Business & Commercial Aviation

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

The hustle and bustle of busy business aviation ramps can easily result in an uploading of an inappropriate amount of fuel or fueling to the wrong tanks, or both. Accordingly, some business aircraft operators abide by SOPs that stipulate their pilots monitor the refueling process.

Options range from leather crew seats for $3,000 to a GoGoBiz - Text and Talk system for $151,500.

The now-classic Falcon 10's sky-high operating costs can be painful, but when you are blasting past lesser light jets at Mach 0.85 to 0.86 you might feel it is well worth the money.

William Koch, chairman of Hawthorne Global Aviation Services of Dallas.

ARG/US International has purchased the Unmanned Safety Institute. The privately held company conducts unmanned aircraft system safety training, certification and management.

Jetex is adding a new fixed-base operator location in Marseille,France, continuing the company's expansion in the region. The location offers VIP travelers easy access to the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region.

The FAA has expanded its efforts to prevent UAVs from flying too close to airports by signing cooperative research agreements with an additional three suppliers of counter-UAV systems.

BNSF Railway will test low-level surveillance methods necessary for beyond-visual line-of-sight operations for small unmanned aircraft systems.

VistaJet celebrated the delivery of its 100th aircraft since the company's founding in 2004. The company's fleet has grown to more than 60 Bombardier Global and Challenger aircraft with a market value of more than $1.8 billion.

According to market intelligence firm Tractica, global commercial UAS services revenue is expected to grow from $170 million in 2015 to $8.7 billion by 2025.

Robinson Helicopter's two-place R44 Cadet won its FAA certification last month. Robinson says the aircraft's modest price will appeal to the training market as well as operators who want the economy of a small helicopter with the comfort, power, and performance of a larger one.

Leonardo-Finmeccanica Helicopters has taken the first steps in restarting the flight-test campaign of its AgustaWestland AW609 commercial tiltrotor following the fatal crash of the second prototype last October.

Lufthansa Technik is extending its presence in the Asian market and is expanding its range of products, some of which are already being installed in aircraft.

Jet Aviation expects this quarter to open a business jet maintenance center at Macau International Airport that it is being established partly in response to space limits in Hong Kong.

The warnings are dire and getting considerable attention in both the trade and general media. The danger? A shortage of pilots.

BCA readers share their opinions on articles we published.

Universal Avionics says its UniLink UL-800/801 Communications Management Unit (CMU) Software Control Number (SCN) 31.X is expected to receive technical standard order (TSO) approval by midyear.

ABS Jets, a Prague-based business jet operator, is working with Honeywell to further enhance its inflight weather awareness application, known as Weather Information Service.

RUAG Aviation is the first company in Europe to fully repaint a Bombardier Challenger 350.

According to the latest annual 10-year forecast by Bombardier Business Aircraft, the industry will deliver 8,300 business jets valued at $250 billion through 2025.

Executive Air Fleet founder Matt Weisman, along with Bruce Parks and Parimal Kopardekar recently received NASA's 2015 ARMD Associate Administrator Award for their planning and leadership of the NASA/Silicon Valley Chapter AUVSI Unmanned Air Traffic 2015 convention.

Bombardier Business Aircraft President David Coleal says the company's top-of-the-line, and long-delayed Global 7000 will finally fly this year and "we're very focused on that right now."

European Business Aviation Association, the National Business Aviation Association, Geneva's Palexpo exhibit center and Geneva Airport officials have signed an agreement to continue to hold the annual European Business Aviation Convention at Palexpo through 2021.

Gulfstream Aerospace has received FAA approval for a synthetic vision upgrade to GIV-SP aircraft equipped with PlaneDeck.