Business & Commercial Aviation

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The FAA released its bird strike database at the end of April at the direction of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The agency’s fear that the information might cause an unsophisticated public to worry excessively about specific locations proved unfounded. There was a flurry of attention in the general news media, now subsided, mostly about the 59,776 total strikes since 2000 and that probably 80 percent of “wildlife strikes” are unreported. Acting NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker remarked, “I was particularly gratified to read [Secretary LaHood’s] comments . . .

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.

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.

The FAA reauthorization legislation took its first step forward in the new Congress in early May when House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (T&I) leaders introduced a four-year bill, H.R.915, which largely mirrors legislation that stalled in the 110th Congress in 2008. Airlines and business aviation groups are now united in urging key legislators to push forward a long-term comprehensive aviation reauthorization bill and have pledged to work together to get that accomplished despite their differences in philosophy on funding.

“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.

At a May 11 briefing, Luis Carlos Affonso, Embraer executive vice president, Executive Jets, announced the Legacy 450 and 500 have completed the Joint Definition Phase of the development program, which involved over 100 engineers from key system suppliers, as well as Embraer’s own staff.

I want to commend you on “Expansion Team” (Viewpoint, April, page 7). I doubt if you remember me, but we spoke almost three years ago about an FBO that two partners and I were starting here at the Opa-Locka Airport in Miami. Our company, Opa-Locka Flightline, happens to be one of, if not the only, full-service African-American owned and operated FBO in the United States. We go to great lengths to show the general aviation community that professionalism, customer service and reasonable fuel prices should be the measure of an FBO and not the ethnicity of the owners.

Long Island-based ExcelAire has added a 13-seat GIV-SP to its fleet — bringing its total of Gulfstream aircraft to 10. ExcelAire says it now has one of the largest fleets of locally based Gulfstream jets in the New York metropolitan area. “With the additional GIV-SP, we extend our dominance in the heavy jet category,” said David Rimmer, ExcelAire executive vice president. “The GIV-SP jet also complements our existing fleet of executive aircraft, providing customers with a range of jets for their travels.”

You and your team are doing a good job of supporting the value of private aircraft travel for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of corporate operations. Inadvertently, however, this message is sometimes diluted and ammunition is given to our opponents. For example, early in the Gulfstream G150 Operators Survey (April, page 30) the article mentions that you can on a hot day fly from Aspen to Westchester with four passengers. Now there are very few reasons to be in Aspen on business, so Mexico City would have been a better choice.

Thanks for the mention of my book, Business and Corporate Aviation Management, in April’s Schedulers and Dispatchers section. For some unknown reason its sales have been picking up over the last year. Great article, as always. I enjoyed reading the UAV article, too; this is very important to us in the IAOPA in our work with ICAO and Eurocontrol. I would like to see more on this subject since I believe that commercial UAV use is about to mushroom. Unfortunately, ICAO and the FAA are ill-prepared to accommodate this increase in operations.

Airmark International, the independent Learjet parts distributor, has teamed with Sabreliner Corp. to install Airmark-provided windshields in Learjet 24, 24D, 25, 28, 29, 35 and 36 aircraft.

Jet Support Services, Inc. (JSSI) has launched its new Web site that presents up-to-the-minute information on JSSI’s critical was created to speak directly to all JSSI customers including aircraft owners, maintenance professionals management companies, brokers and dealers, and aircraft lenders and lessors. The site offers straightforward descriptions of programs and how they can help the operators, according to the company. JSSI www.jetsupport.com