The Carlyle Group is set to buy the FBO chain it helped create nearly three decades ago. But its reacquisition of Landmark Aviation comes at a price believed to be $200 million more than when Carlyle sold the chain five years ago. Carlyle and Landmark owners GTCR and Platform Partners announced the sale on Sept. 14, but did not disclose terms of the agreement, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter. Carlyle sold Landmark in August 2007 to Dubai Aerospace under a $1.9 billion package deal that also included StandardAero.
Since many pilots, even some very experienced ones, admit they are not completely aware of the real nature of the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) and its ground-based counterpart Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS), we offer a brief primer. WAAS is a Space-Based Augmentation System (SBAS), as is Europe's EGNOS, India's GAGAN and Japan's MSAS. All are intended to be compatible and even interoperable.
I had a nice chuckle over the first paragraph of “Day Trippers” (Viewpoint, September 2012, page 9). I know what I would've done with my shoe if that smart-!@# said the same to me. It sounds like a great journey to the West Coast. Your story is just another reminder of why I am happy I took the corporate route for my career. Thanks for sharing and thanks for the laugh! Captain/Safety Advisor SCANA Corp. Columbia, S.C.
China's Kunming Changshui International Airport, located in the southwest China, has installed a custom built-in airport bird control manufactured by Bird-X. The first device used was the BroadBand Pro, an electronic device that combines sonic and ultrasonic broadcasts to repel birds up to six acres. The ultrasonic frequencies are nearly silent to humans. The second device was the Mega Blaster Pro, a highly powerful sonic bird control system that uses intermittent distress calls to create a “danger zone” that frightens birds away for good.
Mark A. Carolla Airlines, Rail, Maritime & International Affairs Consultant Pierce, Pugliese & Carolla Air Analytics LLC (Herndon, Va. )
The “Fast Five” interview with the Reason Foundation's Robert Poole (September 2012, page 25) prompted this letter. Back when I was a kid traveling the New York State Thruway, my late dad used to point out the billboards facing the Thruway and the New York Central Railroad's main line, which taunted, “You'd be there by now if you flew Mohawk!” That was true — and Mohawk Airlines eventually eclipsed the passenger train as a means of getting around the Empire State for day business travelers.
NASA's Langley Research Center, Mitre and several partners have completed the first in a series of inflight evaluations of cooperative automatic sense-and-avoid (SAA) algorithms for unmanned air systems (UAS), in large part to validate a new testbed that will be used for more advanced trials next year. SAA is regarded as one of the top priorities — and one of the most difficult issues to solve — in the FAA and Defense Department's effort to safely integrate manned and unmanned aircraft in civil airspace.
Rockwell Collins' new GLU-925 Multi-Mode Receiver (MMR) enables operators to take advantage of evolving RNP/RNAV and ADS-B capabilities. It fulfills the requirements for aircraft navigation position source, Category III ILS, Category I Global Positioning Landing System (GLS) and accessing RNP/RNAV airspace (down to RNP Authorization Required 0.1). It also meets the GPS position and availability requirements for ADS-B Out mandates.
A few years back, I received a call from a man who wanted to compare his department with ours. I've found such “benchmarking” exercises to be a great way to share good ideas and hear what's working for others. Organizations such as the NBAA, manufacturers' websites and the Chief Pilots' Roundtable provide invaluable help in running flight organizations through that technique, disseminating information that's applicable to both administrative and technical operations. I looked forward to what I could glean from this man's large operation.
Robert E. Breiling Associates Inc., a global resource for business turbine aircraft/helicopter accidents and incidents and their analysis, has provided BCA with a current world accident picture. The data presented show the U.S. and non-U.S. fleet accident/incident data by major operator type through the first nine months of 2012 versus 2011. Data are preliminary and may change as the year progresses, particularly with non-U.S. data, which are obtained from numerous international sources. Business Jets
Eurocopter Canada Limited delivered an AS350 B3e to Blackcomb Aviation for its utility and heli-skiing operations in British Columbia. Blackcomb now operates seven Eurocopter aircraft: one AS350 B3, one AS350 B2, four AS355s, one EC130 B4 and one EC120 B.
CAE will provide a suite of products, engineering services and simulation-based technology tools, including a simulator, to support the design, testing and certification of the Global 7000 and Global 8000 aircraft platform as part of Bombardier's Integrated System Test and Certification Rig (ISTCR).
