Breitling has introduced the Chronospace watch with an array of functions that are useful to pilots: 1/100 of a second chronograph with split times; alarm, countdown, dual time zone display with independent alarm; 24-hour military time, coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and a perpetual calendar, all powered by a chronometer-certified Breitling SuperQuartz movement. The large dial has oversized hands, along with luminescent hour-markers and large three and nine o’clock numerals. Various wristbands, including a new bracelet in satin-brushed woven steel, are available.
I got a sick feeling as I watched the aircraft going round and round on CNN Headline News. It was April 30, 2004, and the video headline read: “Air Show Veteran Dies in Florida Spin Accident.” The footage followed the Sukhoi 31 all the way to its sickening end as it slammed into the ocean. Ian Groom, one of the most respected air show pilots in the world, had lost control of his aerobat while practicing for the Air and Sea Show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on his 58th birthday.
Pan Am International Flight Academy acquired the training and simulator assets of Miami-based Aeroservice Aviation Center, the company announced Sept. 15. Aeroservice’s simulators will be integrated into Pan Am’s system and positioned where they most effectively serve customers. Aeroservice’s Miami training center will become Pan Am’s seventh training facility and will operate under Pan Am’s FAR Part 142 certificate. Pan Am, with the exception of a Cessna Caravan simulator in Memphis, focuses on heavy-iron training.
There are people way behind the eight ball . . . in panic mode. There is a whole list of issues, and operators are fed up. They say, ‘Here’s another regulation. It takes time. It takes money. Why do I need it? I haven’t had an accident.’” The speaker is one of the many who deal with the safety management system (SMS) issue on a daily basis. And no operator wants to go on record expressing anything negative on the subject. “It sounds as if we’re against safety,” as one put it.
Al Jaber Aviation (AJA) is the first Middle East customer to offer an Airbus aircraft for VVIP charter flights, following the delivery of its first A318 Elite, According to Airbus. AJA has three A318 Elites and two Airbus Corporate Jetliners (ACJs) on order, which would make it the largest operator of Airbus corporate jets in the region, the company said.
She seemed frail and delicate, but was alert throughout the proceedings, which her bright eyes followed with keen interest. At the tables filling the ballroom sat a mixture of young, less young and middle-aged, with an ample portion of white-haired or bald-domed seniors, some stooped, some hard of hearing, but all smiling, clearly glad to be there. This was the Wichita Aero Club’s second annual dinner dance and the evening’s highlight was the inaugural presentation of the club’s trophy to Mrs. Velma Wallace, the diminutive nonagenarian sitting opposite me.
A Sensis Corp. team has advice for airport officials who want more capacity. Matthew Blake, director of strategic initiatives for advanced development at Sensis said, “New vehicles are the mechanism to do that.” Five aircraft types: cruise-efficient STOL transports, large commercial tiltrotors, UASs, VLJs and SSTs have potential for a strong impact at airports in urban areas, including major hubs and surrounding regional airports,
The G650 is arguably Gulfstream Aerospace’s most ambitious technological leap since Grumman, the line's progenitor, introduced the GII in 1965. The newest, top-of-the-line Gulfstream will cost nearly $1 billion to bring to market, by some industry estimates. In return, the G650 will offer passengers the largest cabin of any purpose-built business aircraft yet introduced. It will have the highest cruise speeds, longest range and best fuel efficiency of any business aircraft cruising at Mach 0.85.
Predator Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) began operating out of Corpus Christi, Texas, on Sept. 1. With the deployment of a UAS in Texas, the Department of Homeland Securities’ unmanned aerial serveillance will now cover the Southwest border from the El Centro Sector in California all the way to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas — providing aerial surveillance assistance to ground personnel.
As the northern hemisphere slips into the cold seasons, cautious pilots will review the ice protection information located in their airplane’s documentation (AFM, POH, etc.) and their company’s winter operating procedures. Ice destroys lift and chokes off power. Ice takes down large aircraft and small. Ice is insidious. Small amounts of barely visible ice on a modern high-performance wing can glue your airplane to the ground and send you rolling off the end of the departure runway at takeoff velocity with no options and lousy prospects.
Six Predator UAVs are sitting in their shipping crates in Grand Forks, N.D., due to a dispute between military authorities and the FAA. The military is demanding a 31-by-45-mi. restricted training area for UAV operations and the FAA won’t go beyond a waiver agreement similar to that on the Southern border, fearing loss of operator control similar to the Aug. 2 incident where operators lost contact with a unmanned helicopter for 30 min. as it wandered toward the National Capital district.
