, creating flight plans off-line and filing flight plans. This is good news to pilots and others who found GTE DUATS' earlier DOS interface unattractive and clumsy to use.
On November 4, U.S. Customs is scheduled to implement a year-long test of the General Aviation Telephonic Entry (GATE) program. During this experiment, pre-approved U.S. or Canadian-registered general aviation aircraft having no more than 15 passenger seats and reentering the United States from Canada can land at virtually any airport and make only a phone call to clear customs. (See B/CA, October, page 18.) That's the theory.
Jet Corp of St. Louis has designed a cleaning and testing procedure for hydraulic filters used in Falcon Jets that allows operators to reuse certain SoFrance filters
Initial worldwide figures for September 1996 revealed nine new-jet sales, off 82 percent from 33 during in September 1995. Three new turboprops sold during the month, off 79 percent from 14 last year. U.S. jet sales tallied at: Six new, off 63.6 percent from 22 last year; 43 used, down 54.3 percent from 94 in September 1995. For turboprops, sales for the month were: Three new, down 70 percent from 10; and 28 preowned, off 65 percent from 80.
For airframe manufacturers, the benefits of fractional ownership programs aren't tough to understand. The programs are doing what years and years of more traditional sales haven't done: They are bringing new buyers into the market. Up to 80 percent of share buyers are described as ``concept buyers'' who have not owned business jets before. Moreover, as many as a quarter of the owners are seen as likely to buy additional shares, and the sense is that at least some of them will go on to buy their own aircraft.
Thirty-one members of the House Ways and Means Committee urged the Internal Revenue Service to reverse its new stand on treating major engine overhauls as capital expenditures rather than ``ordinary'' business expenses (B/CA, October, page 28). Capitalization means the cost of the work must be deducted over several years, resulting in additional taxes. ``Clearly the IRS is overstepping its authority,'' said the Committee, noting a change in policy ``of this magnitude'' should be subject to hearings.
Air BP will replace Conoco as the brand name of the fuel sold at what is now an FBO network in the eastern, midwestern and Rocky Mountain regions of the United States carrying the Conoco brand name. Under an agreement signed in October between the two companies, Conoco will continue to supply fuel to the FBOs, but Air BP will market the fuel under its name as well as incorporate the FBOs into Air BP's international network.
Tan Son Nhat Airport in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City is the site of a future FAA-certificated repair station. The facility will initially service airliner and rotary-wing aircraft, but a spokesman said the operation eventually would expand to cover corporate jets. The enterprise is a cooperative agreement between IndoChinAir, an aircraft component overhaul company in Arizona, and the Vietnamese Air Force Aircraft Repair Company in Ho Chi Minh City. A liaison office, The Vietnam Resource Group, has been established in Washington, D.C. to handle inquiries.
Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) operates 83 airplanes in 36 countries, mostly in primitive circumstances. Their equipment ranges from Cessna 185s to a King Air 200. About 130 MAF pilots operate to and from over 3,000 airstrips from 46 different bases. The flying is extraordinarily demanding of basic piloting skills, judgment and problem solving.
Larry Collier, 53, a veteran of the business aviation industry, died September 1 of a heart attack. In 1967, he started his career at Duncan Aviation as an avionics technician, and at the time he left Duncan, he was manager of installations. Most recently, Collier was the designated alternate station (DAS) coordinator for modifications at Garrett Aviation Services in Springfield, Illinois.
