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.
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.
Analysts at financial services company UBS Securities LLC estimate that the number of business aircraft available for sale—used airplanes plus new aircraft delivery positions—is equivalent to 16 percent of in-service fleet. Significantly, that inventory increase “continues to be led by ‘young aircraft’ (those less than 10 years in age).” At 16 percent of the in-service fleet, UBS experts say aircraft inventories “are approaching the 17-percent peak of late 2002, with young inventories already well above prior peak levels.”
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.
— At 1204 UTC, a Piper PA-46T (N403HP) crashed in a wooded area during a visual approach into the Voslau Aerodrome (LOAV), Baden, Austria. The pilot and passenger were killed and the airplane was destroyed. VMC prevailed at the time of the accident. The pilot had cancelled his IFR clearance prior to entering the pattern at LOAV. The airplane was on an IFR flight plan from Shoreham-by-Sea Airport, Sussex, England, to LOAV.
Hawker Beechcraft Services opened the initial phase of its newest aircraft maintenance facility at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport (IWA) in Mesa, Ariz., Jan. 5. The Mesa facility will serve as the Southwest regional service center for HBS, replacing the Van Nuys, Calif., location that will close March 31. The phase one, newly built 26,000-square-foot hangar was acquired by HBS to accommodate maintenance work. A second 26,000-square-foot hangar plus a 22,000-square-foot shop area will include a lobby and administrative offices.
If you are a corporate pilot, that raise you had been hoping for probably isn’t going to materialize. If you sell aircraft for a living, those “prime prospects” you anticipated signing up . . . six months ago probably are no closer to making a commitment than they were then. If you operate an FBO, you’ve noticed a significant drop in the number of aircraft taxiing across your ramp. If (God forbid) you work for an aircraft manufacturer, you’re probably in the midst of an extended, multiweek, no-pay “vacation.”
In the roughly four decades since oil was discovered there, helicopter operations to service oil and gas exploration and development have proliferated throughout what is now the six countries comprising the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.
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.
The NBAA cancelled the February 2009 Hong Kong ABACE event and scaled back its first Light Business Airplane Conference (LBA2009) to a two-day event “to address unprecedented changes in the economy,” the association announced. Originally planned as a three-day conference, LBA2009 will now take place March 13-14 in San Diego. The NBAA reduced LBA2009 attendance fees by 50 percent and exhibitor space fees by 20 percent.
FlightSafety International acquired Glass Mountain Optics Inc. of Austin, Texas, the company announced Jan 9. Glass Mountain Optics is a leading provider of simulation visual display systems and massive industrial optics.
RNP 0.1 through 10 (RNP-“X”) are specified tolerances for allowable deviations from course centerline 95 percent of the time. The smaller the value, the tighter the navigation error tolerance. So, RNP 10 (nm) might work for en route oceanic, while RNP 0.1 (nm) might be required for an instrument approach through the Gatineau Channel to Juneau or down the Potomac River to Reagan National Airport (RNP .11).
The NBAA is taking issue with an NTSB assertion that pneumatic deice boots should be activated immediately upon entering icing conditions. The NTSB has been pushing the FAA to make it a requirement, and added that recommendation to its “Federal Most Wanted List” of safety improvements for 2009. The recommendation was designed to address “a widely held, but incorrect, belief that activation of deice boots be delayed” rather than immediately activated in icing, the Safety Board said.
FAA Reauthorization is a high priority for both House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) and aviation subcommittee Chairman Jerry Costello (D-Ill.). A definitive timetable has not yet been set, but Oberstar said the committee “will be ready to move very early on.” Meanwhile, the committee is getting an infusion of new blood in the 111th Congress. Veteran congressmen Rep. Solomon Ortiz, a 14-term Democrat from Texas, and Rep. Phil Hare, a second-term Democrat from Illinois, have been appointed to it.
Cessna will lay off 2,000 more employees than the 665 it previously planned, company spokesmen Doug Oliver and Bob Stangerone told reporters Jan. 13. The cuts will affect both salaried and hourly employees across the entire company and are expected to be completed in March. As we go to press more details are not forthcoming. In a letter sent to company employees earlier in January, Jack Pelton, Cessna’s chairman, president and CEO, wrote the first half of 2008 was “full of promise,” with orders being signed according to projections.