DART Helicopter Services (DHS), a distributor of certified helicopter accessories, and Hawker Pacific Aerospace have signed an agreement that will give DHS the capability to offer its complete inventory to operators in Hawker Pacific’s markets (Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Dubai), supplementing its operations in North and South America, Europe, Japan, China and Singapore. DART Helicopter Services www.darths.com Hawker Pacific Aerospace www.hawker.com
Bombardier Aerospace President and COO Guy Hachey says that last year only 30% of the company’s business jet orders came from the United States, and he estimates that for the quarter ending July 31, only 10% of the new orders came from the United States. The most orders came from Europe and company feels there is stong sales potential in Asia.
No strike at Cessna. Although 58% of Machinists union employees at Cessna Aircraft voted Sept. 18 to reject a management contract offer made Sept. 14, a follow-on vote, with 49% of members to voting for a strike, did not meet the two-thirds vote criterion needed to strike. As a result, management’s seven-year contract went into effect by default, averting a walkout by 2,400 union workers. The IAM negotiating committee had unanimously recommended that its members reject Cessna’s initial contract offer and vote to strike. Job security and health care were two key issues.
Airports and air traffic control could see significant federal funding under a plan proposed by President Barack Obama. While Washington already has poured billions of dollars into airport infrastructure, the aging air traffic control system has seen little help from previous stimulus plans. In a Labor Day speech before a union audience in Milwaukee, Wis., Obama said the six-year plan will be aimed at “rebuilding and modernizing” the U.S.
The recent volcanic eruptions in Iceland are causing many business aircraft operators to rethink how they plan their Atlantic crossings. Eyjafjallajökull‘s massive ash cloud flowed as if it were a sand tsunami washing through the atmosphere for thousands of miles, threatening every aircraft in its path with erosive grit. To safeguard aircraft, air traffic control authorities were intermittently closing large blocks of European airspace, rerouting air traffic along circuitous paths and, at times, delaying departures for several hours.
The detention at gunpoint of King Schools founders John and Martha King by Santa Barbara police the night of Aug. 29, based on inaccurate aircraft information maintained by government agencies, has highlighted the lack of information sharing and coordination among the Department of Justice, TSA and FAA. NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen said, “We believe there is an urgent need for the creation of a joint government-industry group that can expeditiously conduct a top-to-bottom review of the process to ensure that incidents such as this one never occur in the future.
Garmin, Ltd. has excelled in carving out markets in business and general aviation for its integrated avionics product line. We asked the Olathe, Kan., firm’s avionics product manager, Bill Stone, a quintet of questions about his company’s navigation and terrain databases: Does Garmin create its own nav and terrain databases or does it buy them from others?
The sparse imagery lofted from terrain databases by SVS circuitry is adequate for the purpose of depicting the contour of terrain an SVS-equipped aircraft is passing over, but why not make it “photo-realistic,” as in “Avatar” and other CGI-based films and video games?
SimCom Training Centers will provide training on the Eclipse 500 starting in the third quarter of this year and will be the exclusive source and provider of factory authorized simulator-based training for Eclipse Aerospace in North, Central and South America. Two EA-500 Level D simulators have been relocated to SimCom’s training center in Orlando. Both sims include the Avio integrated avionics system, and planned upgrades include the Avio NG 1.7 suite, along with autopilot enhancements, GPS WASS capability and flight into known icing modifications.
Most likely your radar has an unfortunately mislabeled control on it somewhere marked “GAIN.” Confusion results from the word’s etymology tracing to an old, old Germanic word having to do with the ratio of output to input (or maybe input to output). In modern times it’s become a word radar engineers put on certain radar knobs to flummox pilots.
A bonus depreciation provision, supported by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) would cover certain business equipment purchases in 2010, including general aviation aircraft. To qualify for bonus depreciation aircraft must be placed into service by the end of 2011. The measure would enable a business to take an additional 50% depreciation on a capital investment in the first year, rather that over a five-year period.
Business aviation will be competing with the airline industry for 466,650 pilots and 596,500 maintenance personnel over the next 20 years to operate and maintain new and replacement airline aircraft, according to a crew assessment forecast from Boeing. Airlines will need an average of 23,300 new pilots and 30,000 new maintenance personnel per year from 2010 to 2029. The crew assessment forecast is based on Boeing’s “Current Market Outlook,” a widely respected analysis of the commercial aviation market.
A new laser-based defense system being developed at the University of Michigan and Omni Sciences Inc., with possible application to civil VIP helicopters, that would protect helicopters in combat from heat-seeking missiles by essentially blinding the missile as it approaches its target. The technology uses mid-infrared supercontinuum lasers capable of scrambling heat-seeking weapons from a distance of 1.8 mi. away. Omni Sciences received $1 million in grants from the U.S. Army and DARPA to build a second-generation prototype.
