The National Air Transportation Association’s Safety 1st division has developed an excellent suite of interactive training software for professional line service technicians that sets the standard for the FBO community. Operators who avail themselves of the package will reap immediate rewards in a safer and more productive ramp. The content is useful for both initial and recurrent training, and there is a six-month window for completion by a given student.
Piaggio Aero, West Pam Beach, Fla., announced that Tom Mahoney is the new sales director for the Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada; Ernie Santiago has been appointed sales director for the U.S. West Coast and Western Canada. They join sales directors Shane Ellis and Michael Hissam, who will pursue more focused and defined sales management roles within Piaggio.
Mark Radosevich (Standard Alcohol Company of America, Inc.)
You made some interesting points in “Growing Our Own” (Viewpoint, August, page 7); however, green algae are not the answer regarding new biofuels! Agri-oils harvested from jathropa, or palm, sunflower seeds, green algae or hemp repel water just like petroleum-derived oils do. None completely combust in a jet turbine, industrial boiler or a piston-powered engine. And the unburned oils exiting the tailpipe then phase separate in the water vapor making up this blue planet’s atmosphere and we see and breathe it as brown, urban smog.
Three primary documents will need to be arranged before heading to the PRC: a permit for the trip, visas for passengers and crew, and if headed to any of the aforementioned remote locations, permits to access restricted airports or military bases.
The TSA’s new general aviation manager, Brian Delauter, met with the NBAA’s Security Council in August to discuss important security issues affecting general aviation. In addition to briefing the council on the TSA Playbook and Security Directive 8F/G, Delauter also provided the group with a high-level overview of the agency’s review of the Large Aircraft Security Program. He indicated that the TSA is working hard to address comments received to the docket and from the pre- and post-comment period meetings held with the public and industry representatives.
There is little question that airframe icing in its various forms has led to countless accidents over the hundred or so years pilots have dealt with it, yet we probably know less about predicting and dealing with icing than with any other weather phenomenon. Therefore it demands serious operational attention.
Flight Safety Foundation has released a Runway Excursion Risk Reduction (RERR) tool kit, which provides in-depth analysis of runway excursion accident data, a compilation of risk factors and recommendations for addressing the issue. A joint effort between FSF and the International Air Transport Association, the tool kit is designed for operators, pilots, airports, air traffic management, air traffic controllers and regulators. The kit is part of a multifaceted Runway Safety Initiative that FSF has undertaken at the request of several international organizations.
Peter Smales, a former executive director of group sales and managing director (Europe) for ExecuJet, has returned to the United Kingdom to head a new business sales and services company, Indigo Lyon, which is headquartered in Windsor, Berkshire, England. The privately owned, limited liability company will specialize in international sales of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft and also be involved in spare parts brokerage, consultancy, program planning and execution management.
ExecuJet Aviation Group, Zurich, Switzerland, appointed Mark Abbott as ExecuJet Group FBO director based at the Cape Town facility. Graham Stephenson, the company’s head of FBOs, has retired after an aviation career spanning almost 50 years — 21 years in commercial aviation and 23 years in business aviation.
Jet Aviation, Zurich, Switzerland, named Frank Kusserow as the new director and head of FBO services for EMEA and Asia. He will continue in his role as director of the Jet Aviation FBO in Dusseldorf, Germany.
There has been some confusion among international operators lately concerning slot restrictions at Beijing Capital International Airport (ZBAA). Matt Pahl, assistant manager of operations for Air Routing International at Houston, cleared it up. “Earlier this year, [the CAAC] told the business aviation community that they could not support continuous operations through the day. Consequently, they have no general aviation slots available between 1100 and 1700 local, and you can obtain only one slot between 0800 and 1100, and 1700 and 2200.
The Phenom 300’s flight deck continues Embraer’s philosophy of reducing workload by automating systems and slashing the size of checklists. Much the same as does the Phenom 100, the Phenom 300 reflects Embraer’s experience in designing airliners for a broad range of pilot experience levels. Less is more in this cockpit. Dedicated controls are installed for frequently operated systems, such as engines and airframe systems. Occasionally operated systems, such as weather radar and TCAS, have software-driven interfaces accessible through the MFD.
College Park (Md.) Airport, the country’s oldest continually running airport, turns 100 on Oct. 8. The airport was created in 1909 when the Wright brothers, who had been contracted to provide training for U.S. Army officers to fly their military flyer, selected as their training field a site near College Park, home of the Maryland Agricultural College, now the University of Maryland, in College Park.
But there are notable differences between the Chinese and Western systems and some weak points operators need to know before heading to the PRC. “First,” Kuehnl pointed out, “they operate in metric. In terms of altimetry, usually everything is QNH at the big places, but they will default to QFE at the more remote locations. It should be standardized, as it would make life easier, since you would know what to expect. In terms of flight planning, they like you to follow airways; there are very few direct routings.
A new mobile Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) from 3M provides charter companies, general aviation operators and FBOs — including trip support and corporate flight handling operators — an accurate, fast, portable and flexible way to collect, store, validate and transmit APIS data for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) passenger screening with forwarding to TSA for vetting. The DHS require submission of electronic notices of arrival and departure of international flights for private and general aviation and electronic passenger and crew manifests.
Comtran International, Inc., the Texas-based aviation company known best for its Boeing MD-80 hush kits and head-of-state aircraft completions, has received European Aviation Safety Agency certification of its Revolution Series 328, a 12-passenger VIP conversion of the Dornier 328JET. This approval will enable Comtran to sell the aircraft to operators in Europe and other regions where EASA certification is required.
Aerospace Filtration Systems, Inc. and Metro Aviation have partnered on the development of a Eurocopter EC135 Inlet Barrier Filter system. The IBF system features multiple long-life filter assemblies that are internally mounted to the existing EC135 cowlings, resulting in no drag penalties and no potential for environmental harm associated with mounted designs. The STCed product is scheduled for certification in time for Heli-Expo 2010.
Pilots, by nature, tend to skew toward the paranoid parameter of the bell curve when tested by psychologists, and that’s actually a good trait. It means they double-check things like the weather and fuel load with their own eyes. Pilots keep an ace up their sleeve, a Plan B, because experience has taught them that instruments fail, engines quit, wings stall and weather goes down the tubes. An overly doe-eyed trusting disposition could easily slide toward the edge of liability — if not oblivion — when the daily job demands overcoming gravity.
The FAA has published its NPRM amending Part 23 jet certification standards. In a nutshell, since Part 23 was written around light piston-powered aircraft, every jet certified under current Part 23 standards has required time-consuming exemptions, special certification conditions and “equivalent level of safety” findings. The FAA has put up with the situation for decades, due to the low rate of new jet certifications. But the recent high volume of jet certifications associated with with the advent of VLJs, entry level jets, light jets, etc.
Frasca International is the first to achieve FAA Level 7 qualification of a flight training device (FTD), the company announced in September. The AS 350B2 FTD is installed at FlightSafety’s Helicopter Learning Center in Tucson. Level 7, which is essentially equivalent to Level D full flight simulator certification, is the highest level of qualification for FTDs.
What does “current” mean when you are dealing with aircraft maintenance? There’s more than one definition, since the correct response depends on whether you are maintaining an aircraft under FAR Part 91, 121 or 135.
