PEACE AIR LTD. Flight PE905, a British Aerospace Jetstream 3112, touched down short of Runway 29 at Fort St. John, British Columbia, during a second approach attempt in blowing snow with winds gusting up to 40 knots. The Jan. 9, 2007, flight had originated in Grande Prairie, Alberta, with two pilots and 10 passengers. None were injured as the aircraft struck the approach and runway threshold lights and slammed onto the ground some 380 feet from the threshold. At the time, runway visual range was fluctuating between 1,800 and 2,800 feet.
Russ Meyer Jr., chairman emeritus of Cessna Aircraft, was named chairman of the AOPA Air Safety Foundation Board of Visitors. "Russ's selection will bring new opportunities to expand visibility of the Air Safety Foundation to the industry and general aviation pilots," said Bruce Landsberg, executive director of the foundation. The board serves in an advisory capacity for the AOPA Air Safety Foundation, which generates safety education and outreach materials for general aviation pilots.
The scion to a family whose fortune traced to colonial days, Paul Butler could have lived a life of quiet, untroubled luxury on the predictable profits from the J.W. Butler Paper Co. he inherited. He chose otherwise. Disciplined, energetic, broadly inquisitive, he invested 12- to 18-hour workdays to expanding the family's business into what became the Butler Co., a vast domain of manufacturing, ranching, land development and sports enterprises.
Carol Chamberlin says she started riding when she was just a kid on an Oregon ranch because that's what you do when you herd cattle. "It was a necessity, not a hobby," she says. The senior electronics technician at Rockwell Collins' Richardson, Texas, plant got her technical know-how in the U.S. Air Force and did a tour in England at RAF Mildenhall, which placed her within trotting distance of England's horse center at Newmarket.
The Eclipse 500 is one of the most sophisticated business jets ever produced and arguably the technology leader in its class. It is an epitome of the quiet, dark cockpit, especially when there's no power to the displays. It's unnecessarily difficult to learn about this aircraft because Eclipse has no interactive cockpit procedures trainer.
A corporate aircraft symposium and exhibition to be held in New York City this month will feature a presentation on the pre-owned aircraft market. National Aircraft Resale Association President Susan Sheets is slated to speak at the event, which will be held July 17 and 18 at the Westin hotel in Manhattan's Times Square.
Most food poisoning outbreaks are traced to fresh food, but on rare occasions when the process of preserving or packaging was not followed properly, botulism has resulted in canned foods as well.
The history of aviation has been punctuated by a serious of stunning technical breakthroughs, from the Wrights' first flight and Sir Frank Whittle's discovery of the power of the turbojet, to Igor Sikorsky's mastery of the vertical ascent and Chuck Yeager's smashing of the sound barrier. However, these rapid advances often have been followed by terrible setbacks, with the initial triumph and catastrophic demise of the de Havilland Comet, the first jetliner, being one of the more memorable examples.
Eclipse Aviation announced it will start taking orders for the Eclipse 400 single-engine jet -- a production version of the Eclipse Concept Jet first displayed at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture 2007 last July. Eclipse 500 customers will receive an additional $125,000 discount off the introductory price of $1.35 million in June 2008 dollars if they place their deposits before this July 25. The company also announced a price boost for the twin-jet Eclipse 500 to $2.15 million, a jump of $555,000, effective immediately.
The S-76 helicopter fleet has topped the five million flight hour milestone, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. announced in late May. The milestone follows two others for the S-76 helicopter this year: the 30th anniversary of the first delivery and the 700th aircraft delivery. The program is on track to mark another major event later this year: first flight of the next production model, the S76-D.
The Beech 18, or Twin Beech, was the flying workhorse of American industry in the 1950s and early 1960s, providing cabin-class passenger comfort, a fully-enclosed aft lav and 1,000-plus nm cruising range at 160 KTAS cruise speeds. "It really was the only game in town," commented Tom Warner, former Beech 18/ Super 18 top salesman and Walter and Olive Ann Beech's son-in-law. "All the big companies owned them including GM, J. P. Stevens and dozens of others. It had terrific reliability and it was very nice to fly."
At the Schedulers & Dispatchers Convention in Savannah, Ga., earlier this year, former aviators Chuck McKinnon and Otto Pobanz were invited to describe the business aviation world as they knew it beginning 50 years ago. Because of time considerations, neither one was able to complete his presentation. In our last "S&D Report," McKinnon's memoir was reprised; now it's Pobanz's turn.
West Star Aviation expanded its facility at Dallas Love Field (DAL) to accommodate growing demand for maintenance on a number of business jet lines. West Star added a new facility adjacent to its existing 42,000 square feet of hangars, shops and offices located by Runway 31R. The new facility provides an additional 33,000 square feet of shop and office space and includes sheet metal, avionics and interior refurbishment shop capabilities, along with maintenance and avionics services capabilities.
Air taxi operator Linear Air announced a new online booking tool that allows schedulers and dispatchers who use air taxis to supplement their own fleets to make reservations and obtain quotes instantaneously. In claiming to be the first air taxi company to offer this service, Linear may be distinguishing between its own Quick Quote technology and that used by DayJet, which also provides its members with the means to reserve and get quotes online.
The FAA activated new East Coast Oceanic RNP 10 RNAV routes June 5, that can potentially save millions of dollars in fuel, reduce delays and even help the environment. Required Navigation Performance (RNP) 10 standards allow lateral separation between aircraft to be reduced from 90 nm to 50 nm over the Atlantic from New York to the Caribbean, increasing capacity and reducing delays along that busy corridor.
Bombardier will manufacture the all-composite airframe for the new Learjet 85 midsize business jet at its plant in Queretaro, Mexico, after an initial production run by Germany's Grob Aerospace, the company announced. Grob is designing the composite structure and will build the Learjet 85 prototypes as well as initial production aircraft while manufacture transitions to Mexico.
WHEN YOU LOOK AT the current FAA-DOT relationship you have to shake your head and hope things will get better after the election. Nominally in charge of the FAA these days is Bobby Sturgell, a man with superior aviation credentials, a law degree and five years of on-the-job training as deputy administrator while Marion Blakey was administrator.
Honeywell's corporate flight department applied for its own FAA authorization to perform Required Navigation Performance Special Aircraft and Aircraft Authorization Required (RNP SAAAR) operations on the company's Gulfstream G450 and G550 aircraft equipped with the PlaneView system. In 2007, the FAA designated Honeywell as an RNP SAAAR consultancy, allowing the company to provide services to other business jet operators that facilitate their authorization for RNP SAAAR procedures.
In-Flight Crew Connections, LLC, Charlotte, N.C., received national certification as a Women's Business Enterprise by the Michigan Women's Business Council.
Carl Janssens, editor of the Aircraft Bluebook's Marketline newsletter, sees the current market for previously owned turbine-powered business aircraft as stable, despite naysayers' emphasis on bad economic news. In the second-quarter edition of his publication, Janssens said that the U.S. economy "is currently working through some uncertain economic woes, but keep in mind these concerns will mend in time."
Since its introduction in July 1964, the Beechcraft (now Hawker Beechcraft) King Air has been an institution for business and personal transportation. As with many breakthrough aircraft, this one evolved from a new engine, namely the PT-6 developed by Pratt & Whitney's Canadian subsidiary outside Montreal. The combination of a Beech-made pressurized aircraft with a small, durable, prop-driving turbine proved ideal for the burgeoning business aviation market.
The NTSB recommended that the main rotor blades on thousands of Robinson helicopters be inspected at intervals of less than 600 hours because of four incidences of rotor blade skin debonding.
