At GAMA’s “State of the Industry” press conference in late February, GAMA Chairman John Rosanvallon, president and CEO of Dassault Falcon, reported that the global economic downturn continued to negatively impact general aviation manufacturers in 2010, but that signs of a recovery have started to emerge. “Our industry experienced another challenging year that required many manufacturers to continue to make careful decisions about production schedules, employment and product development,” said Rosanvallon.
CitationAir’s fleet of 81 aircraft just got faster as the company added six of the fastest production business jet to its lineup. The Mach 0.92 Citation X can take customers from Los Angeles to New York in just over 4 hr., lopping a half hour off the typical time.
The used aircraft market, while improving, remains a major concern, declared GAMA chairman John Rosanvallon during the association’s annual “State of the Industry” presentation.
The FAA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System, which turns 36 this year, has firmly established itself as an integral resource for coming to terms with our own failings or alerting the authorities to potential threats to aviation safety. How many of us, having committed an unintentional mistake, say, busting an assigned altitude, or having witnessed a series of events that could ultimately snowball into an accident, reflexively thought, “I’ve got to file an ASRS report on that?”
The Helicopter Academy to Train by Simulation of Flying (HATSOFF), a Bangalore, India-based joint venture of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and CAE, has received a CAE-built cockpit simulator for HAL Dhruv helicopter training. The system is for the civil/conventional variant of the Dhruv, but additional cockpits for the Army/Air Force variant and the Eurocopter Dauphin are expected to be added over the next year. The simulator is slated to go operational in May following Level D certification by India’s civil aviation agency.
When the young man got off the airplane, his mother hugged him lovingly, his brother gave him a familial shove, and then both stepped away alarmed, and a bit nauseous. The kid stank. More than that, he reeked in a special, terrible way, the noxious animal odor oozing from his pores seeming to have stewed within for weeks. And it had.
Helistream Inc. is a helicopter operator and sales organization located at John Wayne Airport (formerly Orange County) in Costa Mesa, Calif. The company was established almost 30 years ago and is owned by partners Rod Anderson and Barb Perrin, both former military helicopter pilots. Helistream is also one of Robinson’s oldest dealers.
Eurocopter officially inaugurated its new North Sea Service Center in Aberdeen, Scotland, providing a training, technical support and logistics facility in close proximity to helicopter operators that support the region’s oil and gas industry — as well as the emerging wind farm sector. Eurocopter rotary-wing aircraft constitute the largest helicopter fleet in the United Kingdom. The center has a new EC225 helicopter full-flight simulator.
General Electric’s H80 engine will power the LET L410 regional turboprop aircraft under a five-year agreement signed with Czech manufacturer Aircraft Industries. GE will deliver 20+ engines per year to support new and retrofit installations on the L410-UVP-E20 twin-engine commuter aircraft. Certification on the L410 will be significant, marking GE’s entry into the air transport market with the H80 engine, developed as a competitor to Pratt & Whitney Canada’s PT6. Aircraft Industries plans to complete H80-powered L410 aircraft certification by mid-2012.
Airbus delivered 15 corporate jets in 2010, worth more than $1.5 billion at list prices, setting a new record for this sector of its business. The company delivered 13 A318 Elites, ACJs and A320 Prestige aircraft, plus two VIP widebody A330/A340s. Airbus also won eight ACJ orders in 2010, bringing total orders to date for Airbus VIP models to more than 170 aircraft. The new orders are for seven aircraft from the A318 Elite/Airbus ACJ/A320 Prestige family, plus one widebody A330/A340.
The availability of the second-generation EASy II avionics package for the Falcon 7X now has slid to the end of 2012. The basic package includes more-powerful graphics modules, among several other hardware and software upgrades needed to support its increased functionality.
Gustavo Sganzerla (Brasilia, Brazil), — Dick Aarons (Former Dispatcher)
I am a pilot and flight department manager for an FAR Part 91 operation in Central Brazil, and am a huge fan of BCA. I always read it cover to cover. However, you must be kidding with “A Failed Culture of Safety” (Cause & Circumstance, February 2011, page 53). The copilot feathers both engines, thus crashing the airplane, and corporate culture is the culprit? OK, maybe there were some problems with Quest’s corporate safety culture, but this particular accident doesn’t seem to have been caused by them.
