Cessna’s John Newton has reason to be optimistic. “In the past 90 to 120 days we have seen an uptick in activity,” he declared in late October. Year to date, Cessna’s used aircraft sales division had sold approximately 20 percent more previously owned aircraft than it did in all of 2008. With several more deals expected to close before the end of the year, he is seeing “a significant increase in activity.”
FAA Administrator Randall Babbitt has been pleased with the results of the procedures put in place in the Hudson River flight corridor in the wake of the Aug. 8 midair collision there. Babbitt told an audience at the AOPA Aviation Summit in Tampa, Fla., that after the accident, “The last thing we wanted was a knee-jerk reaction.” Instead, FAA relied on collaboration between air traffic controllers, FAA regulators and the general aviation community.
Looking to brush up on turbine engine technology? Don’t know your P3 from your T5? Pick up a copy of Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Technology by Irwin Treager. Written for technicians, instead of engineers, the text is easy to understand, and even pilots will find it helpful. The paperback book has been updated since its first release and includes information on electronic fuel controls.
Due to an editing error in “Icing 101,” we incorrectly stated that “one micron . . . is one-millionth of a cubic meter” (October 2009, page 82). One micron actually is one-millionth of a meter, not a cubic meter. A micron is a linear measurement, not a volumetric one. There would be 10 to the 18th cubic microns in a cubic meter.
Arranging permits for flights into Russia is straightforward, although it is important for operators unfamiliar with the process to understand that among the residue of the Soviet period is a monolithic bureaucracy and rigid adherence to procedure. “This isn’t about efficiency — it’s all about control,” Parke said, by way of explaining the inflexibility. “And they control everything down to the minutiae, from obtaining the entry permit to all things associated with operating.”
The NBAA and AOPA considered the first Light Business Aircraft Conference held in conjunction with October’s NBAA Convention in Orlando so successful that, even before the event ended, they signed a Memorandum of Understanding to co-host and collaborate on future LBA Conferences beginning next year in conjunction with each of the two organizations’ major annual events. The first LBA Conference offered education sessions, a “Concept Buyers Program” and a “Single-Pilot Safety Standdown” — all specifically designed for owners and operators of light business airplanes.
In the waning months of the Cold War, after decades of suspicion, distrust and secrecy between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the West, watershed events in aviation history unfolded at European-hosted international air shows.
FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt agrees that the aviation excise tax system has worked well in the past (see above), but questions whether it can sustain the agency in the long run. “We need a revenue stream that’s sustainable,” he said during the AOPA’s Aviation Summit in November in Tampa, Fla. “I don’t have the answer. But we’re going to have to look at a lot of things.” He acknowledged that the collection of the aviation excises taxes — the fuel tax, passenger ticket tax and cargo tax — has been efficient.
Rockwell Collins recently announced several upgrade programs for Dassault Falcon business jets, including five new updates to its Pro Line 21 avionics retrofit package for Falcon 50s. Separately, the avionics maker is offering a Pro Line 4 to Pro Line 21 display upgrade for Falcon 2000s.
NBAA and GAMA are offering a new online resource to help businesses of all types and sizes calculate and explain the value a business aircraft brings to support a company’s business objectives. Presented as part of the associations’ joint No Plane No Gain advocacy campaign, the new Business Aircraft E-Valuation Toolkit identifies five basic resources every company in business aviation should have for measuring an aircraft’s value — regardless of the size or type of the business involved. The toolkit is at the No Plane No Gain Web site: www.noplanenogain.org.
Abu Dhabi plans to build a business jet by 2018 to mark the emergence of the Middle East as a major player in the global aerospace industry. The first steps were celebrated Nov. 14, just prior to the Dubai Air Show, as the Mubadala Development investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government and Western partners reviewed progress in building the Strata Manufacturing composites facility that will begin supplying parts for the Airbus A380, ATR and other airliners in the second half of 2010. Strata will open with initial contracts worth more than $2 billion.
In this, the 15th anniversary of the General Aviation Revitalization Act (GARA) of 1994, the traditional aluminum airframe is still outlasting anything we can stuff into it. But before President Clinton signed that law, durability was considered a problem: It created an interminable liability tail for manufacturers. GARA capped that period at 18 years.
