Wayfarer Aviation, Rye Brook, N.Y., named Wendy Burton director of Industry Charter, focusing on wholesale and internal charter. She will manage relationships with aircraft operators, brokers and vendors in the United States and overseas.
Bombardier Aerospace announced Feb. 3 that the 100th Challenger 605 had entered service. With over 800 aircraft manufactured, the Challenger 600 series had accumulated over four million flight hours with a dispatch reliability of over 99.8 percent as of September 2009.
Second-story jetways let passengers get quickly and comfortably aboard United DC-8s at San Francisco International Airport. Self-powered, telescopic loading corridors are by PI Iron and Steel, Los Angeles. President Lopez Mateos of Mexico is shown a Beech Twin Bonanza and an Aero Design Alti-Cruiser at the 50th Anniversary of Flight in Mexico City, elevation 9,000 feet.
The economic downturn has forced some leading fractional share providers to shed aircraft to lower expenses and generate revenue, further depressing airplane values overall and adding to the industry’s already bloated used aircraft inventory.
Signature Flight Support launched a mobile Web site to complement its newly designed corporate Web site that was launched last fall. The mobile site offers pilots access to Signature’s 102 worldwide locations including airport navigation maps by AC-U-KWIK, FBO contact information, local amenities and area attractions with hyperlinks to all phone number and e-mail addresses. The site is designed to make the pilot’s job easier by offering a single-source site when choosing an airfield and FBO.
The FAA will defer the cancellation of 22 instrument ground-based approaches in response to comments from the AOPA, the association said. The AOPA gathered information from pilots on 154 instrument approaches that were slated to be removed and recommended that the 22 be retained.
Burlington, Vt.-based Heritage Aviation has opened a new FBO facility that will rely heavily on wind, solar and other renewable energy sources. “When we had the opportunity to build a new general aviation facility, we knew we wanted to have renewable energy components as part of the facility,” said Christopher Hill, president of Heritage Aviation and Heritage Flight. The heart of the FBS’s renewable energy array is a 100-kilowatt turbine, Hill said.
Norman Schweizer (Washington, DC ), General Services Administration (Washington, DC ), Office of Government-wide Policy (Washington, DC ), Aviation Management Division (Washington, DC )
“Assessing the Auditors” by David Esler (January 2010, page 32) is an excellent encapsulation of today’s various audit standards. The Office of Aviation Management within the General Services Administration (GSA) sets government-wide policy for nonmilitary government aviation operators and I am certain this article will be extremely helpful to our member agencies as we strive to continue to improve safety for government aviation programs.
Now the FAA wants to mandate Wildlife Hazard Assessments at all Part 139 airline-served airports, even though they have not experienced a “triggering event” described above. But in its Jan. 14 Fact Sheet, the FAA says it believes all airports should understand the level of wildlife activity on or near their airport and accordingly initiated rulemaking in late summer 2009 to make assessments mandatory at all Part 139 airports. The agency wants to publish an NPRM to that effect this year.
The International Business Aviation Council recently registered the 200th operator under the International Standard for Business Aircraft Operations (IS-BAO), a code of best safety practices designed to help operators achieve a high level of safety and professionalism. ICAO officially recognizes IS-BAO, and the EASA has determined that certification meets Safety Management System requirements for both commercial and noncommercial operators.
NOAA wants to improve winter storm forecasts for North America. The agency has dispatched its Gulfstream IV research aircraft to the Pacific where most of North America’s weather originates, according to Louis Uccellini, director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction, to gather data to improve winter storm forecasting, out to as much as six days in advance for North America. The Gulfstream will be stationed at Yokota AFB, Japan through February and reposition to Honolulu in March.
Piper’s PA-46-500TP Meridian made its debut in September 2000 as the lowest priced pressurized, single-engine turboprop offered by any airframe manufacturer and it has retained that distinction ever since. Piper created the Meridian by swapping a 500-shp Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A for the 350-hp piston-engine of the PA-46 Malibu Mirage and modifying the airframe to handle the extra weight and speed. Everything about this project was designed to keep development costs low and that’s reflected in the final product.
