Business & Commercial Aviation

The second Pilatus PC-24 prototype is undergoing avionics tests at Honeywell's Phoenix Deer Valley Airport hangar. Preliminary performance tests are encouraging, with the aircraft meeting or beating early performance projections, Pilatus officials said. They previously said they expect the aircraft to have a 425-kt. maximum cruise speed; 1,950-nm full-tanks range with four passengers at long-range cruise; and 1,190-nm NBAA IFR range while carrying a 2,500-lb. maximum payload.

FlightSafety Academy in Vero Beach, Florida, celebrated its 50th anniversary in October. Its 21,000 graduates have flown for 62 airlines and over 100 corporate flight departments around the world. It employs 160 people and owns nearly 90 aircraft. Its campus also includes classrooms, flight training devices, an Air Traffic Control communications laboratory and on-site accommodations for 300 students.

The business-jet resale market turned in slightly slower transaction activity during the first nine months of 2016, according to a report by Amstat.

Soon, everything will be connected on the internet. It has become clear that business pilots, flight attendants, and maintenance and operations personnel will increasingly rely on their aircraft's avionics and communications capabilities—usually via satcom—for many other applications.

BCA shares news of the latest products and services for the business aviation industry.

Being free and in control of my destiny is what put me on the road to the NBAA convention this time and helps put people in private aircraft.

The annual gala dinner, or soiree, and auction sponsored by NBAA at its convention to benefit the Corporate Angel Network (CAN) raised $450,000 to help fund that organization’s decades-long mission to transport cancer patients to treatment centers, mainly aboard business jets, free of charge. CAN Executive Director Gina Russo said, “We very much appreciate the industry’s involvement in CAN’s work, as illustrated by the hundreds of companies flying CAN missions for cancer patients year-round, as well as through participation in this event.

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Despite slow sales in the current down market and a years-long delay of the Falcon 5X due to development setbacks with the Silvercrest engine, Dassault Aviation is considering what next it will offer to help reenergize its lineup of business jets. “History has taught us that times of crisis are not just a storm that must be weathered. They represent an opportunity to change and improve,” CEO Eric Trappier said during the NBAA Convention.

FlightSafety International filed a lawsuit Oct. 25 related to the 2014 crash of a King Air B200 into a FlightSafety training facility shortly after takeoff from Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport. The crash killed four, including the pilot, and injured six others. The lawsuit, filed in Sedgwick County District Court in Wichita, names more than a dozen defendants alleged to have contributed to the crash through negligence, breach of warranty or other factors.

Jet Support Services has announced its Tip-to-Tail Program is now available for the Dassault Falcon 8X, Embraer Lineage 1000 and Airbus Corporate Jets, including the ACJ318, ACJ319 and ACJ320. The program includes coverage for the airframe, engines and APU.

Heli-One will upgrade a fleet of Sikorsky S-61A-4 Nuri helicopters for an Asian operator with Universal's EFI-890H Advanced Flight Displays and Multi-Missions Management System. Heli-One will design and install the initial aircraft with an Asian maintenance, repair and overhaul business performing the upgrades on the remainder of the fleet. The upgrade includes four EFI-890H Advanced Flight Displays and one UNS-1L2 MMMS, Universal’s flight management system for mission support.

In a move of confidence in the Asian business aviation market, Singapore-based Zetta Jet is adding four Bombardier Challenger 650 large jets, valued at $129.4 million, to its fleet of aircraft. The Challengers will join Zetta’s fleet of Bombardier Global aircraft. Bombardier Business Aircraft and Zetta Jet, a private jet operator in Asia, celebrated the addition at an event at the Orlando Executive Airport Oct.

Russian investigators concluded that alcohol use by a shift supervisor and a snowplow driver at Moscow's Vnukovo International Airport played role in the October 2014 nighttime collision that destroyed a departing Unijet Airlines Dassault Falcon 50EX and killed all four on board. The snowplow driver was crossing Runway 6, but stopped as the jet began its takeoff roll. The Falcon hit the plow with its right wing and right main gear at a speed of 133 kt., rolled inverted, crashed and burned.

