The U.S. business turbine fleet experienced a considerable increase in the number of accidents, fatal accidents and fatalities during 2008 over those experienced in 2007. The combined business jet and turboprop fleet experienced 69 accidents including 24 that resulted in 64 passenger and crew fatalities during routine business operational flights, according to Robert E. Breiling Associates of Boca Raton, Fla. In 2007, the combined fleet experienced 55 accidents, 17 of them fatal, and 51 fatalities, the company reported.
B/CA And as promised to all with perfect answers, Capt. Syed M. Husain of Mississauga, Ontario will be receiving a 50th anniversary Business & Commercial Aviation picture frame. Thanks for following our Golden Anniversary coverage, and for your continuing support.
Jet Works Air Center of Denton, Texas, has obtained two new supplemental type certificates (STCs)—one for a Rockwell Collins AHS-3000S upgrade for the Learjet 31A, and another that covers installation of a Rockwell Collins data link system in the Piaggio Avanti II.
Col. Michael R. Gallagher, USAF (ret) (Hillsboro, OR)
Great analysis of an accident that never should have happened (“Warm Airplane; Cold, Snowy Ramp,” Cause & Circumstance, January 2009, page 72). You’d think we’d get tired of proving that contaminated airfoils just don’t work as well as clean ones.
One Saturday morning while John Alter was attending the Navy’s flight school in Pensacola, Fla., he was driving his Triumph TR3 with the top down when he spied “two young ladies all dressed up and on their way to a sorority tea and their car had conked out. They saw this naval aviator and somehow knew I could fix their car.” Alter got it started, but when he declined payment, they invited him and two buddies to a homemade spaghetti dinner. A year later, in June 1962, Alter was awarded his wings and he and one of those young ladies got married.
The 16th annual Aircraft Registry Forum, which will feature sessions on FAA Registry practices and the Cape Town Convention, will take place on Monday, February 9 and Tuesday, February 10 at The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort in Naples, Florida. Co-chaired by Frank L. Polk of McAfee & Taft PC and Michael T. Amalfitano, Sr. of Banc of America Leasing, the forum offers presentations by noted experts in aviation law and financing. Besides exploring the key considerations of FAA and Cape Town rules, other sessions offered during the two-day conference include:
Also in trouble is the Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) program, jointly funded by the European Commission and Eurocontrol’s 39 member countries. Officially launched Dec. 8 with 15 aviation industry companies standing ready to join, the undertaking’s goal is to squeeze more aircraft into existing airspace. But it’s been abruptly derailed because apparently nobody consulted with Europe’s military entities and the ATC controllers. Europe’s military forces doubt the project’s merits and value. The controller community has multiple concerns.
There are so many helicopters in Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo, that The Guardian newspaper in Manchester, England, has termed it “the real-life South American episode of the ‘Jetsons,’” the 1960s animated send-up of future life.
The FAA is extending the 75-per-hour flight cap at New York La Guardia through Oct. 24, 2009, according to an amendment to the current rule filed in the Federal Register. The rule was set to expire last year, to be replaced by the controversial plan to auction slots at the airport, the “Congestion Management Rule for La Guardia Airport.” The amendments to the “Operating Limitations at New York La Guardia Airport” released Jan. 7 also include a provision to allow carriers to trade or lease operating authorities at the airport.
— At 1206 EST, an Ercoupe 415-D (N99154) was destroyed during an inflight breakup near Sebring, Fla. VMC prevailed, and no flight plan was filed for the local flight, which departed Avon Park Executive Airport (AVO), Avon Park, Fla., about 1115. According to a friend of the accident pilot, who was also a certificated aircraft mechanic, he and the pilot flew together in the accident airplane immediately prior to the accident flight.
— At 1550 Hawaiian Standard Time, a McDonnell Douglas Helicopter MD 900 (N902AF) sustained minor damage subsequent to the inflight separation of the lower right side vertical stabilizer while landing near Kona, Hawaii. The helicopter is registered to, and operated by Vulcan Aircraft, Inc. It was VFR at the time of the accident. The flight originated offshore at 1520 with a planned destination of Kona. According to a representative of the operator, the lower vertical stabilizer (inplate) separated from its support bracket as the helicopter was landing.
