Proposed Rules Honeywell International LTS101 and LTP101 engines — Reduce the life limits for certain gas generator turbine discs. Final Rules Bell 222, 222B, 222U, 230 and 430 helicopters — Inspect the main-rotor hydraulic actuator support to verify the presence of all dowel pins and sealant between the support and transmission. Also, verify the proper torque of each attaching nut.
Ross Detwiler’s “Think Before Speaking, Please” (July, page 102) covered the field well, and left me only a few personal favorites to add to his list: (1) Pilot responding to traffic calls with, “We have him on the fish finder” or to a call to ident with, “HHHHere’s the flash” . . . totally superfluous comments.
Jeppesen is the first and so-far the only commercial provider to receive operational approval from the FAA to provide a GPS Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM) prediction report. RAIM assesses the integrity of GPS signals and, thus, the accuracy of airborne GPS navigation. As of Oct. 1, the FAA began requesting aircraft operators and pilots who use GPS as a primary navigation method to obtain a RAIM prediction report prior to flight. If any section of a route has a predicted outage lasting longer than five minutes, the route would need to be re-planned.
Nov. 2-5: Air Traffic Control Association 53rd Annual Conference and Exposition, Marriott Wardman Park, Washington, D.C. (703) 299-2430. www.atca.org Nov. 4-5: Chevron “Seven Elements of Successful Service” workshop, Sacramento, Calif. Contact: Chevron Customer Service at (866) 557-3456 or e-mail to [email protected] Nov. 6-8: Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association Expo 2008, San Jose, Calif. Contact: Lon Wolking at AOPA, 421 Aviation Way, Frederick, MD 21701. www.aopa.org
AWAS , Dublin, Ireland, announced that Hamish Murchison and Mariyan Adanov have joined the company as vice presidents. Frederic Mireur has been appointed head of Corporate Finance.
“Let there be no doubt: the used market is rapidly falling apart,” declared JPMorgan analysts in the September edition of the financial company’s Business Jet Monthly research report. The equity researchers noted that the number of used aircraft on the market had increased to 9.4 percent of the total fleet in August, bringing inventories to their highest level since September 2003. The monthly increase in inventories was the seventh in a row and represented a more than 50-percent increase from the level of 6.2 percent of the fleet for sale recorded in January.
Pilots can now meet their annual icing operations training requirements with the new Icing Operations Pilot Certification course from King Schools. This course provides the information pilots need to know for safe operations in adverse conditions, and includes a downloadable cockpit card. Pilots will receive a completions certificate and logbook endorsement as soon as they finish the course. According to King, “Icing is an obvious and critical concern for pilots. This is why the FAA requires annual training for certain pilot categories.
ARINC Direct has expanded its SKYLink broadband satellite communications network to include coverage of most of the Caribbean and Central America as well as northern South America. SKYLink provides Ku-band communications to business jets equipped with the Rockwell Collins eXchange product line.
Stevens Aviation , Greenville, S.C., named Jim Williams as vice president of Avionics Sales and Defense Avionics Group responsible for all aspects of national avionics sales and defense avionics modification activities.
FirstFlight , Elmira/Corning, N.Y., has named Gary Hart to the newly created position of chief operating officer. Terry Moser has been named vice president of the company’s West Coast division based in Van Nuys, Calif.
In late September, Eclipse Aviation CEO Roel Pieper announced that European Technology and Investment Research Center (ETIRC) Aviation will assemble Eclipse 500s in a factory to be built at the Ulyanovsk-Vostochny International Airport in Ulyanovsk, Russia. Ultimately, the Russian facility is expected to assemble up to 800 EA500s per year. Pieper is also the chairman of ETIRC Aviation. The company said that Eclipse 500 manufacturing will continue “in full” at Eclipse’s Albuquerque facility, before and after the new factory opens in 2010.
Cessna’s prototype SkyCatcher light sport aircraft crashed Sept. 18 near Douglass, Kan., after it went into an unrecoverable spin; the engineering test pilot parachuted to safety. The prototype, N162XP, was one of three flight articles Cessna test pilots have been evaluating. A Cessna spokesman said the aircraft had logged about 150 hours of total flight time before the accident flight. He declined to provide any additional details about the mishap, noting that the FAA is investigating the cause of the crash.
Subpart B — First Class Medical 67.103 Eye: Distant — Near — Color 67.105 Ear, nose, throat and equilibrium: Hearing is demonstrated by the applicant through normal conversation during the physical. Few, if any, FAA medical examiners use a tone audiometric test.
The OtterBox for the BlackBerry Bold Defender Series will offer your device the ultimate safeguard, with a slim and sophisticated look. Three layers wrap your phone in guaranteed protection, according to the company. A thin, thermal-formed sheet covers the screen and keys, and a strong polycarbonate shell encases the smartphone and gives added protection against drops and bumps. A silicone skin wraps around it all to absorb shock. Slim, sleek and stylish, this case is of superior quality.
Meanwhile, JPMorgan issued a doom-laden market analysis just before the world financial meltdown, stating, “Let there be no doubt the used market is rapidly falling apart, which should lead to a deteriorating market for new aircraft in short order.” It said used aircraft inventories were up 9.4 percent and “at their highest levels since September 2003.” Accordingly, average asking prices for used aircraft have declined 2.3 percent year over year, it said, adding that “flight operations into and out of the United States [takeoffs and landings] declined 10.6 percent in July,
These graphs are designed to illustrate the performance of the Citation XLS+ under a variety of range, payload, speed and density altitude conditions. Do not use these data for flight planning purposes because they are gross approximations of actual aircraft performance.
What do you get when you take a guy with no trade association experience and a background in TV and radio and put him in charge of a major aviation organization? Well, when the AOPA board of trustees did that 18 years ago they got Phil Boyer . . . and I have to think they’ve never regretted the choice.
Stevens Aviation , Greenville, S.C., named Jim Williams as vice president of Avionics Sales and Defense Avionics Group responsible for all aspects of national avionics sales and defense avionics modification activities.
When I first started traveling internationally on business, I queried an older corporate pilot about tipping protocol in various situations, and he simply responded, “Just ask yourself, ‘What would Sinatra do?’” If Frank Sinatra landed at a foreign airport, he was well known for tipping everyone in sight, including any government officials. Well, ’ol Blue Eyes could pull that off, but try that yourself in some countries, and you’ll end up in jail. Then again, in other countries, you might be delayed or detained for failing to show the courtesy of currency.
The new edition of Early 49 CFR Parts 100-185 Hazmat Transportation Regulations, revised as of Oct. 1, 2008, is available from Labelmaster. The edition is in the same format as the government release, but with additional features that make it easier to find the information you are looking for. Regulatory updates include revision to lithium battery requirement and to the hazmat table.
What’s missing from this cockpit? Pilots with Citation 560XL type ratings may wonder if they’re entering another aircraft model when they first see the four, 10-by-eight inch LCD adaptive flight displays in the front office of Citation XLS+. Some of the cockpit’s basic systems controls layout is the same as the previous Excel and XLS, but the total revamp with Pro Line 21 yields welcome ergonomic improvements.