Rated at 3,230 lb. thrust for takeoff, the Williams International FJ44-4A-32 turbofans produce about 9% more thrust than the original Pratt & Whitney Canada JT15D-5R engines fitted to the Beechjet 400A and Hawker 400XP. At first glance, that seems like a nominal increase at best. But the FJ44-4 has a fat ISA+17C flat rating that makes a considerable difference in hot-and-high airport, climb and cruise performance.

AviationManuals is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Since its founding in 1996, it has produced more than 4,000 manuals. It recently expanded its product line to include Minimum Equipment Lists and Electronic Flight Bag application packages. The company also is expanding its workforce and seeks to employ an operations manual specialist, aviation specialist, editor/document specialist and a business development/sales coordinator.

Blackhawk Modifications has launched another engine upgrade program, this time targeting the King Air 350. The switch involves replacing that aircraft’s 1,050 shp PT6A-60A engines with a pair of -67As, each rated at 1,200 shp. The Waco, Texas company expects to receive approval for the upgrade in the second quarter of 2017. The change-out will benefit those operators — including military units — needing improved hot-and-high performance.

VistaJet has taken delivery of three new Bombardier aircraft worth $115 million, bringing its global fleet to 70 aircraft, the company said. The company has added one new Bombardier Global 6000 and two new Challenger 350 business jets to its fleet. With the additions, VistaJet has the largest owned, super-midsize to large-cabin business-jet fleet in the industry, it said. In the past two years, the company has doubled its fleet from 35 aircraft in 2014 to the current 70, with an average age of less than two years.

Bombardier's Global 7000 test aircraft completed its first flight Nov. 4, marking the start of a rigorous flight-testing program. Entry-into-service of the large jet is scheduled in the second half of 2018. The Global 7000 took off from Bombardier’s facility in Toronto under the command of Ed Grabman, the flight’s captain, aided by copilot Jeff Karnes and flight test engineer Jason Nickel at 10:25 a.m. EDT. During the 2-hr., 27-min.

The space-based Global Positioning System could be said to be the keystone of the FAA's NextGen ATM modernization but just how reliable is GPS? To find out, we asked John Hansman, Ph.D., an aeronautics professor and researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Selected Accidents and incidents in October 2016. The following is NTSB information.

Chengdu Aircraft, the fighter division of China's Avic Aviation, is planning to develop a business jet. The new aircraft, which was detailed at Airshow China in November, would have a range of 5,000 sm and a length and wingspan of 80 ft. The project was set when Chengdu was formed in 2008, but little progress seems to have been made, especially since all Western makers of business aircraft declined Avic’s invitation for cooperation. Obviously, none saw any reason to train a competitor.

Cessna Aircraft has increased performance targets for its new super-midsize $23.9 million Citation Longitude, the planemaker's latest business jet under development. The announcement was made at the National Business Aviation Association’s Business Aviation in Orlando. Cessna, a division of Textron Aviation, is increasing its initial targets for range from 3,400 nm to 3,500 nm and full-fuel payload by 100 lb., to 1,600 lb. FAA type certification and entry into service is expected in 2017.

In the three years since Wheels Up began business, the private aviation membership company has taken delivery of 70 aircraft while membership has grown to 3,700. In the next three to five years, Wheels Up co-founder and CEO Kenny Dichter expects membership to grow to 9,000 or 10,000 and its fleet to reach 200 to 250. In late 2017 or early 2018, Wheels Up plans to expand in Europe with the King Air. “Europe is an unbelievable market,” Dichter said. The company operates a fleet of new King Air 350i turboprops and used Citation XLS+ aircraft.

JetBlue Airways has taken a minority stake in fast-growing, California-based jet-charter company JetSuite. Robin Hayes, CEO of the New York-based low cost carrier, said JetSuite was “changing the game in short-haul travel in the West Coast.” Launched in 2009, JetSuite operates up to four daily flights between the California cities of Burbank, Carlsbad, Concord and San Jose, as well as Las Vegas. For this JetSuiteX service, the carrier sells tickets on its Embraer 135 jets via its website as a public-charter operation.