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.
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.
It began with the Gulfstream. Executives at Aviation Age, then a magazine covering the full spectrum of aviation activity, were intrigued with Grumman Aircraft's decision to design, certify and manufacture a turbine-powered, pressurized twin intended specifically for businesses. It would cost about $1 million, or roughly double or triple the price of the converted World War II bombers and patrol planes then used as executive transports by a growing number of companies like Coca-Cola, Eastman Kodak and Gulf Oil.
It was 1927 and he was transfixed by the scratchy sounds emanating from the RCA radio in the spare farmhouse parlor. He was riveted by the news reports of the single pilot making his way across the Atlantic in a tiny airplane. Finally came the exhilarating word: Lindbergh had made it! The Lone Eagle had landed in Paris and was being mobbed by spectators! That did it. From that moment little Al Ueltschi knew he was going to be a pilot, too. One of five sons of a hard-working Kentucky dairy farmer, there was no money, of course, but he'd find a way.
Officials of Dubai-based Emivest told Sino Swearingen employees that it will purchase an 80-percent controlling interest in Sino Swearingen Aircraft Co. from Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs. The Emirates Investment and Development Corp.'s first priority will be to pay off overdue bills to vendors and restart the SJ30-2 production line. The Dubai firm also said it wants to build a family of new aircraft models based upon the SJ30-2 design.
Rockwell Collins, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, appointed David Rokos as vice president and treasurer, reporting to Patrick Allen, senior vice president and chief financial officer. Dan Swenson has been appointed vice president, investor relations. Denny Helgeson, vice president and general manager, business and regional systems, will retire this fall. Greg Irmen has been appointed as Helgeson's successor, effective immediately.
As far as the current state of the used aircraft market is concerned, "I think we are going through a correction, like the stock market," observed Gary Spivack, president of Intellijet, the Jacksonville, Fla.-based aircraft broker that deals primarily in heavy-iron, late-model business aircraft. Most of his transactions involve either a foreign buyer or seller.
Hawker Beechcraft received an order from BJETS, a new fractional ownership and block charter company based in India, for 10 Hawker 4000 super-midsize business jets. The contract included options for up to five more, bringing the agreement's total value to more than $330 million. BJETS previously had ordered 11 Hawker 900XP and nine 850XP business jets for the company's fractional operations in India and Southeast Asia. BJETS operates from bases in Mumbai, India, and Singapore with a flight operations center in Hyderabad, India.
Although its ubiquitous bubble-fronted Model 47 had made Bell a preeminent manufacturer within the small but growing rotary-wing com--munity, that legacy wasn't enough for the U.S. Army to embrace the HO-4, Bell's entry to the service's turbine-powered Light Observation Helicopter (LOH) competition in 1960. That signal contract instead went to an egg-shaped design put forward by Hughes, a newcomer.
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.
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.
OEMs and MROs have announced multiple new facilities including Jet Aviation's plans to open an FBO, alongside a Midcoast Aviation MRO facility, in Ogden, Utah, this fall. The MRO facility will occupy 70,000 square feet of maintenance hangar and workshop space, and it will focus on midsize to large cabin business aircraft. The company said it would provide heavy MRO, component repair, refurbishment and paint services, and it is talking with OEMs to gain service center designations, hopefully by the end of the year.
Aerospace employment increased to 651,700 in March, up from the 2007 year-end average of 645,600, the Aerospace Industries Association reported. AIA said aerospace employment has climbed steadily since hitting a low of 587,100 in 2003. Despite the increases, AIA still is concerned that the industry is facing a potential workforce crisis since 60 percent of U.S. aerospace workers were age 45 or older in 2007.
Jet Aviation and Malaysian MRO company, Airod, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly provide FBO, line maintenance and AOG services at Kuala Lumpur's Subang Airport. According to Jet Aviation, the two companies will negotiate a formal joint venture agreement to be finalized and signed by August. Once the partnership is in effect, Jet Aviation and Airod will immediately begin jointly providing FBO, line maintenance, AOG and tenant services to local and regional aircraft operators.
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.
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.
*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
The "Old Man's Airplane Company" dedicated itself to a single-turboprop pusher design featuring a high main wing with end plates set over the aft section of the fuselage and a fixed canard in the nose. It was one of several hopeful but underfinanced ventures by small, independent companies in the 1980s and 1990s that ultimately simply atrophied as the better established manufacturers introduced -- and support -- competitive designs.
The FAA now requires air traffic controllers to provide detailed taxi directions to pilots and airport vehicle operators in the interest of reducing runway incursions. Instead of merely receiving clearance to a location, pilots and drivers will get turn-by-turn details of the route to the destination. It's similar to pilot-requested "Progressive Taxi" directions, but is initiated by the controller. See the official FAA announcement at www.faa.gov/news/updates/
Sept. 11, 2001 -- The day that 19 fanatics turned four jetliners into murderous missiles, striking buildings in New York, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania not only saw the deaths of thousands of innocents, but also permanently altered public and institutional attitudes and behavior. The immediate impact on aviation was to ground every aircraft, and then to continue the grounding of all private aircraft even though none had been involved in the attack.
I've been flying professionally for a long time -- two score and four years, actually -- first flying fighters for the U.S. Air Force, and since 1974, piloting business jets for the executive air force. Throughout, I've noted procedures and calls that made no sense when I first encountered them and still make no sense today, though they're still in use.
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).