Need help navigating the rules of hazardous material? The International Air Transport Association has a dedicated website to help you understand and comply with the rules for dangerous goods. Their training material has been accepted by the FAA and other government agencies. Many of the large carriers use the IATA handbook as the source data for their training courses. To learn more visit IATA's website: http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/cargo/dangerous_goods/Pages/index.aspx
Jack Pelton, the retired Cessna CEO, sent an email to Carl Brewer, Wichita's Democratic mayor, immediately after the debate, urging his intervention with the leader of his party. According to Pelton, Obama's anti-business jet comment — only the most recent of a continuing criticism of business jet owners — was “damning to the great people who work on the production lines here in Wichita.” The missive continued, “We cannot afford to have our industry held out as an example of excess. The facts simply do not support this.
While business aviation indicators appear stronger — deliveries up, the used aircraft market improving and the North America market ticking up — JP Morgan analyst Joseph Nadol cautioned in September that deliveries are could flatten during the remainder of the year and recovery is “not yet imminent.” Excluding Airbus and Boeing, business jet deliveries rose 11% through the first half of this year. But several market forces may stunt that growth, including a falloff in Hawker Beechcraft deliveries as the Wichita OEM remains in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Nextant Aerospace established an Asian foothold with the sale of 10 of its Nextant 400XT remanufactured business jets to Asia Pacific Jets and the formation of a distributor partnership with that company. The Asia Pacific Jets order calls for the aircraft to be delivered over three years, with the first two delivered by year-end. Singapore-based Asia Pacific provides medical evacuation and corporate charter services.
Most maintenance managers long for the days when they were technicians on the hangar floor. Sure, there were blazing hot summers, freezing cold winters, cramped compartments and impossible tasks; but the thing we miss the most is ability to concentrate on one task at a time. As soon as you step into a management role, you instantly become a multitasker. There never seems to be enough time in the day to get everything done, with the same attention to detail of the most basic maintenance task.
Aiming to improve the consistency of the FAA's certification and approval processes, a government-industry committee tasked with drafting recommendations has received input from aviation groups to help meet its year-end deadline. The committee offered an online survey to stakeholders ending Sept. 25. The four-year FAA reauthorization signed into law in February mandated the creation of the Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) to examine differing regulatory interpretations practiced by the FAA's various Flight Standards District Offices and Aircraft Certification Offices.
Gogo was granted a subordinate license from Industry Canada for Canada's air-to-ground radio frequency spectrum that enables Gogo to provide aircraft inflight connectivity over Canada. Gogo will operate on the same frequency over Canada as it does in the U.S., providing a seamless transition across borders. It also will service business aircraft currently using Aircell's Gogo Biz service. Aircell is a Gogo company.
Steering clear of potentially hazardous storms is about to get much easier. The new generation of three-dimensional weather radars, such as Honeywell's RDR 4000 Intuvue, promise virtually to eliminate the black art of manual tilt control and radar return interpretation that can enable storms to lurk undetected. The Gulfstream G650 is the business aircraft to be equipped with the Intuvue radar, and more applications are expected.
“Righting the Wronged” (Washington Watch, September 2012, page 65) reminded me of a similar flight I had in October 2008 in a Cessna P-210. Departing Olive Branch, Miss., the weather en route to Dalhart, Texas, my first fuel stop, required an instrument flight plan, which was filed and accepted. Flight Service gave me the weather information as well as the NOTAMs available for Olive Branch and Dalhart.
Los Angeles-based Jet Edge International has expanded its fleet with a West Coast-based, Wi-Fi enabled 2001 Bombardier Learjet 45. The Jet Edge fleet includes Gulfstream V, Gulfstream 450, Gulfstream IV-SP, Gulfstream IV, Gulfstream III, Gulfstream 200 and Learjet 45 aircraft as well as Hawker 800XP, Cessna Citation X and Bombardier Challenger 300 aircraft via its Platinum Partner status with XOJET.
FAA is moving to decommission the last direction finders (DF) in the U.S. — 29 in Alaska — saying the technology is “beyond its useful life cycle.” The agency, which decommissioned DFs outside of Alaska in 2007, requested comments on a plan to shut down the remaining DFs. In a recent notice, FAA says their usage for pilot orientation “has become almost nonexistent.” The Alaska Flight Service Information Area Groups (AFSIAG) has documented eight flight assists involving lost or disoriented pilots over the past eight years.
