One of the most effective ways to modernize an aircraft-and preserve its value-is by refurbishing the cockpit. Upgrading to new avionics and other instrumentation can pay off in reduced crew workload, enhanced safety, additional capability, improved dispatch reliability, increased efficiency and higher resale value.
Delta Connection Atlantic Southeast Airlines-in a competition that saw two British Aerospace subsidiaries pitted against one another-has selected the 88-passenger BAe 146-200 quadjet as its first jet aircraft. The carrier will place four in operation on December 1, and a fifth on February 1, 1996. It holds options on an additional 15, which would place a value of $160 million on the deal. Sources tell B/CA that ASA obtained extremely good five-year lease rates on the aircraft-as low as $60,000 per month, and perhaps much lower.
Twelve RAA associate members have been named to the trade group's new Associate Member Council (AMC). During the RAA's annual spring meeting in San Antonio, the AMC was voted into existence expressly to: -- Provide a source of specific expertise for the RAA on technical matters; -- Provide a forum to voice associate-member interests and concerns to the RAA board of directors and President's Council; -- Provide resources to assist in developing industry positions on issues; and
The latest members of the top management team at The New Piper Aircraft include Larry Bardon as director of marketing and sales. Bardon was previously with Pilatus Aircraft's U.S. office. Dan Elliott, most recently with Rohr Industries and a 13-year Piper veteran, returned to Piper as manager of manufacturing. And Margaret Napolitan left a four-year hitch at the NTSB to join Piper as manager of air safety. The New Piper Aircraft, Incorporated emerged earlier this year from Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. (See also this month's Observer.)
Society of Automotive Engineers, at the request of the FAA, has formed a task group to write a ``recommended practice'' for measuring the intensity and flash rates of strobes. The group includes members from lighting manufacturers, the FAA, trade organizations and the scientific community. A draft report is scheduled to be available in July 1996. The report will contain guidelines on when strobes should be repaired or replaced, among other recommendations.
An FAA proposal to modify the Salt Lake City International Airport Class B Airspace area would maintain the ceiling at 10,000 feet msl, subdivide and redefine five existing sub-areas by altering their floors and boundaries, and create nine additional sub-areas. If the revision is adopted as proposed, the Salt Lake City Class B Airspace would contain a total of 14 sub-areas.
Delta Connection SkyWest is operating with dual codes out of its Los Angeles hub effective September 1. The St. George, Utah-based carrier has signed a code-sharing agreement with Continental to operate simultaneously as a Continental Connection. It will not affect the regional's current relationship with Delta.
There were five new jets delivered to customers in the United States in August compared to 10 such sales in August 1994. Cessna Aircraft added two more Citation Ultras to its tally, along with another CitationJet. One Gulfstream IVSP was delivered, as was one Learjet 31A. There were 33 resales recorded in August 1995 compared to 88 in the same month last year.
Northwest Airlink Business Express, as expected, will begin seasonal service between Northwest's Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP) hub and Aspen/Snowmass, Colorado. The carrier will use a 69-passenger Avro RJ70 in the market. The carrier, which has three Avro quadjets, will offer two daily roundtrips beginning December 16 and running through March 31, 1996. The service could prove to be a shot in the arm for BizEx's jet operations, which are in the red.
The National Transportation Safety Board is focusing on propeller-blade fatigue in the August 21 crash of an Atlantic Southeast Embraer Brasilia near Atlanta. Five of 29 aboard perished. Investigators were looking for part of a blade the separated from the left engine while examining the 13-inch stub that remained after the airplane came down. They also were investigating why the aircraft did not continue to operate with its remaining good engine.
A Canadian firm has started marketing telephone systems designed to provide voice, fax and data services on business jets via American Mobile Satellite Corporation's AMSC-1 satellite. Cal Corporation of Ottawa, Ontario said its CalQuest phone services will be available in AMSC-1's coverage area, which extends from Alaska to the Panama Canal-including the Caribbean-and 200 miles off the North American coasts. The cost of phone equipment starts at $15,500.
Raytheon's Beech Aircraft has a long history with Collins Commercial Avionics, positioning the electronics firm well to be a key supplier for the Premier I. The challenge was to install new technology without driving up the cost. The solution was to design more functional integration into the displays and add more power to the well-proven, integrated avionics processing system (IAPS) that forms the central hub of the hub-and-spoke architecture of the Pro Line 21 avionics suite. (See Pro Line 21 report in this issue.)
There were two new turboprop sales to domestic customers reported in August, including one Raytheon Starship 1A and one Pilatus PC-XII. Last year, there were four new-turboprop sales listed for the same month. Resales totaled 25 compared to 74 the year before. July revisions affected neither the July nor year-to-date totals for new-turboprop sales. However, 54 additional resales posted brought the July total to 59. For the year, 32 new turboprops have been delivered to U.S. operators and 512 previously owned jetprops have changed hands.
Rejuvenating an aircraft's interior is an excellent way to increase its appeal, value and utility. A plethora of shops, ranging from big-name national chains to small specialty houses, tailor offerings to meet customer needs. Service facilities are reporting strong and stable business, and they say the number of new aircraft-and new aircraft models-portends healthy work loads for the foreseeable future. However, competition for your business remains keen.
Arthur E. Wegner, chairman and CEO of Raytheon Aircraft, and Roy Norris, president of Raytheon Aircraft, both beam when they discuss the Premier I, now the official name for the two-year-old PD-374 light-jet program. Their confidence is well- founded. The Premier I is the product of more extensive market re-search than any airplane in the firm's history. ``We've really concentrated on trying to understand the customer's needs,'' Wegner said.
During a ceremony at Marc Fruchter Aviation just prior to the opening of the 1995 Reading Aerofest at Pennsylvania's Reading Regional Airport in August, dignitaries from the state and the aviation industry honored Marc A. Fruchter with several awards for his company's service to the aviation community as well as for his contribution to the local community.
When engineer Sam Williams first envisioned a small, simple turbofan based on high-technology materials and manufacturing methods, no class of airplanes existed to provide a market for an engine generating less than 2,000 pounds of thrust. It was the mid 1970s, and few outside the defense industry had ever heard of Williams International, the Walled Lake, Michigan company that Williams had founded two decades earlier to build small gas turbines for missiles, drones and APUs.
A proposed Advisory Circular would clarify the definition of an owner- or operator-produced part and revise FAA definitions of approved parts, standard parts, surplus parts, rebuilt parts, altered parts and ``as is'' parts. Revised AC 20-62D also would update the criteria for the eligibility, identification and quality of replacement parts, and addresses the tracking of their airworthiness.
According to the NTSB, pilot error caused the November 1994 collision of a Cessna 441 and an MD-80 at Lambert/St. Louis Airport. The pilot of the 441 lined up for takeoff on the wrong runway (B/CA, April, page 82). But contributing to the accident, the Safety Board said, was the lack of ATIS and other ATC information regarding the occasional use of Runway 31 for departures. Also, the use of airport surface detection equipment (installed at Lambert, but not in operation at the time of the accident) ``could have prevented this accident.''
At press time, Tucson-based Universal Avionics Systems' latest flight management system, the UNS-1C, was due to receive certification this month. The system is an ``all-in-one'' box that fits into the same space as a UNS-1M navigation management system. However, the UNS-1C has all of the capabilities of the UNS-1B-Universal's most powerful, two-box FMS that uses both a control display unit (CDU) and a 2MCU remote computer.