A former squadron-mate and I had lunch last month when he was passing through Atlanta. He brought some pictures of our first West-Pac Cruise aboard the USS Ranger in 1969. We flew the E2 Hawkeye. One of the pictures was a shot of the cockpit. It is truly amazing how far technology in aircraft avionics has come in the past 40 years. The E2-A had round-dial steam gauges, with a single INS that took 30 to 45 minutes to align, plugged into the Ship SINS system. Latitude and longitude were displayed by rows of lights, each 10 digits deep in the center of the pedestal.
Regional fractional aircraft operator Executive AirShare, based in Kansas City, Mo., announced Jan. 8 that the company will base a Beechcraft King Air C90B at Atlantic Aviation at Wiley Post Airport (PWA) in Bethany, Okla., to serve the Oklahoma City area. Executive AirShare has shareowners in Tulsa, Dallas, Fort Worth, Wichita and Kansas City.
The NBAA has given Sharon Forbes of DuPont Aviation the first Schedulers & Dispatchers Outstanding Achievement & Leadership Award. Created in 2008, this award recognizes individuals who have shared their outstanding business aviation industry expertise, provided extraordinary service, exhibited leadership and made significant contributions to the scheduling and dispatching function. Forbes is the supervisor of scheduling operations and facility manager of DuPont’s flight department headquartered in Wilmington, Del.
Brent Wouters becomes CEO of Cirrus Design Corp. in addition to president and chief operating officer effective Feb. 1. Alan Klapmeier, who founded the company in Duluth, Minn. in 1984 with his brother Dae, will continue as chairman of the board of directors with Dale as vice chairman. Wouters joined Cirrus in early 2002 as executive vice president and chief financial officer, and was promoted to president and COO in March 2008.
On Jan. 12, Cirrus announced new features, upgrades and option packages for its aircraft lineup including “Known Ice Protection” on SR22 and Turbo models; an all-new “X-Edition” premium interior; paint upgrades across the model line; and CMX, a branded “assurance by the 100-hour” pre-purchased maintenance and service program. Cirrus Chairman Alan Klapmeier said the line now ranges from an SR20 S starting at $269,900 to a Turbo GTS with known ice protection for $598,500.
Dallas Airmotive, BBA Aviation engine repair and overhaul subsidiary, has relocated its Phoenix area Regional Turbine Center from Scottsdale Airpark to a new, larger facility adjacent to Deer Valley Airport in North Phoenix. At 7,500 square feet, the new facility has twice the space of the old one. The Phoenix facility performs OEM-authorized repairs including hot section inspections on Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A and JT15D turbines and repairs and overhauls on Rolls-Royce Model 250 turboshaft engines.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) introduced a bill to exempt airport bonds and other private activity bonds from the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) penalty, a move the airport industry has long supported. The bill, S. 139, is co-sponsored by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.). The bill would repeal the AMT from interest earned on more than 60 percent of airport bonds.
General Electric’s acquisition of Smiths Aerospace in May 2007 marked an expansion from engine building into aircraft systems. No sooner than the ink had dried on the purchase contract, the Cincinnati-based OEM was busy developing a strategy integrating cyber-based aircraft systems with its engine products.
Meanwhile, in a letter to Hawker Beechcraft employees, Chairman and CEO Jim Shuster wrote that the general aviation market has slowed and new orders have fallen off “considerably.” “As we enter 2009, we see the economy continuing to erode and find ourselves facing a highly uncertain and unpredictable business climate,” he continued. “As a result, we are forced to substantially decrease our 2009 production levels and take the painful step of reducing our workforce accordingly.” Shuster took pains to reassure that the company is “extremely healthy” with a solid future.
Who would have believed it? Embraer’s then-president Maurício Botelho convened a press conference at the Corcoran Museum of Art in May 2005 in Washington, D.C., He introduced Luís Carlos Affonso, whom he said would direct the design, development, manufacture and certification of a VLJ and a light jet, the Phenom 100 and 300 — and bring the Phenom 100 into service in 2008. Most of the reporters in the room were taken aback since Embraer was then primarily a builder of airliners.
