To mark the centenary of Lyon-Bron airport near Lyon, France, the airport authority is inaugurating a new business aviation facility. Authorities stated, “Lyon-Bron airport has become the third largest business aviation airport in France.
Fokker Services’ recently established Remarketing Support Center has been awarded an exclusive contract to remarket two Fokker 70s that have been operated as corporate shuttles. Both twinjets are configured with 48 business-class seats and have a range of more than 2,150 nm. Target markets for these aircraft include corporate shuttle applications for natural resources companies. Alternatively, the aircraft can be converted to a standard airliner configuration with up to 80 seats.
Solid economic growth and a rapid rise in the value of Brazil’s currency, the Real, have eroded Embraer’s advantage in labor costs, says CEO Frederico Fleury Curado. “People feel we have the advantage of low-cost labor, but that’s outdated information,” he said. Curado notes that Embraer will assemble Phenom 100 in Melbourne, Fla. He says the cost of building and finishing a Phenom in Florida is “about the same” as the cost of building it in Brazil and shipping it to North America. “Yes, we are cheaper than in Germany,” he says.
Frasca International received FAA Level 7 qualification on a Bell 206B Flight Training Device installed at FlightSafety International’s Learning Center in Lafayette, La. This is the highest level of qualification for Flight Training Devices and only the second FTD qualified to the Level 7 standard. The first was a Eurocopter AS350 FTD installed at FSI’s facility in Tucson, Ariz. The FTD is fixed based with a vibration platform and is integrated to FlightSafety’s Vital X visual system using Frasca’s spherical display screens to provide a 200 x 70 field of view.
Daher Socata Daher Socata does not appear to be any further along in developing its new NTX. All executives will say is that the NTX will be a twin-engine aircraft and significantly larger than the existing TBM 850 single, accommodating six to eight passengers. The aircraft is likely to make extensive use of new technologies, notably all-composite fuselage know-how being developed by an in-house ground-demonstrator program, FusComp. Whether it will be a turbofan or a turboprop, like the TBM 850, remains to be seen.
Air Methods, the Centennial Airport-based company that claims to be the world’s largest air ambulance operator, has received an STC for installation of the Cobham Digital Audio Control System in the Bell 429. Air Methods’ Products Division in Colorado recently installed the system on a Bell 429 aeromedical helicopter that was to be delivered to the Air Methods Mercy One hospital-based program in Des Moines, Iowa.
Eclipse Aerospace and SimCom announced a partnership to provide pilot training for EA 500 operators. Eclipse will relocate two EA 500 Level D simulators to SimCom’s training center in Orlando. The high-fidelity training devices will be operated by SimCom to provide initial and recurrent pilot training. Simulator training is scheduled to begin later this year. Eclipse will continue to provide initial, recurrent and differences inflight training until the simulators are installed and operational in Orlando.
At AERO Friedrichshafen, in Germany, Cessna officials said they remain optimistic, but cautious, about the predicted rebound in general aviation’s piston segment. Despite its slowdown in 2009, Cessna delivered 354 piston-engine aircraft, 305 of them four-seaters. “We see a number of indications that the general economy may be stabilizing and that should eventually translate into a return to growth in the piston market,” said John Doman, vice president, Worldwide Propeller Aircraft Sales.
Fokker Services has delivered its first auxiliary fuel tank system for the Fokker 100. The system was installed in a VIP-configured aircraft delivered to an unnamed customer. The four additional fuel tanks, which are installed in the forward belly cargo compartment, increase the range of the twin-engine airliner to approximately 2,700 nm.
Airbus parent company EADS is backing algae as the best source of sustainable jet fuel, asserting that other feedstocks will not allow the airline industry to meet its carbon-footprint reduction goals. EADS Chief Technical Officer Jean Botti does not believe second-generation, plant-derived biofuels now under development offer sufficient life-cycle, carbon-dioxide reductions to replace petroleum-based jet fuel.
It’s a given that the best flights are those flown first on the ground when the pilot tries to anticipate every aspect of the coming mission, including all the likely complications, and how to resolve them. I’ve tried to do that since my first flight as a teenager in a Cherokee 140, but became fanatical about the practice the day the U.S. Navy notified me that I’d been accepted for pilot training. This was my life’s dream, and I was going to do everything possible to earn those wings of gold.
“Pilots Optional” (Viewpoint, March 2010, page 7) was an excellent editorial. Right on! I’ve been telling my readers for some time that the long-term future of airborne radar is zip. In a pilotless airplane who is going to interpret the radar and avoid unpleasantness? One option would be to download radar data to a pilot on the ground, which defeats the whole purpose. Besides, airline managements are not going to keep buying airborne radar systems. Dumb.