To say that Clay Jones is a business aviation man is to unfairly minimize the breadth of his interests and contributions, like identifying Dwight Eisenhower as an interstate highway champion, Steve Martin as a fair banjo player and Arnold Palmer as an iced tea concoctionist. All of those are true statements, but distort their subjects by gross omission.
The fleet percentage of used business jets for sale in October reached 15.7 percent, down from its peak of 16.2 percent in August, according to a Credit Suisse report, but brokers aren’t ready to declare an end to the down market. “I can see light at the end of the tunnel, but I don’t know how many miles away it is,” said one dealer in the Southwestern United States.
The Citation Mustang isn’t the biggest, fastest or most fuel-efficient very light jet to be introduced, but it’s a solid market success, and it, along with Embraer’s Phenom 100, has matured into full-scale production programs. The smallest and least-expensive Citation, the Mustang was designed from the onset to be the easiest handling member of a family noted for docility. As such, the Mustang was intended to be an easy step up for operators upgrading from piston-engine and turboprop aircraft.
Piaggio Aero is proceeding largely unscathed while other aircraft manufacturers are struggling mightily to weather the recession and credit crisis. Speaking at the NBAA Convention, CEO Alberto Galassi said, “Despite the Honeywell forecast that 2010 will be worse than 2009, we plan to build 27 to 30 aircraft next year, the same as this year.” And, he added, “We have no white tails [new, unsold airplanes]. Not a single one.” That’s not to say the P-180 Avanti builder has been unaffected by the recession.
While airline passengers have grown accustomed to snaking their way through TSA lines at hub airports, general aviation operators based at Hyde Field, Potomac Airport and College Park Airport, a trio of small airfields near Washington, D.C., have struggled to cope with the restrictions imposed on them since the Sept. 11 attacks more than eight years ago. Perhaps the most notable of the affected facilities is College Park (CGS), which earlier this year became the world’s first centennial airfield, having been in continuous operation for 100 years.
Edward W. Stimpson is one of America’s civic heroes. His long service in furthering the cause of aviation safety was capped by his most recent post as chairman of the Flight Safety Foundation in Washington, D.C., where he worked to improve airline operations even beyond the near-perfect record they’ve compiled.
Embraer’s Luis Carlos Affonso noted that the company’s new Melbourne site (see above) will house a dedicated customer center where purchasers of any model of Embraer business jet can go to make selections regarding cabin designs and appointments. He noted that the 40-year-old Brazilian company has had facilities in the United States for 30 of those years and recently opened a service center in Mesa, Ariz.
And, yes, operating in Russia is expensive, or as Mrocka put it after dropping $8.40 on a cup of coffee at his Moscow hotel, “outrageously expensive.” Carry cash for basic transactions, he advised, “as most places on the ground do not accept credit cards. It’s a cash-oriented society.” Williams at Universal Weather noted that rooms in Western-style hotels in larger cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg range from $300 to $600 a night; in remote locations, standards and prices will be lower (see sidebar on travel in Eastern Russia).
Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that its NetJets subsidiary suffered a 42 percent or $1.5-billion decline in revenues during the first nine months of 2009 compared to the same period a year earlier, according to the latest form 10-Q filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This, mainly due to a 79 percent decline in fractional ownership sales and 24 percent lower flight operations. With further downsizing and more aircraft sold off, Berkshire Hathaway now believes that NetJets is “likely to operate at a modest profit in 2010,” but that assumes the U.S.
Sikorsky Global Helicopters announced Nov. 4 that it delivered a new VIP S-76C++ helicopter in September to the Royal Travel Office for use by the Royal Household of the United Kingdom. Sikorsky has provided helicopters to support the Royal Family since the early 1950s, including the R4, S-51, S-55, S-58, S-58T, S-76B and S-76C+.
Cessna Aircraft has qualified its Citation Sovereign for an exemption from FAA Extended Operations (ETOPS) requirements when flown between Los Angeles and Hawaii under FAR Part 135. To qualify for the ETOPS exemption, Cessna demonstrated the aircraft could remain within 180 minutes of a suitable airport when flying with an engine out. Cessna conducted an analysis to determine that the Sovereign was able to travel 1,022 nm within 180 minutes after an engine failure. That distance is just more than halfway between Los Angeles and Hawaii.
