The major drawback in mixing UAVs with conventional aircraft today is the former’s questionable ability to see and avoid conflicting traffic, unionized air traffic controllers maintain.
Despite excitement and hype surrounding EBACE 2010 in Geneva, the BCA Show News staff didn’t lose sight of the global picture, reporting at the show that China’s business jet fleet is expected to grow to 300 aircraft by the end of 2011, driven by growing enthusiasm from the Chinese nouveau-riche. The China Daily newspaper stated recently that Luxury Asia Ltd. sold 15 business jets into China in 2009 and aims to sell 20 more this year.
CAE announced a contract with corporate jet operator Hangar8 for pilot training services on eight aircraft models: Hawker Beechcraft, Bombardier Challenger, Cessna Citation, Dassault Falcon and Embraer. The Hawker training will be conducted at Emirates-CAE Flight Training (ECFT) in Dubai, UAE; training on other aircraft types will occur at Burgess Hill, U.K., near London and CAE SimuFlite in Dallas.
Are airplane pilots destined for the same fate as flight navigators and engineers? Will they be replaced by lines of code, electrons and data-linked commands from faceless controllers beyond the horizon? However unlikely that scenario, the trend is worth noting. As is being demonstrated daily in thousands of operations around the world, the black boxes on a growing number of aircraft are so “smart,” they obviate the need to have a human operator on board to complete a given mission.
On Aug. 1, 1999, a 1968 Cherokee Six crashed shortly after takeoff from an airport in Ohio, killing the pilot and three passengers and seriously injuring a fourth passenger. The NTSB version of the crash is straightforward. The airplane had landed to refuel and once its main tanks were filled, the five people got back on board. After takeoff, the Piper appeared to have a hard time climbing out and was “hanging on the prop.”
London Oxford Airport increased its visiting jet movements, year on year by 31.6 percent and saw its overall business aviation movements increase 12 percent from April 2009 to March 2010. Jet fuel sales at its oxfordjet business aviation facility during the period were up 47 percent. The airport is now handling an average of 20 business aircraft movements a day. “This will equate to approximately 6,000 business aviation movements a year, assuming continuation of the current rate — an achievement we are very pleased with,” commented Managing Director Steve Jones.
Early in my aviation career I was eager for adventure. So, after six weeks of battling bugs and weeds with an AGtruck out of Hardistry, Alberta, I headed north — way, way north to Yellowknife, in Canada's Northwest Territories. For those unfamiliar with the geography, Yellowknife is a town of 20,000 hearty souls planted beside icy Great Slave Lake in the wide-open plains 1,000 nm east and 1,000 nm north of Anchorage, Alaska, and Grand Forks, N.D., respectively. It's pretty much the last paved place south of the Arctic Circle.
Hawker Beechcraft Corp. has launched the Select Pre-Owned Program, which is designed to limit the cost of operation for buyers of qualifying used turbine-powered aircraft during the first year or initial 150 hours of service. The Select Pre-Owned Program covers all scheduled and unscheduled airframe, engine and avionics maintenance, including parts and labor. The plan also includes initial flight-crew training at FlightSafety International, as well as the first-year subscription to the computerized maintenance-tracking program.
Many of us remember how difficult it was to get that first job. With the ink still wet on our A&P license, we thought we had a magic ticket to a good paying job. Unfortunately, while your license got you in the door, experience was what every employer wanted, even if you had a military background. Almost every employer wants civil aircraft experience on its particular model.
T he Phenom 100, Embraer’s first purpose-built business aircraft, is winning strong endorsements from operators, in spite of experiencing its share of entry-into-service snags. Operators laud its ramp presence, cabin comfort, baggage capacity, fuel efficiency and cockpit layout. They appreciate its modern, clean-sheet design, jetliner DNA, 12-month/600-hour maintenance intervals and its low price tag.
While the most recent of the studies cited in “Double Standards” is several years old, the problems delineated continue to this very moment. We have received credible reports about federal public aircraft being routinely operated past mandatory inspection and overhaul limits; outside weight, altitude and temperature limitations; into known icing condition without anti-ice or de-icing equipment; and being fitted with non-approved transparencies and automotive-grade ball bearings in prop governors.
Russia’s Avia Group is about to start construction on a new business aviation terminal at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport (SVO). The 2,700 square-meter facility, dubbed Terminal A, is expected to open within the next 12 months.
Regarding “A Medevac Ends in Disaster” (Cause & Circumstance, May 2010, page 79), I have a theory that most helicopter pilots received their basic training in the U.S. Army or one of the military flight schools. In those schools the mindset is “the mission, the mission, the mission.” At their age, they are “going to live forever” and the mission — that is, to deliver the weapon, rescue the wounded, deliver the freight under fire, etc. — must be accomplished at all costs.
