Hawker Beechcraft will open a new Hawker Beechcraft Services (HBS) maintenance and service facility in Mesa, Ariz., at the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. The planned $14 million investment will provide customer support in the Southwestern United States with a state-of-the-art maintenance center. This facility is expected to generate up to 110 new jobs over five years. Headquartered in Wichita, HBS is leasing 5.1 acres on the former Williams AFB with an option to expand to 10.7 acres.
ExecuJet, a Zurich, Switzerland-based operator that has operations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Australasia, will add six new Learjet 85 aircraft to its existing fleet of 29 Bombardier business jets. Bombardier valued the order at $103 million. Bombardier also sold two of its long-range Global Express XRS jets to Zurich-based Comlux Aviation.
Not surprisingly (and some might say, thankfully), most of the FAA's environmental attention these days is concentrated on the airlines. "It makes the most sense to focus on the class of activity that contributes most greatly to the impact -- commercial service," Lourdes Maurice, the FAA's chief scientist for environment, told us. "That has been our focus; all of our models are aimed at [the airlines]."
*July 14-20: Farnborough International Air Show, Farnborough, England. +44 20-7976-3349. www.farnborough.com *July 19: National Aviation Hall of Fame 47th Annual Enshrinement Ceremony, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. www.nationalaviation.blade6.donet.com *July 23-25: 4th International Aviation Trade Show & Congress CIAM Cancun 2008, Hilton Cancun Golf & Spa Resort, Mexico. www.expo-ciam.com *Aug. 14-16: LABACE 2008, Congonhas Airport, São Paulo, Brazil. www.labace.aero
Aerion announced that the company went to EBACE with more than 40 letters of intent for its supersonic business jet worth $3 billion. June 10, the company announced that by the end of the show, they had added 10 more orders, bringing the total to 50, each backed by a refundable $250,000 deposit, and upping the backlog to $4 billion.
Beech Aircraft began development of the Starship in secrecy in 1979, employing Burt Rutan-built flying scale models of the unusual twin pusher, all-composite design. Manufacturing the airplane required huge autoclaves and new milling techniques to produce the airframe. Introduced at the 1983 NBAA Convention, the Starship cockpit featured 14 CRT displays, in what would become known as Rockwell Collins' Pro Line 4 digital avionics suite. Unfortunately, despite its fine handling characteristics and advanced avionics, the aircraft proved hard to sell.
IN APRIL, THE DOT's inspector general (IG) delivered a speech to a U.S. Senate committee entitled "Key Safety Challenges Facing the Federal Aviation Administration." At that time, the airlines had recently grounded nearly 700 aircraft in response to an industry-wide FAA assessment of airline compliance with Airworthiness Directives (AD).
The FAA says Adaptive Compression and Airspace Flow Programs have saved $27 million for the airlines and 1.1 million delay minutes for the airlines and the flying public in the first year after its March 2007 launch. Adaptive Compression works by scanning for airport arrival slots that would go to waste when a flight is canceled, delayed or rerouted. Open slots are filled with the next available flight, minimizing passenger delays by maximizing operations at constrained airports.
Dec. 31, 1958 -- The new Federal Aviation Agency superseded the Civil Aeronautics Administration and absorbed the Civil Aeronautics Board's safety rulemaking function. Congress invested the new agency with the authority to establish a unified civil/military National Airspace System backed by an expanded network of air navigation and air traffic control facilities. Elwood R. Quesada, a former lieutenant general in the Army Air Force and backed by President Dwight Eisenhower, was installed as its head.
This graph is designed to provide a broad sketch of the Howard 500's performance, based upon AFM numbers and flight logs compiled by David Cummings, chief pilot. Do not use these data for flight planning.
The European business aviation market demonstrated its increasing strength during EBACE, with several major business jet makers announcing orders from European customers that amounted to billions of dollars. EBACE further marked a number of other international orders from growing regions such as the Middle East and Asia. The slate of orders is also further evidence of the shift of the center of gravity toward the international market, which is expected to account for about half of all new aircraft deliveries over the next five years.
