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.
I chose my career field on a sunny summer day outside of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, near Gatlinburg, Tenn. I was seven. We had been tooling along on a family vacation when up ahead we spotted an old, bubble front Bell 47. Beside it was a sign that read, "Helicopter Rides, $5." "Dad! Only $5! A helicopter ride! Can we? That would be sooo cool! Please."
On April 11, the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame will enshrine the following people at its annual banquet at the Century of Flight Hangar at the Georgia Museum of Aviation. (Contact Nicole Bissette at (478) 328-0704 for reservations and information.)
American Eurocopter has delivered a VIP-configured EC145 to Lewis Energy. It is the third Eurocopter aircraft for the company. “We started with an AS350 and then moved to the EC135 for its larger cabin size and twin-engine performance,” said Rod Lewis, Lewis Energy founder, president and CEO.”The EC145 gives us an even bigger cabin.” American Eurocopter said it worked closely with the customer on the interior completion and the exterior paint of its new aircraft.
Bell Helicopter will upgrade its 412EP medium turbine twin with uprated engines and a glass cockpit for retrofit and as an option on new production aircraft beginning in 2012. Pratt & Whitney Canada is to increase the output of its PT6T Twin Pac powerplant, now 1,800 shp, by 15% to increase single-engine and hot-and-high performance and provide for growth in payload and range. The upgrade also will introduce digital engine controls.
Peter Diamandis, a publishing executive (and not the head of the X Prize Foundation), was explaining to me how the company had come into being. He had been working for CBS in Manhattan and Larry Tisch, the billionaire who then ran the place, was selling all kinds of things to reduce debt and improve the bottom line. Tisch had been considering offloading the company’s magazine division to an outside group, so Diamandis began devising a more attractive plan for taking over the division himself.
“Like a lot of people in this industry, I’ve got to believe the worst is behind us, “said Dave Labrozzi, president of GE Capital Corporate Aircraft Finance, at the end of 2010. “We are now in recovery mode. Time will tell how fast and how far the recovery will be.” Like most companies in business aviation, GE Capital Corporate Aircraft Finance faced challenges during the past couple of years.
Cessna Aircraft Co. delivered three Citation Sovereign business jets to the Flight Inspection Center of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, responsible for inspecting navigation, radar, communication and navaid systems as well as proving flight procedures in all civil airports and airways on the Chinese mainland and in Hong Kong and Macau. The Citations will be used to calibrate navaid systems serving China’s rapidly growing network of airports. The aircraft have been certified to operate from airports of up to 15,000 ft.
AgustaWestland delivered two AW139 medium twin engine helicopters to the Cyprus Ministry of Justice in December to perform law enforcement, border patrol and search and rescue missions. Three more AW139s are to be delivered to the Cyprus Ministry of Defence for search and rescue and utility-EMS duties in the Cyprus Flight Information Region (FIR).
Solena is working with British Airways on a project to convert waste biomass destined for landfills into jet fuel. Solena plans to build a plant in East London to convert 500,000 tons of waste per year into 16 million gallons of jet fuel. BA has signed a letter-of-intent to purchase the entire output and use it to power part of its fleet from 2014. Solena, based in the state Washington, uses a patented high-temperature gasifier to produce synthetic fuel gas, which is converted into biojet fuel using the Fischer-Tropsch process.
The NATA has released a revised guidebook Refueling and Quality Control Procedures for Airport Service and Support Operations. The 2011 revision includes an in-depth review of topics relating to aviation fuel handling, with photographs and a new, easy-to-read format. The new guidebook includes chapters addressing safety; aviation fuels, fuel handling, quality control and testing; equipment; operational procedures; training; and resources. The guidebook is referenced in FAA Advisory Circular (AC) 150/5230-4A, Aircraft Fuel Storage, Handling and Dispensing on Airports.
The first production FAA-conforming HondaJet flew for the first time Dec. 20 from the Honda Aircraft Co. facility at Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, N.C. During the 51-min. flight, the aircraft’s flight characteristics and performance were analyzed and systems checks were conducted. Two other aircraft will join in the flight test program by this summer and another two will be employed in structural testing. All five aircraft are being built with production tooling in the company’s R&D center.
Piper Aircraft is exiting the light sport aircraft (LSA) market with the termination of its business relationship with Czech Republic-based Czech Sport Aircraft. The company had announced plans in January 2010 to enhance and market Czech Sport Aircraft’s LSA as the PiperSport, but Piper cited “differences in business philosophies” in its decision to end the partnership. Piper had established a new company, PiperSport Distribution, to provide a stand-alone distributor network to market the Czech-built aircraft.