The Presidential Flight of Abu Dhabi has recently introduced into its fleet a second BAE Systems Avro Business Jet, a late model Avro RJ100, which joins the operator’s existing VIP RJ70. The RJ100 was converted into a VIP aircraft by Inflite Engineering Ltd. at London Stansted Airport. Over the past 12 months, three Avro Business Jets have been placed with operators, and approximately 25 of the four-engine VIP aircraft are now either in service or in the process of being converted.
FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt says the agency will continue to consult closely with outside stakeholders as it works to adopt recommendations to accelerate the NextGen ATM modernization effort. Babbitt praised the work done by an RTCA taskforce last year to draft NextGen recommendations. RTCA is “the vehicle for consensus” on the NextGen plan, he said. Even with the work of the taskforce completed, the FAA will still conduct “strong outreach to the aviation stakeholders” regarding NextGen.
Space prohibits recognition of all the business aviation operators that donated their aircraft and cockpit crews to the Haitian earthquake relief effort; industry companies supporting it with donations of money, food and supplies; and volunteers who gave generously of their time and sweat. Thumbnail sketches of many others can be found on the NBAA Web site at www.nbaa.org/news/2010/haiti/business-aviation-in-action/missions.
Over 60 percent of those participating in a March UBS survey expect business conditions to improve in the next 12 months. The financial firm polled a group of U.S. and international aircraft broker/dealers, manufacturers, fractional providers, financiers and others. It received 150 responses. Four percent expect conditions to deteriorate, while 35 percent expect business conditions to stay the same over the next 12 months.
“Total Eclipse,” a new refurbishment and completion program for the EA500 unveiled earlier this spring by Albuquerque-based Eclipse Aerospace Inc. (EAI), looks to put more models of the very light jet on the market. Under the program, customers can fly away in a 100-percent complete EA500, including avionics and approval for flight in known icing (FIKI), for $2.15 million.
A new group of upgrades for the Sikorsky S-92, which has already received more than 60 enhancements since entering service in 2004, has been announced. The new enhancements include: A search-and-rescue automatic flight control system that enables the twin-engine aircraft to fly a pre-programmed coupled approach and reduces pilot workload in the search and rescue environment.
General Aviation associations gathered in Germany during April’s AERO Friedrichshafen called for programs to raise the profile of general aviation across the European Union, to forestall potentially onerous emission and environmental regulation. “It is much more effective to speak with one common voice on the issues that are affecting our industry, including airspace and airport access, aircraft manufacturing costs, the environment and security,” said Craig Fuller, president of the AOPA and the International AOPA. He referred to the U.S.
Avoiding the ash-laden cloud a volcano produces is the only way to guarantee that an aircraft is not damaged by the cloud’s dangerous particles, which can destroy aircraft engines and threaten flight safety. Read more about Volcanic Hazards and Aviation Safety on the Flight Safety Foundation Web site: http://flightsafety.org/fsd/fsd_may93.pdf
The first H80 turboprop engine is in certification testing since March in a test cell at the GE Aviation Czech facility in Prague. The first H80 test engine met or exceeded all power ratings targets in multiple runs, said Paul Theofan, president and managing executive of GE Aviation Czech s.r.o., a wholly owned subsidiary of GE Aviation. “Certification testing will continue this spring with endurance testing [scheduled to start in April] and EASA type certification anticipated this summer,” he said. Five development engines will take part in certification testing.
Strap into the left seat of a Global Express XRS equipped with Bombardier’s new Global Vision cockpit and you’ll see four, 15.1-inch flat-panel displays, the largest screens installed in any new business jet. You’ll also see sharper imagery from a new generation of video systems, including a synthetic vision system that uses the highest resolution terrain database that is commercially available and an IR EVS camera with four times the sensor resolution found on current generation Bombardier aircraft.
Airliner of the ’80s? Using present rocket techniques, 30-passenger hypersonic transport separates from supersonic booster at 120,000 feet, accelerates to 15,000 mph and then, with the power off, glides to an airport 6,000 miles away in one hour. That’s what commercial air travel may look like in 20 years, according to Leston Faneui, Bell Aircraft board chairman — if the government backs development.
The International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) and the International Council of Aircraft Owner and Pilots Associations (IAOPA) called for an improvement to data collection in non-commercial aviation internationally. The recommendation came during ICAO’s High-Level Safety Conference in Montreal.
