Signature Flight Support has an agreement with Aviapartner to jointly develop an FBO for private and business aviation at Nice Airport (NCE), France. Under the agreement, both parties will develop the current ramp services for business and general aviation aircraft under license from the airport to enhance the level of customer services and passenger assistance. The operation will be branded Signature Flight Support/Aviapartner and will be developed to meet Signature operating and service standards.
Iridium says it will seek a license to provide mobile satellite services via a newly formed entity: Iridium Communications Russia. The company is pushing its total global coverage, including Polar regions, as a significant plus in the Russian market. It has partnered with Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, which owns and operates an Iridium gateway. Iridium hopes to add still more service providers in Russia.
Honda Aircraft has pushed back first delivery of its HondaJet by a year, saying “global aerospace industry business challenges” have delayed critical components for the conforming aircraft to be produced for FAA certification testing. First flight of the light business jet has been reset for January 2010, and first customer delivery delayed to fourth quarter 2011 from late 2010.
It was croissants, café au lait and a larger crowd than I had expected one recent morning in Paris. I’d come to learn about aviation 2030 as seen by Thales, the French aviation electronics outfit. My curiosity sprang in part from an exchange with one of my teenage sons one winter day as he readied for a flight to Florida.
Mike Ellis, who founded his Dallas-based aircraft acquisition firm in 2004, believes that those involved in buying or selling used, turbine-powered business airplanes need to view the current market with some historical perspective.
ARG/US has compiled its 2007-2009 on-site safety audit results into a comprehensive Audit Recommendations Report that focuses on areas of Safety Management Systems (SMS) and Emergency Response Planning that were found by auditors to have the highest number of deficiencies. “Each year we audit a significant number of both FAR Part 91 and Part 135 operators and in so doing gather vast amounts of information on safety programs,” said Joseph Moeggenberg, president of ARG/US.
To learn more about NDT Technology, visit: American Society for Non-Destructive Testing www.asnt.org ASTM International www.astm.org The NDT Resource Center www.ndt-ed.org
Eurocopter and Thales have teamed to build the first ever Dauphin AS365 N3 simulator for delivery in 2011 to Heli-Union’s training center in Angouleme, in the Charente region of France. Since the helicopter’s launch in 1975, more than 950 AS365s have been sold in 64 countries. The simulator will be dual-certified as a Level 3 Flight Training Device and as a Level B Full Flight Simulator.
RDT Ltd. and Lufthansa Technik AG are presenting a solution for integrating the latest telemedicine equipment into private and commercial aircraft. The integrated product combines the latest technology of both parties — RDT’s Tempus IC with the Lufthansa Technik Mobile Access Router (MAR) — allowing a complete embedding of telemedicine services into the communication network of the aircraft.
The FAA needs to do more to ensure that controller staffing and trainee levels do not become a problem at the Southern California TRACON, Los Angeles airport tower and the Northern California TRACON, according to a new report from the DOT Inspector General. A wave of controller retirements, a nationwide issue, has brought an influx of trainees into the California ATC facilities.
In “Safety Management Systems for Business Aviation” (April, page 38) it was indicated that according to the ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices commercial operators are required to have a safety management system after Jan. 1, 2009, but that SMS will be voluntary for non-commercial operators.
Tailwind Capital delivered in May the first Bombardier CRJ-200LR regional jet converted for business aviation use. The Redmond, Wash.-based aircraft financing consultancy, bought its first CRJ-200LR on speculation, said CEO, President and founder Joel Hussey. “Bombardier’s Challenger 850 is an aircraft that is still in production and the CRJ-200 LR is very close in configuration, he noted. The difference between our Tailwind and the Challenger 850 is an auxiliary fuel system, said Hussey.
The FAA is encouraging operators of aircraft equipped with pneumatic deicing boots to ensure that pilots receive proper training on the operation of these systems and the importance of maintaining appropriate airspeed in icing conditions. The InFo essentially adopts the NTSB’s position discounting the phenomenon of “ice bridging” and recommending early and frequent activation of boots in icing conditions. Operators should place a special emphasis on the proper operation of deicing boots according to the airplane flight manual (AFM) or FAA-approved operator’s manual.
Pilatus delivered its 900th PC-12 single-engine turboprop at the company’s U.S. headquarters in Broomfield, Colo. Owner Ron Roma accepted the keys to his new aircraft from Pat Epps, president of Epps Aviation, the factory authorized Pilatus Center in Atlanta. Roma’s new PC-12 NG is the fifth new PC-12 he has purchased. The PC-12 NG features a fully integrated Honeywell Primus Apex avionics system, a completely new cockpit designed by BMW Group DesignworksUSA, and a more-powerful Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A engine.
International Communications Group (ICG) is extending onboard global telephone and Wi-Fi communication capabilities to any size aircraft, including small, owner-flown single-engine models, by introducing the affordable, single-channel ICG NxtLink Series CIS-100 transceiver. According to the company, the standalone device permits connections of conventional telephone devices or legacy Private Automated Branch Exchange (PABX) systems via standard two-wire “tip and ring” circuits or a four-wire audio circuit. If packaged with ICG’s NxtMail server, it offers a Wi-Fi solution.
Single Point of Contact recently announced the launch of Single Point Assist maintenance service exclusively for overseas destinations. It’s a subscription service that provides onsite maintenance technicians directly to your aircraft with just one phone call. According to the company, users will save money be locking in maintenance costs, parts and access to local resources in advance so there are no surprises. The operator signs up for coverage depending on where and how often they are traveling overseas.
Neil Howard (Absolute AviationJohannesburg, South Africa)
I own and manage an aviation consulting and aircraft management business in South Africa and am actively involved in assisting corporations in the acquisition of business aircraft, and these corporations are facing the same pushback from shareholders as is being seen worldwide. With this in mind, I really enjoyed William Garvey’s “Mile High Office” in the New York Times, and “Super Sunday Surprise” (Viewpoint, March, page 6), which I plan to show to some of these board members during my discussions with them.
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.’s Sikorsky Global Helicopters unit announced April 28 it delivered six S-300CBi helicopters to Bristow Academy, a Florida-based flight training school. The six aircraft will join Bristow’s fleet of 48 S-300CBi helicopters, currently used for training instruction at Bristow’s three U.S. locations in California, Florida and Louisiana.
Embraer’s Phenom 100 and Phenom 300 executive jets, along with the first customer-delivered Lineage 1000, were shown in Europe for the first time in May at EBACE in Geneva. In April, the Phenom 100 was certified by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), and deliveries to European customers will begin soon. The Phenom 300 at EBACE was one of the four aircraft currently in flight test.
“The basic solution for the future [of European ATM] is to let the users drive how they like to fly, which in turn is driven by the concept of ‘business trajectory,’” Eurocontrol’s Bo Redeborn told us, describing some of the payoffs of Single European Sky. A Swede residing in Brussels, where Eurocontrol is located, Redeborn is a senior director of cooperative network design — and up to his ears in SESAR definition.