Stratos lives. The team developing the Stratos 714 single-engine personal jet reported Jan. 10 that the project had third-party funding enabling wind tunnel tests of a one-eighth scale model. Those tests are expected to take place in April, probably at the University of Washington. Carsten Sundin, Stratos Aircraft’s chief technical officer and vice president of engineering, said the design of the four-place, all-composite aircraft was the product of extensive use of computation fluid dynamics (CFD).
Bombardier launched development of the clean-sheet Learjet 45 almost immediately after buying the company in June 1990. Unlike previous Learjets, the fuselage has a non-circular cross section that increases head and shoulder room for the passengers. It has a flat floor, plus a full-width, externally serviced aft lav. Interiors may be configured either with a fore-aft double club section or a center club with two front and two aft chairs. A belted potty seat is optional. There is a 50-cu.-ft. aft external baggage compartment.
Dec. 31, 2010 — At about 1426 EST, a Eurocopter EC-135-P2 (N312PH), operated by Petroleum Helicopters Inc. as AirCare 5, and a Cessna 172H (N2876L) collided in midair approximately one-half mile northwest of the Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport (SHD), Weyers Cave, Va. The Cessna airplane departed controlled flight after the right wing separated, and the airplane was destroyed by impact forces at ground contact. The helicopter sustained minor damage and landed safely at SHD. The commercial pilot and passenger onboard the Cessna were killed.
“In Close and Gusty” (October 2010, page 44) by Ross Detwiler is an excellent article on the subject of wind-shear landing and should be mandatory reading for all pilots with regard to VREF bug setting.
Transport Canada approved Canadian-registered Gulfstream G450 and G350 aircraft to operate at their maximum cruise altitude of 45,000 ft. Transport Canada restricts flight to 41,000 ft. or below unless special conditions have been met to deal with rapid cabin depressurization. Both aircraft have an automatic emergency descent mode.
Montréal, Québec, in the parlance of industry and academia, is a “cluster.” That means Canada’s second largest city encompasses within a reasonably circumscribed area the mutually supportive and economically reinforcing elements of design, development, manufacturing, marketing, government, organized labor and education that combine to produce an internationally ranked industrial center with enough history and critical mass to define success — in this case, as Canada’s aerospace capital.
The FAA says the busy holiday travel period saw at least nine laser illuminations of cockpits of airplanes takeing off or landing at Honolulu International Airport, ending a year in which reports of such incidents more than doubled, reports Aviation eBrief, citing the Honolulu Star-Advertisor. Nationwide, 2,800 laser incidents were reported in 2010, compared with 1,500 in 2009.
The Winter 2010 edition of Marketline, the Aircraft Bluebook newsletter, indicates that prices for business jets continued to slump during the third quarter of last year, while values of most turboprops remained stable during the period. A total of 502 jets declined in price, while 370 stayed stable and a mere 14 increased in value. On the positive side, the Bombardier Global Express experienced a $1 million uptick for select model years. Similarly, some late-model Gulfstream G550s recorded a $1 million move upward compared to the previous quarter.
Wendi Gavigan, vice president and manager of flight operations for Citigroup Corporate Aviation will be awarded the 2011 Schedulers & Dispatchers Outstanding Achievement & Leadership Award at the upcoming NBAA conference. The award recognizes individuals who have shared their outstanding business aviation industry expertise, provided extraordinary service, exhibited leadership and made significant contributions to the scheduling and dispatching function.
ARGUS International says that, historically, total U.S. business aviation traffic drops off during the holidays, and the company’s TRAQPak data showed that December followed the trend, with business aircraft activity down -3.2% from November. FAR Part 135 charter activity saw a modest increase of 3.0% from November. Comparing year over year December 2010 vs. December 2009, U.S. aircraft activity was up 4.4%. Looking at operational categories, the Part 91 market maintained another large increase, up 10.0%.
Piper Aircraft selected Western Aircraft as the airplane manufacturer’s dealer for new aircraft sales in Alaska, northern California, Oregon and Washington. The company will sell the full Piper product line, including the new Piper Altaire single-engine jet. Western Aircraft, part of Greenwich AeroGroup, is based at Gowen Field in Boise, Idaho.
Honda Aircraft is nearing completion of its 266,000-sq.-ft. aircraft production facility on its Greensboro, N.C., campus. Once finished, Honda will begin moving in equipment and personnel and begin pre-production preparations and training necessary to support the HondaJet production ramp-up beginning in 2012. Michimasa Fujino, Honda Aircraft president and CEO, said he expects the facility will turn out 30-40 aircraft in the first six months of production.
