A recently issued amended STC will enable European operators of King Air 200GTs to modify their aircraft with performance-enhancing winglets from BLR Aerospace. The FAA granted an STC amendment to the Everett, Wash.-based company in April, and EASA approval was granted in May. Earlier, EASA had certificated BLR's King Air 200 and 300 winglets.
Pilatus Aircraft delivered its first PC-12 NG. The aircraft features a number of improvements over its predecessor, including a fully integrated Honeywell Primus Apex avionics suite, a cockpit designed by BMW Group DesignworksUSA, and a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-67P turboprop engine that provides 15 percent more power than its original engine. The $3.8 million aircraft received both EASA and FAA certifications in March.
A half century ago, commercial jetliners were making their debut, but business aviation had yet to embrace turbine power. Big radial piston twins, mostly World War II-vintage transports, bombers, patrol planes and trainers converted for the carriage of executives, were then the mainstays of the business aviation fleet.
King Aerospace, Ardmore, Okla., announced that Richard (Rick) Penshorn is the company's new president and general manager. John Hartzler is the new chief operating officer and Lloyd Landburg is the new chief inspector.
CAE, the big Canada-based simulator manufacturer and trainer, announced it has purchased Sabena Flight Academy, which includes its ab-initio training base in Mesa, Ariz., its 40-aircraft fleet that includes an Eclipse 500 and its six-simulator training center in Brussels, Belgium. Begun as a unit of Sabena Airlines, the Sabena training organization later became an independent entity. Its Belgium center's full flight simulators include an Avro RJ85/100; Airbus 320, 330 and 340; and Boeing 737 and 737NG. The two JAA- and JAR-approved bases employ some 135 people.
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.
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.
By the early 1950s, Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) had become "Big Pratt's" piston powerplant mainstay, manufacturing several models of the larger operation's round engines and associated parts. But the move to turbine power was inevitable and the Canadian entity decided its place would be to serve the lighter end of the evolving turbine market. Its initial development efforts ultimately resulted in the JT-12 turbojet, which was built in Hartford, Conn.
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.
I, too, have thoroughly enjoyed your well-written magazine for my entire career. I must echo reader Steve Korenek's view in the June issue concerning the global warming fear mongering (page 8). This industry has done more than it's share of "greening" even before it became the latest rage. Fuel cost saw to that in the 1970s and will again drive us to burn less fuel.
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.
WE LIVE ABOUT AN HOUR outside Manhattan, depending. On traffic. Weather. Road work. Day. Urgency. And, I recently discovered, the temperature gauge, which had my attention as the needle pegged at 280°. This was seriously not good for several reasons aside from the obvious.
The man who would revolutionize aviation and mobile entertainment was born before the airplane in1902, another poor kid in Hannibal, Mo. Thanks to childhood fascination and experimentation with emerging radio technology, he fought the Great War as a radio operator in the U.S. Navy. Once discharged he and a partner invented the first practical car radio, later selling the patents to what would become the Motorola Co. Lear used his profits to earn a pilots license and to launch Lear Development Co., one of a host to firms he'd found in his busy lifetime.
EVAS Worldwide's Emergency Vision Assurance System (EVAS) will be standard equipment on the Gulfstream G650. EVAS allows pilots to see in continuous dense smoke in the cockpit. With EVAS as standard equipment, the G650 will be the first factory-delivered aircraft to meet FAA recommended standards for cockpit smoke. Until now aircraft manufacturers have chosen the minimum standard over the FAA's recommended standard. FAR Part 25 advisory materials recommended that aircraft be built with systems to address continuous smoke.
Aircraft entering the United States with food, flowers or other plants of any kind are completely purged of all those materials according to special procedures prescribed by the Department of Agriculture, and the regulations are the strictest in the world.
In 1983, when a group of investors purchased the St. Louis-based Sabreliner Division of Rockwell International, the casual observer might have assumed that the new stand-alone organization would have limited potential since its main business was supporting a shrinking fleet of first-generation business jets that had ceased production.
The NTSB issued a safety recommendation (A-08-21) essentially restating one issued in 1994 (A-94-81) regarding informing pilots about recognizing and handling a turbocharger failure in flight. The Safety Board's action followed from a fatal accident and long inaction by manufacturers. On May 28, 2004, a turbocharger-equipped Cessna T206H operated by the Drug Enforcement Agency crashed in Illinois after the pilot reported a loss of engine power while cruising at 1,150 feet agl. The airplane struck trees and crashed into the garage of a house; the pilot was killed.
Airbus, Blagnac, France, announced that Benoit Defforge is the new CEO of the Airbus Corporate Jet Centre. Francois Chazelle has been named vice president, Airbus Executive and Private Aviation.
It was a ride with a barnstormer as a teenager in California that did it; after that Allen Paulson wanted to be a part of aviation. He began with wrenches, first as a mechanic for TWA in 1941 and later as a flight engineer on Lockheed Constellations. He invented a device to enhance reliability on the Connie's cantankerous engines and offered it to his employer for free, but was turned down. Sure of its value, he began selling it independently and quickly found himself overseeing a flourishing moonlight aviation parts business.
EADS Eurocopter signed an agreement to acquire Motorflug Baden-Baden GmbH, which claims more than 400 customers in over 40 countries, making it one of the largest helicopter repair stations in Europe. Besides Baden-Baden, the EASA Part 145-approved maintenance and EASA Part 21.J design organization has bases in Rheinmünster and in Schönhagen, near Berlin.
ACM Aviation in San Jose, Calif., is adding a Boeing Business Jet and a Citation II to its managed fleet. The BBJ will be the largest aircraft in ACM's fleet, which also includes large jets such as the Bombardier Global Express, Gulfstream V and Dassault Falcon Jets. ACM also manages a range of smaller aircraft from a King Air and Piaggio Avanti II to a Learjet and a Challenger 604. "We have aggressively pursued a more diverse fleet of aircraft to serve the entire spectrum of private aviation," said Greg Johnson, vice president of business development.
