FlightSafety International , La Guardia Airport, N.Y., announced that Scott Galdi has joined the company as regional marketing manager. He will serve and support customers who operate aircraft under FAR Part 135. Diana Clasen has been promoted to manager, Corporate Communications.
One deadly dose and HUM-Bugs are a thing of the past, according to Hammonds, the manufacturer of Biobor JF, a concentrated liquid fuel additive used to eliminate Hydrocarbon Utilizing Microorganisms (HUM) in aviation fuels. HUM-Bugs are diesel-fuel-feeding microorganisms responsible for fuel tank contamination and filter plugging in everything from airplanes to underground fuel tanks. Specifically they feed on fuels such as Jet-A, kerosene, No. 1 and 2 diesel and bunker “C” fuels.
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.
FlightSafety International , La Guardia Airport, N.Y., announced that Scott Galdi has joined the company as regional marketing manager. He will serve and support customers who operate aircraft under FAR Part 135. Diana Clasen has been promoted to manager, Corporate Communications.
If you can afford to operate an airplane, you should be able to afford to get good, high-quality training,” Richard Shine told Business & Commercial Aviation. “We have never skimped on training or maintenance. It’s very important to budget for it.”
I am showing my age here, but I really enjoyed your Howard 500 and Beech 18 stories in the July issue. I realize that the nostalgia pieces are probably targeted at guys in my age group, but they are a nice change from the typical product analysis. My first ever (non-airline) airplane ride was in a Howard 350 owned by my father's employer, Husky Oil . . . it was from Cody, Wyo. to Calgary. I still remember the highly sophisticated (for its time) aftermarket engine analyzer that had been installed behind the pilot's seats.
Macquarie Global Opportunities Partners (MGOP), which purchased the non-flying businesses of Sentient Flight Group (SFG), has also grown rapidly through a series of acquisitions of FBOs and other aviation businesses. It had been in discussions with Sentient since the beginning of the year about potentially investing in the company.
Signature Flight Support has further expanded its European base with the acquisition of Southern Aero Services Ltd., the parent of Interflight Executive Aircraft Services, the sole FBO at London Gatwick Airport. Signature also provides services at London Heathrow and Luton. The Interflight transaction was valued at £4.5 million.
Flight Display Systems has received FAA Parts Manufacturing Approval (PMA) for two popular cabin entertainment products. The flight View Camera is mounted on the cockpit lare shield and allows passengers to see taxi, takeoff and lading from a pilot's perspective. The Satellite Radio Amplifier allows multiple passengers to have a personal XM or Sirius satellite radio receiver at their seat. Both products are in stock. Price: Flight View Camera, $1,250; Satellite Radio Amplifier, $1,875 Flight Display Systems 1765 Grassland Pkwy.
A five-hour House Aviation subcommittee hearing Sept. 17 on FAA processes for type certification (TC) and production certification (PC) focused on possible agency errors in certifying the Eclipse EA500.The legislators had requested an investigation by DOT Inspector General Calvin L.
Grob Aerospace, which has been engaged in a major expansion program as it prepared to bring its new G180 SPn business jet to market, unexpectedly filed for insolvency Aug. 18. "This unfortunate situation has arisen fairly rapidly off the back of recent delays in the SPn program, resulting in commensurately increased cash requirement to see the aircraft through to certification," explained Niall Olver, Grob's CEO.
Here's cheering news for those who observe that gas prices seem to go up quickly with the rising price of oil but fall slowly when the commodity gets cheaper. Charter operator XOJet announced an immediate cut of 9 percent in its fuel surcharge Sept.12, a move it says will save customers about $1,000 on a round-trip transcontinental flight. In making the announcement, Chief Marketing Officer Adam Komack stated, "A surcharge is a necessity to offset costs that are out of our control; it should never be confused with a revenue stream or a means of nickel and diming clients.
As a professional business pilot it's important to remember that the folks in the back are not savvy to what's happening up front, nor need they be. In their view, the food, the interior layout and the service are the most important aspects of a business aircraft flight. I have had an executive come on the airplane in Shanghai, drop his briefcase, let out a sigh and say, "Home." That's what world-class capability is all about, in my humble opinion, but for the passengers it's the cabin experience that makes a flight "world class."
*Northern Jet Management, Grand Rapids, Mich., announced that Kevin Tessmer is the new safety manager for the Flight Operations department; Scott Baragar and Rick Hansen are now team leaders for the department; and David Catterick is now a captain on the Citation Bravo. Steve Cok is the new assistant chief pilot/Bravo. James Douglas joined the company as a first officer, and Carmen Mohn is a new member of the accounting department.
THE FAA HAS EMBRACED the Safety Management System (SMS), which is essentially a quality management approach to controlling risk. Corporate lawyers tend to obsess about potential liabilities associated with aircraft, so they should love SMS.
Eurocontrol provides air traffic management for 36 European nations and issues invoices to users. Asked to provide readers with an update on European operational procedures, ATM modernization issues and the much-anticipated implementation of Single European Sky, Bo Redeborn, director of ATM strategies at Eurocontrol headquarters in Brussels, responded. What follows is a condensation of his report:
Takeoff and landing under IFR. (a) Instrument approaches to civil airports. Unless otherwise authorized by the FAA, when it is necessary to use an instrument approach to a civil airport, each person operating an aircraft must use a standard instrument approach procedure prescribed in Part 97 of this chapter for that airport. This paragraph does not apply to United States military aircraft.
Simon Wade, training and safety manager at Universal Weather & Aviation's London Stansted facility, is set to go running again. Wade completed the 2006 Jungle Marathon in Brazil (see "Off Duty," Business & Commercial Aviation, March 2007) and says he'll be running for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in March 2009. Interested sponsors can visit his fund-raising Web page at www.justgiving.com/run-4-diabetes and help cure juvenile diabetes.
At 1028 MST, a Piper Cherokee PA-28-180 (N5316L) sustained substantial damage subsequent to a collision with terrain shortly after takeoff approximately one mile north of Springerville Municipal Airport in Springerville, Ariz. It was VFR at the time of the accident and no flight plan was filed for the flight to Quemado Airport, Quemado, N.M. Witnesses reported the airplane became airborne about midfield during takeoff from Runway 03.
