New York charter broker Emerald Jet Charter has added helicopter service to its travel portfolio, arranging trips from the three Manhattan heliports. Adding helicopter services made sense purely based on the demand from clients, says Emerald President Tracy Nuzzo. “We are based in Manhattan, which is one part of the country that benefits tremendously from helicopter service, and with summer upon us, our local clients are traveling much more on private helicopters than any type of aircraft available,” she explains.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has purchased 12 AS350 B2 helicopters from American Eurocopter. The helicopters will be placed into service with the department’s Aero Bureau as part of an upgrade plan for its current fleet. The order also has options that would add two additional helicopters in the future. The Aero Bureau’s current fleet of 12 AS350 B2s has been serving the county since 2003.
Robert “Bob” Breiling just shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders when he talks about his 2009 Business Turbine Aircraft Accident Review. Same story, different year. Human error once again caused or factored into three-quarters of all reported accidents and incidents. Most disturbingly, pilot error account–ed for half of all human error, a trend that has held steady for more than two decades. Maintenance technicians were responsible for another 16.7% of the mishaps and airport conditions or staff were accountable for the balance of human errors.
John Hopkinson, president and CEO of the largest aircraft brokerage in Canada, notes that while the Canadian business aircraft market remains soft, it is not suffering to the same extent that the rest of the world is. The veteran aircraft marketer, whose Calgary, Alberta-based company deals mostly with Canadian clients, says, “Anything older than 10 years has gone stale, but newer super-midsize and larger aircraft seem to be holding their own.”
That was an absolutely beautiful little tour of Cyprus. I loved the way we came around the west end and sort of glided down just off the coast, edging in over the beach and then landing. It was just perfect. What a nice diversion on the way to the Middle East. You make it look so easy . . . Lovely.”
Bizliner Aviation has added crew resourcing services for owners and operators of the large VVIP aircraft it terms “bizliners.” While not a staffing organization per se, Bizliner Aviation is now equipped to provide qualified and vetted short-, medium- and long-term flight deck, cabin and maintenance/engineering crewmember contracts as an adjunct to their core services.
NetJets founder Richard Santulli is back in the aviation business, this time to help finance long-range helicopters needed to service the offshore oil exploration and production industry. He and investment partners are providing financing through Milestone Aviation Group, an all-new entity. “Operators are going farther offshore, and that longer distance will be tied into how much more their equipment will cost,” Santulli told BCA.
The FAA is replacing the current FAA phraseology, “taxi into position and hold” with the ICAO “line up and wait” phraseology effective Sept. 30. Pilots need to be familiar with and be ready to read back and accept instructions from air traffic control using the new phraseology.
ARGUS TRAQPak data indicates July business aircraft activity was up very slightly at +0.6% from the previous month. The fractional industry market segment had the strongest increase over June at +10.8%, with Part 135 charter showing modest growth of +2.5%. The Part 91 corporate sector showed declines in all aircraft categories. Comparing year over year results (July 2010 vs. July 2009), aircraft activity was down slightly, -0.9% overall.
Bombardier Business Aircraft (Montreal) — Chiko Kundi has been appointed manager, international pre-owned aircraft sales. Kundi, who is based in Montreal, is responsible for the sale of pre-owned Learjet, Challenger and Global business jets in Asia, Australia, China, India and sub-Saharan Africa. Since 2007, he has been a sales account representative for Bombardier Business Aircraft, focusing on emerging markets.
U.S. business jet flights increased for the seventh consecutive month in June, according to the FAA’s latest Business Jet Monthly report. The number of flights increased 12.5% when compared with June 2009, the FAA reports. Domestic travel improved 11.5%, while flights departing and entering the United States were up 18%.
Cessna delivered four aircraft in the People’s Republic of China in July — one Citation Mustang and three 208 Caravans. Two of the Caravans were financed by the leasing division of AVIC, China’s primary aviation organization. The Mustang, the first to be delivered in China, was delivered to Deng Bin, a repeat customer who also owns and flies a Citation CJ1+.
Gulfstream Aerospace’s Gulfstream G550 and G500 have received type certificate validation from the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand. The approvals allow operators to register the business jets in that country, the company announced August 18. The two aircraft join the Gulfstream GIV, GIV-SP, G400 and G300, which New Zealand approved for registration in 2003.
