The city of Taegu slid behind us as we turned east for Tsushima Island, midway across 100-mi. strait separating South Korea and Japan. I was number two in the third flight of LT-6Gs, which we were handing over to the then-new Japanese Air Defense Force, near Nagoya, where they would be overhauled and returned to their intended role as training aircraft.
August 2011 statistics on the used aircraft markets contain good news, says Jetnet, the Utica, N.Y.-based provider of corporate aviation information. In the first eight months of this year, the year-to-date average asking price for business jets rose 3.5%, while the industry maintained double-digit growth (11.4%) in used business jet retail sale transactions.
A wide disparity continues to exist in today's pre-owned business aircraft market, “and just about any adjective will accurately describe some part of the market,” says Carl Janssens, editor of Aircraft Bluebook's Marketline newsletter.
Kevin Bredenbeck, Sikorsky chief test pilot, who flew the revolutionary X2 Technology demonstrator last year to an unofficial speed record for conventional helicopters, has been recognized by the Society of Experimental Test Pilots with the Iven C. Kincheloe Award for the year's outstanding professional accomplishment in the conduct of flight testing. Bredenbeck, who is also Sikorsky's director of flight operations, accepted the award at a ceremony in California in September.
Hawker Beechcraft has received a type certificate from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) for the manufacturer's Hawker 800XPR. The performance-enhancing package for the popular twinjet received FAA approval earlier this year, and deliveries have begun.
Oliver Stone, managing director of the new London-based aircraft brokerage, Colibri Aircraft Ltd., believes the market for previously owned business airplanes is gradually recovering. In today's market “typically, the newest and largest planes are doing the best,” says Stone. “The ultra-long-range, large-cabin jets are actually doing quite well. Prices have stabilized and inventory is thinning out.”
Israel Aircraft Industries invented the super-midsize business aircraft in the mid-1990s when it launched its IAI 1126 Galaxy. These aircraft can fly eight passengers 3,200 nm and land with NBAA IFR reserves. They offer nearly Gulfstream GII cabin dimensions, but with the fuel consumption of a standard midsize jet. On a 1,000-nm trip, for instance, the aircraft actually burns slightly less fuel than a Hawker 750 or Cessna Citation Sovereign. IAI earned FAA certification for the Galaxy in December 1998, and 53 units were delivered from 1999 to 2001.
A drag-reducing upgrade kit developed for Boeing MD-80 operators has received supplemental type certification from the FAA. Developed by Long Beach, Calif.-based engineering company Super98, the first part of the kit is initially designed to reduce fuel burn by 2.5% or more, with a further 1% benefit available from a more extensive upgrade. Fuel savings were verified in flight tests of an instrumented MD-83 in late 2010 and earlier this year.
Based on its most recent poll of aircraft dealers, Vref Publishing Inc., the Arizona-based provider of data on the resale market, reported in the third quarter edition of its Market Leader newsletter, “There has been a surprising amount of activity. Early this summer, many dealers reported, 'they've never been busier.'”
In the last budget request the Department of Labor (DOL) requested an additional budget and manpower specifically to investigate employee misclassification and this topic has been identified as one of the department's leading initiatives. If you use or plan to use contractors, you need to understand the rules. The DOL has a website to help you navigate the rules. You can visit it at: http://www.dol.gov For those of you who missed Attorney Greg Ripple's presentation at the NBAA MMC on this topic, the NBAA has posted his presentation on their website:
As well noted in “High-Altitude Upset Recovery” (July 2011, page 52), pilots must know the basics for maintaining or, if necessary, regaining controlled flight. But what is the primary obstacle to maintaining that control? I would suggest that the answer, both at high and low altitudes, is confusion — the old, “Where's this thing taking us now?”
Thirty years ago, Jim Haynes was working in finance in Washington, D.C., when an accountant friend mentioned that he was trying to settle the estate of a couple who had been killed in an automobile accident. He said it appeared that they had an interest in a business out at Leesburg (Va.) Airport. That tragedy and that piece of information would soon set Haynes off on a course of action that would cause a change in taxation and help transform a region in ways no one could have imagined.