Three Iraqi nationals became Baghdad's first tower-certified air traffic controllers after completing months of rigorous instruction based on international aviation safety standards. At a ceremony on May 29, Sabeeh Al Shebany, director general of Iraq's Civil Aviation Authority, and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters, who is visiting Iraq, presented the controllers with their certifications at Baghdad International Airport's air traffic control facilities.
1967 -- It was the era of the mainframe computer and every business wanted one to help it manage data, identify trends and grow. However, at about $1 million per, the price of this new generation of "electronic brains" put them beyond most potential users' reach. To close that gap, facilitators created turnkey, multi-user arrangements in which several companies could share the cost by sharing access. Since the new generation of business jets was similarly priced, if there was a way to share the costs, these highly desirable transportation tools could serve multiple users.
General Electric is developing an all-new 3,000-shp-class helicopter turboshaft, the GE3000, under the U.S. Army's Advanced Affordable Turbine Engine (AATE) program. The GE3000 will compete with the Honeywell/Pratt & Whitney HPW3000 to power the Army's Boeing AH-64 Apache and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters later next decade.
MEDEX Global Group announced that it acquired ASI Group - formerly Air Security International. The May 15 announcement said the acquisition creates North America's largest provider of both medical travel assistance and risk management services. Based in Baltimore, MEDEX provides 24/7/365 support for business and individual travelers, including pre-trip intelligence, contingency planning, real-time medical case monitoring, and complex emergency evacuations.
FlightSafety International, La Guardia Airport, N.Y., has promoted Eric Dixon to assistant manager of the FSI Learning Center in Atlanta. He will continue to serve as program manager, HondaJet training.
The glimmer of an idea in inventor/ designer/pitchman/genius William P. Lear's extraordinary mind was only the beginning of an enduring family of remarkable aircraft known for their pioneering, performance and style. Partly inspired by the P-16, an unsuccessful single-seat Swiss ground attack jet, the indefatigable Lear recruited a group of Swiss aircraft designers and engineers to transform the fighter's wing and basic airframe design into the cornerstone of a revolutionary aircraft.
The FAA's proposal to update the aircraft registration process is drawing strong opposition from those in the industry who fear the requirements would excessively burden all aircraft owners to fix problems caused by a few. The FAA in late February proposed requiring reregistration of all currently active aircraft, and further requiring a recurring three-year renewal of all registrations thereafter.
The Sabreliner was developed by Los Angeles-based North American Aviation in the mid-1950s to satisfy the U.S. Air Force's requirement for a twinjet trainer and utility transport. Designated T-39 by the Air Force, the aircraft resembled North American's F-86 Sabre jet fighter and featured a swept wing and fuselage that each were 44 feet long. Power was provided by two aft-mounted 3,000-pound-thrust Pratt & Whitney JT12 turbojets, and the aircraft was easily identified by its distinctive, high-visibility upper and side cockpit windows.
Swiss-based VistaJet plans to capitalize on the growing European business jet market, signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Bombardier to buy the manufacturer's European charter and jet-card membership program, Skyjet International, and then inking a deal valued at $1.2 billion for up to 60 more Bombardier business jets. The contract includes firm orders for 11 Challenger 605s, 13 Learjet 60 XRs and 11 new Learjet 85 aircraft. The order also includes options for up to 25 more aircraft.
For transportation, and particularly for air transport, the primary tool in combating global warming happens to be the same one prized by designers and manufacturers from the outset -- efficiency.
International Communications Group moved to bolster its Iridium communication systems (ICS) by integrating them with Universal Avionics' UniLink UL-70x, a popular communications management unit (CMU) for business aircraft, and introducing an interface between the ICG NxtLink ICS and Tempus, a remote medical monitoring device made by RDT, a U.K. company.
Airplanes are lousy classrooms. The onslaught of sensory stimuli in flight can overwhelm the student's concentration. Beyond that, some maneuvers are too dangerous or time-consuming, and flight training consumes fuel and causes aircraft to wear or break.