According to “How Many Hours Are Enough?” (Washington Watch, July 2010, page 64) an FAA proposal to raise the airline pilot minimums has produced “a chorus” that “emphatically rejects the 1,500 hr./ATP requirement for Part 121 first officers . . .” And the Regional Airline Association said the proposal could have “the unintended and negative effect of reducing the number of highly qualified airline pilot professionals without any demonstrable safety benefit.”
New Beechcraft Baron and Bonanza aircraft will have Garmin Synthetic Vision Technology and other avionics upgrades as standard equipment beginning in August, Hawker Beechcraft announced.
Canada’s Transportation Safety Board (TSB) believes that many pilots — if not most — are unaware of two important concepts. The first of them is that not all visual glideslope indicator systems (PAPI, VASI, etc.) are created equal; and secondly, that knowledge of an aircraft’s visual perspective, measured as eye-to-wheel-height (EWH), is necessary to assess whether a given visual glideslope indicator is appropriate for the aircraft being flown. In fact, even if a pilot knows the importance of EWH, the number may not be available in the AFM or other documentation.
Bell Helicopter and Aeronautical Accessories, Inc. of Piney Flats, Tenn., have teamed up to offer customers substantially better hot-and-high performance for the Bell 407 through an STC being offered to operators at no cost. The power boost is achieved by drawing on the helicopter’s design and performance reserves. Using the STC, which is available as a retrofit through Aeronautical Accessories, Model 407 operators can, under specific conditions, boost their useful load by more than 400 lb, or increase their hover ceiling by more than 3,000 ft.
Long before the ceremony took place, we at BCA braced for disappointment at this year’s Aerospace Journalist of the Year Awards dinner at London’s Park Lane Hotel. Once again our editors had done well, and five of our features had been shortlisted for recognition. The uncomfortable reality was that several were in competition with each other in different categories and since there are no ties, we knew some of our own — possibly all — would come away empty-handed. And on July 18, that’s what happened, which is a shame.
The TSA estimates the new streamlined process for prescreening passengers and crews of international flights will eliminate about 60% of its workload. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA Administrator John Pistole jointly announced the new process at the recent EAA AirVenture. A NOTAM has been released explaining the new process that uses the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s electronic Advance Passenger Information System (eAPIS) beginning Sept. 1.
Garmin Synthetic Vision Technology (SVT) has won FAA, EASA and Brazilian ANAC certification in the Embraer Phenom 100 aircraft. SVT re-creates a visual topographic landscape from a terrain database through graphics modeling, simulating what the pilot would see with the naked eye in broad daylight. The virtual reality display offers a supplemental 3-D depiction of ground, water, obstacles, airports and traffic.
Jack DeCrane, who had managed merger and acquisition activities for the Aerospace and Defense Group of BF Goodrich, set up his own venture to acquire aircraft suppliers in 1989. That company, DeCrane Aerospace, evolved in to a major supplier of business aircraft cabin products with projected 2010 sales of $170 million. Along the way he acquired auxiliary fuel system maker and completion company, PATS Aircraft Systems. Jack DeCrane died in 1979. Now, coming full circle, DeCrane Holdings has agreed to sell off its interior fittings business to Goodrich.
A new program is using the 66-spacecraft Iridium constellation to provide continuous, global monitoring of space weather. The Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment (Ampere),is a collaboration between the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Iridium and Boeing.
Everett, Wash.-based AeroMech Inc. is helping Mid-Continent Instruments of Wichita obtain an STC for the installation of Mid-Continent’s MD835 lithium ion battery in a variety of general aviation aircraft, including the Beech King Air 200 and 300 and several Citation models. AeroMech, which provides engineering consulting services, is overseeing the initial battery installation in a King Air 200.
The AOPA and NBAA will help their members make the most of their light general aviation aircraft as business tools this fall at each group’s annual convention. Speaking on “AOPA Live” at EAA AirVenture, AOPA President and CEO Craig L. Fuller and NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen unveiled the six forums that will be presented as the Light Business Airplane Conference at both the NBAA Annual Meeting & Convention, Oct. 19 to 21 in Atlanta, and the AOPA Aviation Summit, Nov. 11 to 13 in Long Beach, Calif.