Abu Dhabi’s Al Bateen Executive Airport reported a 36% increase in civil operations in 2010, compared with 2009. Officials credit the increase to their success in attracting corporate and VIP clients to the only business aviation airport in the region. “The year-end performance report for Al Bateen Executive Airport indicated that the airport registered 7,970 commercial aircraft movements in 2010,” says General Manager Steve Jones.
Moline, Ill.-based Elliott Aviation has achieved ISO 9001:2008 and AS9100:2004 Rev. B certification. The approval covers several of its services, including modifications, avionics work, structural adjustments, interiors, fueling and painting.
Rockwell Collins has opened its China System Support Center in Shanghai for fundamental and advanced engineering, program management training, systems integration and avionics system consulting. A major Comac C919 supplier, Rockwell Collins expects to expand its reach in China with the support center. The company is providing the 150-seat jet’s communication, navigation, surveillance, cabin management, inflight entertainment and simulator components.
Duncan Aviation recently earned additional STCs for the installation of Aircell’s cabin telecommunication router, which provides Wi-Fi access in the cabin for the Gogo Biz Inflight Internet service. The new STCs apply to Hawker Beechcraft 800XP, 850XP and 900XP aircraft, as well as Dassault Falcon 2000 and Falcon 2000EX EASy airplanes.
BAE Systems is increasingly optimistic about selling its aircraft as corporate shuttles, reports BCA sister publication Aviation Daily. “We had a pretty upbeat year [in 2010], and we are pretty upbeat going into 2011,” said Steve Doughty, senior vice president of sales and marketing asset management at BAE Systems Regional Aircraft.
Thank you for the excellent article, “Curbing the FAA’s Enforcement Overreach” (Washington Watch, February 2011, page 59). Having survived the nightmare I appreciate that reasonable minds are trying to correct the process.
Brazil’s ANAC has certified the Bell Helicopter Model 429. This follows certification by the U.S. FAA, Transport Canada and EASA. Deliveries in Brazil will begin early this year. The helicopter was first certified as a single-pilot IFR, Category A helicopter under Part 27 airworthiness rules in mid-2009.
JetMadam.com — a multiple jet-listing service based at John Wayne Airport (SNA) in Newport Beach, Calif. — bills itself as “a new website for buyers, brokers and industry professionals looking for a fresh approach to marketing private jets.” The main attraction of the website is the “Photo of the Month” tab, where visitors can view several pictures of attractive women standing in front of a business jet for sale and vote for their favorite image.
Another encroachment on FAA authority over air commerce. The National Park Service (NPS) has drafted a plan to restrain aircraft activity over Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP). The plan calls for new limits on the number of air tour operations, hours of their flights and minimum altitudes. The NPS draft environmental impact statement (DEIS), which covers air tour flights and calls for the “substantial restoration of natural quiet” over GCNP, is open for public review. Comments are due June 6.
Dennis Rousseau, president of AircraftPost.com — the Albany, N.Y.-based company that provides real-time valuations for more than 5,000 medium and large business jets — believes that aircraft prices have stabilized at roughly 25% under “a normalized market,” but that it may be up to three years before the excess inventory of used aircraft shrinks enough for airplane prices to reflect their true value. However, he cautions, “We need to be careful and not look at 2007/2008 as the ‘normal market’ to return to because prices weren’t normal; they were exaggerated.”
Gulfstream Aerospace has purchased a building to house its growing research and development program. The 253,000-sq.-ft. facility is located adjacent to the company’s R&D campus in Crossroads Business Park, near its headquarters at Savannah-Hilton Head International Airport. The acquisition is part of an expansion plan Gulfstream announced last November that includes building new facilities at the northwest quadrant of the airport, renovating several existing facilities on the main headquarters campus and expanding office and lab facilities at the R&D center.