Houston air traffic controllers are now using ADS-B, a GPS-based, NextGen technology, to separate and monitor aircraft flying over the Gulf of Mexico. The FAA’s announcement Jan. 12 came as the U.S. Coast Guard was preparing to shut down the U.S. Loran-C chains that for decades have provided long-range position-fixing service to mariners and aviators (see above). Previously, there was virtually no radar coverage over the Gulf, which forced 120-mile in-trail separation of high-altitude IFR traffic.
The NTSB has drastically expanded notification and reporting requirements regarding aircraft accidents and especially incidents. In particular, the NTSB is adding regulations to require operators to report certain incidents directly and immediately to the NTSB, even though they are already required to be reported to the FAA. Under 14 CFR 21.3, FAA notification is required within 24 hours, or the next business day if the event occurs on a weekend or a holiday. The NTSB says that is not quick enough for its needs.
Proponents of enhanced Loran as a ground-based backup for GPS were bitterly disappointed when the U.S. Coast Guard said it will begin a permanent shutdown of U.S. Loran-C stations at 2000Z on Feb. 8, 2010. At that time U.S. Loran-C chains should be considered unusable, but 24 U.S. stations that participate in Russian-American and Canadian Loran-C chains under international agreements will temporarily continue to operate. The Canadian Coast Guard announced that Canada will also decommission its Loran-C system this year.
Prescott, Arizona-based Cobham Avionics has received Technical Standards Order (TSO) certification of its Digital Audio Control System (DACS) from the FAA, a major milestone that clears the way for manufacture of the system and installation on certified aircraft. In September, the DACS received European Technical Standards Order approval.
With the recent transfer of the Bell 47 type certificate to Scott’s Helicopter, all aspects of commercial spares support, technical support and continued airworthiness for the pioneering rotorcraft have become the responsibility of the Bell-approved customer service facility located in Le Sueur, Minn.
Hawker Beechcraft has consolidated all customer support activities within a single organization, Hawker Beechcraft Global Customer Support, headed by Christi Tannahill, vice president. It is comprised of technical/field support, technical publications, Support Plus, Hawker Beechcraft Parts & Distribution (formerly RAPID), and the Company-Owned/Authorized Service Center Network. The new organization supports about 36,000 aircraft worldwide.
From the Dec. 22, 2009, Avinode Business Intelligence newsletter: “Interesting to notice is that the price decrease has been stronger on the U.S. air charter market than it has been on the global air charter market. Prices on the U.S. market are approximately 9.5 percent lower today than they were Jan. 1 [2009].””
Editor’s Note: Among the notable developments affecting business aviation in the past decade was the FAA’s crackdown on the charter industry over the issue of operational control. This vigorous action followed a February 2005 accident in which a Challenger 600 departing from Teterboro Airport failed to lift off, ran off the end of the runway, crossed a highway and buried itself into a building.
The White House on Dec. 22 announced President Barack Obama’s new cybersecurity coordinator: Howard A. Schmidt, a former chief security officer at eBay and Microsoft. Last spring, the President declared cybersecurity to be a major national priority.
AeroTech Research U.S.A. was awarded a two-year NASA contract in January to develop a real-time onboard system to detect and report aircraft wake encounters to air traffic controllers and other aircraft in the vicinity to maximize a runway’s arrival and departure rates while maintaining safe separation. “This will allow flight crews and air traffic controllers to have better information on whether the separation between aircraft is too small,” said Bill Buck, AeroTech’s principal investigator.
Sierra Industries has earned Canadian approval for two more of its reengined Cessna Citations. The Uvalde, Texas-based modification specialist recently received an amended STC from Transport Canada that adds the Citation 550 and S550 models to the list of previously approved Williams International FJ44 engine upgrades of the Cessna Citation 500 and 501. Sierra’s reengined and modified Citations now are approved in 33 countries.