The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority issued unmanned aircraft guidelines for British airspace operations, extending to even the smallest systems the requirement to obtain an operational permit. Since 2008, only operators of air vehicles weighing seven kilograms (15 pounds) or more had to seek CAA permission to operate their system. But under the April 6 guidelines the CAA says that unmanned aircraft having a mass of less than seven kilograms now are included.
A new BCA Ops & Safety Special Web site went live April 1, and the first series focuses on thunderstorms. The site is packed with BCA features, accident investigations, product specs, videos, photos and more. With thunderstorm season here (in the Northern Hemisphere) it’s worth a visit: www.aviationweek.com/bcathunderstorms.
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.
FAA SAFO 10004 warns aircraft operators of possibly contaminated halon gas in fire extinguishers and provides testing information. With pure halon supplies dwindling, civil aviation will increasingly rely on recycled gas. But contaminated halon has been discovered in some aircraft fire extinguishers, which may harm personnel and be less effective against fires than pure halon.
This is the Caravan’s 25th anniversary, and Cessna will deliver the 2,000th CE208, a Grand Caravan, later this year through Africair, Inc., in Miami, Fla. The Caravan is certified in 100 countries and has amassed more than 12.5 million fleet hours
General Electric Aviation has begun line maintenance training courses at its headquarters in Evendale, Ohio, for M601E and H80 turboprop engines produced by GE Aviation Czech. Since acquiring Walter Engines two years ago, GE Aviation has used the heritage M601 as a basis for the H80, an 800-shp candidate for business and general aviation.
Californian Drohan can’t remember a time when he didn’t love airplanes — much to the horror of his parents and three older siblings who did not. After his father died when he was 12, a family friend introduced him to a small outfit selling biplane rides at Schellville Airport in Sonoma. Hooked instantly, he got an after-school job there and took pay in flying lessons. Then, diploma in hand, he earned his comm/multi/instrument tickets and in 1992 began Sunset Aviation, Inc., giving air tours over San Francisco Bay.
Over the years, business aviation has seen many advances and technological leaps forward. For those of us who have been around for a while, we have seen some remarkable changes. We fly some of the most advanced aircraft in the world, and many of them are more complex than front line fighters. For maintenance technicians and maintenance managers, the laptop computer is as important as the wrench for keeping aircraft flying safely. Just about anything you need — from schematics to Airworthiness Directives — can be retrieved with a few mouse clicks.
Blue Sky Network announced that Brazilian-based TAM Executive Aviation (TAM EA) selected Blue Sky’s D410A automated flight following and communication equipment to provide two-way text communication and location reporting to for its fleet of airplanes. The D410A is a compact, low-cost device that weighs less than a pound, can be moved between aircraft and mounted near the glareshield to exchange GPS and sensor data and text messages using the Iridium satellite network. TAM EA offers aircraft charter, maintenance and management services.
Level A is the most rigorous. Simply put, this software cannot fail without creating a catastrophic condition. Level A is the most rigorous. Simply put it cannot fail without creating a catastrophic condition. An autoland function, similar to a digital flight control system or a FADEC, requires Level A software. Level B software will be used in the NGFMS. Level B cannot fail without resulting in a hazardous or severe condition. Level C software could cause a major failure condition if it malfunctions.
The FAA says it will consider special issuance medical certificates to pilots who are taking medication for mild to moderate depression, conditions that now bar them from all flying duties. On a case-by-case basis, pilots who take one of four antidepressant medications — fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft), citalopram (Celexa) or escitalopram (Lexapro) — will be allowed to fly if they have been satisfactorily treated on the medication for at least 12 months.
In 2009, the U.S. business jet and turboprop fleet combined experienced 44 accidents including eight fatal accidents which resulted in 32 passenger and crew fatalities during routine business operational flights, according to Robert E. Breiling Associates, Inc. of Boca Raton, FL. Overall, this is 31 percent fewer accidents involving both jets and turboprops combined (44 accidents in 2009 vs. 64 in 2008) which occurred in 2009 vs. 2008. The number of fatal accidents is down with eight fatal accidents occurring in 2009 vs. 23 in 2008.
The sixth-generation head-up display from Rockwell Collins’ Portland, Ore.-based HGS division (nee Flight Dynamics) is an active-matrix LCD-based system using LED illumination. As a result, it offers far higher resolution than earlier CRT projection systems, the brightest imagery and the widest field of view of any commercial available HUD, according to Rockwell Collins. HGS-6000 systems are considerably more compact than CRT-based systems, affording 50 percent more headroom below the projector assembly.