The Caribbean region is a popular recreation and business destination for North Americans, Europeans and Middle Eastern residents. Universal Weather & Aviation's Dwayne Janczak, who is assigned to the Flexjet fractional ownership headquarters in Dallas, provided a review for operating in the area.
Computerized maintenance management systems have all but replaced paper for the same reason that such digital systems usually take over any task: It's all become too complicated for humans.
Cuba is the largest and westernmost island in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea. It also bears the distinction of having been “discovered” by Christopher Columbus on his first journey to the New World in 1492.
The opening of a new FBO typically is cause for industry celebration in an age when then the number of FBOs has diminished from 5,000 in the 1980s to 3,000. For Million Air, this summer's opening of its newest facility brings the addition of a 29th location, another company-owned base, and an entrance to what company executives believe is an up-and-coming market. This comes when financing is hard to find for new FBOs.
Skyservice Inc., Canada's largest charter/management company, often dispatches Learjets from its air ambulance division to Cuba for patient-transfer missions. Based in Montreal, Skyservice has 56 managed and company-owned business aircraft in its stable, including five Learjet 35 air ambulances equipped with intensive-care units that routinely operate on a worldwide basis.
The Citation M2's cockpit is a clean-sheet design, a complete break from any avionics package yet installed in a 525-series airplane. The configuration embraces the ergonomic design philosophy of the Citation Ten, using three, side-by-side 14-in. landscape configuration, flat-panel displays with LED backlighting and 1,280-by-800-pixel resolution. These screens provide far more display area than the three, 8- by-10-in. portrait configuration displays in the CJ1+. Indeed, they provide the most display area available in current production light jets.
If you're a scheduler or dispatcher and you just received this issue of BCA, you have just about two weeks to make the Oct. 17 deadline for filing an application for a scholarship under the NBAA's Schedulers & Dispatchers Scholarship Program. The awards are announced in December and presented at the next S&D annual meeting, scheduled for Jan. 15-18, 2012, in San Diego.
Minimize quick turn-arounds. Fully release brakes during turn-arounds. Don't drag a brake during taxi. Consider single-engine taxi. Use reverse thrust/flat pitch if allowed. Anticipate the need to slow down and make necessary power changes ahead of time. Minimize brake applications. Apply a smooth, firm pressure to slow down the aircraft. Land at the slowest speed consistent with safety. Land on longer runways with the wind.
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As pilots we don't seem to think much about the brakes until we really need them, and then our interest intensifies in direct proportion to the proximity of the runway end and the speed at which it is approaching.
Step into the cockpit of a Hawker 4000 that has the newly available block point upgrade (BPU) package and it's immediately apparent that the super midsize aircraft has undergone quite a comprehensive improvement program. The FMS, flight guidance system, avionics and autothrottles offer new functions and greater utility. Airframe systems were upgraded to reduce workload and to provide better operating flexibility. In all, nearly two dozen hardware and software changes were made from which pilots can benefit in everyday operations.
Canadian Chris McCabe, chief pilot for Toronto-based Chartright Air Group, has had extensive experience flying chartered business jets into several locations within the Republic of Cuba. As the country adheres to ICAO procedures and altimetry, McCabe offered to provide a PANS OPS review for domestic operators who might eventually be Cuba-bound (or flying anywhere else that uses ICAO procedures):
Similar to other Model 525 aircraft, the Citation M2 will be powered by two Williams International FJ44 turbofans. The current plan is to keep the 1,965-lb. takeoff thrust rating, but it's certain that the new engines will have more robust cores that will provide improved hot-and-high airport performance, more climb thrust and higher cruise thrust. Expect a slight improvement in specific fuel consumption because the new powerplants will incorporate more advanced technologies than the FJ44-1AP engines fitted to the CJ1+.
