Business & Commercial Aviation asked Pratt & Whitney's vice president for technology and environment, Alan Epstein, Ph.D., to speculate, as much as it is possible to do so at this juncture, what impact regulation of carbon sources contributing to global warming could ultimately have on business aviation? His answer:
Criminalizing air accidents blocks safety progress. The European Regions Airline Association (ERA) is calling for European states to adopt a non-punitive voluntary reporting system for air safety occurrences, rather than encouraging a culture of blame and criminal prosecution that discourages the sharing of safety information. Addressing delegates at April's ERA Regional Airline Conference in Malta, ERA president and chief operating officer of Greek carrier Aegean Airlines, Antonis Simigdalas' position was particularly relevant as the U.K.
A major perk of being a pilot is an occasional front-row view of the amazing. If you were flying at 0212 EDT the night of March 19, and suddenly saw a new star appear in the constellation Bootes, you weren't crazy. You were an eyewitness to a brilliant gamma ray burst that took place an estimated 7.5 billion years ago, yet was still bright enough that it could be seen with the naked eye if you happened to be looking in its direction when it blew.
ProJet, Winchester, Va., has announced the Tim Shively has joined the company as client service manager and charter pilot. Julie O'Brien is the company's new director of Marketing and Public Relations.
Your March Viewpoint ("Deserving It") struck a chord. Mention of Mary Gaffney brought back memories of the 1970 World Aerobatics Championships, held at RAF Hullavington. It was the first time most Brits had ever seen a Pitts, and what a revelation it was! I still remember Royal Aero Club secretary and aerobatics judge John Blake commenting that the little buzzing Pitts was "a xylophone to the big Russian Yak's grand piano." Here's a picture I took of Mary taxiing out for one of her sessions back then.
When I interviewed with that Fortune 500 company, the CEO told me that Melissa was the smoothest pilot there. After flying with her, I agree. I was always proud to watch her climb into the airplane, petite (somewhere south of five feet tall), cushions behind her, and watch her perform her magic with the airplane. Good stick, but she also has the sense to be scared when it pays to be scared. I wish I could have gotten that conservative attitude conveyed to some of her antagonists -- my fellow employees -- during my 21 months there. I learned a lot from Melissa.
Garmin International won FAA supplemental type certification for its Synthetic Vision Technology (SVT) that will integrate with the Garmin G1000 avionics suite to provide a three-dimensional depiction of terrain, obstacles and traffic on the G1000 primary flight display. SVT will create and display real-time three-dimensional images of the aircraft position that is combined with topographic database and will alert pilots to potential ground hazards by displaying terrain and obstacles shaded with TAWS alert coloring.
HAVING ACCUMULATED 20,000 HOURS flying in the service and for airlines, I'm regarded by some Napa, Calif., neighbors as an aviation authority. It was for that reason that a friend wanted my opinion of an airplane on a sales visit. I was impressed at first sight. Its lines were alluring, its power system wonderfully sensible, its cockpit dazzling, its cabin commodious and its performance complemented all that perfectly. The Adam 500 was my kind of airplane.
The continuing controversy over the FAA's handling of its airline oversight is beginning to take a toll on the agency's ranks. The entire management team of the Southwest Airlines Certificate Management Office has turned over in the last year, a key principal maintenance inspector is under investigation and the agency acknowledged in April that it had "reassigned" Thomas Stuckey, manager of the Southwest Region's Flight Standards Division.
Natural laminar flow (NLF) airfoils are key to achieving optimum performance and fuel efficiency in many vintage and current production turbine-powered business aircraft. NLF is not a new discovery. For more than seven decades aerodynamic engineers have known that achieving laminar flow in the boundary layer over a large part of the wing's chord can substantially reduce drag, resulting in more range and speed for the same fuel burn. Laminar flow has the potential for reducing drag by 88 percent over turbulent flow, based upon wind-tunnel test results.
Although rotary-wing aircraft make the most extensive use of enhanced vision, fixed-wing aircraft also can employ these systems to increase the safety of operations at night. Virtually all fixed-wing systems make use of infrared-sensitive cameras mounted in the nose to provide a fixed view of what's ahead. If nose mounting is a problem, installers find a spot in the vertical tail or in a wing. Some systems are cooled by a cryogenic liquid contained within a sealed recirculating system while others do not require any cooling at all.
Hawker Beechcraft officials are hoping to receive FAA Type Certification of the Hawker 4000 business jet "soon," following completion of yet another round of Function & Reliability (F&R) testing that wrapped up the week of March 16. The aircraft won FAA approval for basic flight in late 2004, then received a "provisional" TC from the FAA in late 2006 that expanded the flight envelope but left a number of requirements unaccomplished. The paperwork from the latest round of flight tests is currently under review by the FAA.
Leaders of the National Aircraft Resale Association (NARA), concerned with the aircraft certification challenges its members are experiencing in Europe, recently met with Mary Cheston, the FAA's manager of international policy and aircraft certification service, to discuss how to address those problems.
Associated Aircraft Group, Wappingers Falls, N.Y. has announced three new positions at its Dutchess Country Airport flight operations and maintenance center: Adam Antia is the administrative assistant to the director of maintenance for the FAR Part 145 Repair Station. Bob Steinberg and Josh Kemlage have begun work in the company's helicopter maintenance facility.
I was in tears by the time I got to the end of "Deserving It" (Viewpoint, March 2008). It really hit home hard. I was also the young lady at one time who, in a roundabout way, was told that I would never fly charter because "customers don't want a woman in the cockpit."
Chelton Flight Systems began field installation of software for Phase II of the Capstone Program that is testing and integrating ADS-B in Alaska. Chelton is working with the FAA and the University of Alaska Anchorage to update the software on 90 FAR Part 23 aircraft and to train operators of those aircraft. The software, which received TSO approval in December 2007, integrates with and displays ADS-B information on Chelton's electronic flight information system.
Productivity is the essential quality for making a profit in the regional airline industry, and as one leading airline executive put it, "You build from profitability, not to profitability." Productivity is derived from operating cost, block-to-block speed, runway field performance, passenger and freight capacity, and the versatility to operate profitably over widely ranging mission distances.
Bird-X, Inc., has introduced the Bird BLazer indoor bird deterrent laser. This new product fills the need identified by forty-four years of customer input and experience with bird problems at municipal, industrial and commercial buildings, according to the company. BLaser uses state-of-the-art fat beam laser technology in dozens of constantly changing patterns to disrupt pigeons, sparrows, starlings, swallows and other birds. The device covers up to 10,000 square feet. BLaser operates on 110 volts with no oversight or maintenance required. The unit weighs nine pounds.
The following letter was posted on www.airlinepilotforums.com. We contacted Comair and media spokesperson, Kate Marx, would not confirm or deny the letter saying that Comair does not discuss internal documents. She went on to say that Comair had produced some requested ASAP reports but under a protective order and also under protest. Marx also said that "we need ASAP to identify safety issues so we can create corrective actions. Our concerns are that the program is voluntary and a major point is confidentiality.
As vice president for strategic operations at DayJet Corp., Traver Gruen-Kennedy already has his hands full starting up a brand-new air service in the Southeast United States.. Not one to leave any corner of his daily calendar untouched, Kennedy fills much of his spare time helping people in faraway places with strange-sounding names. Like Agogo, for example. The little village in the Ashanti area of eastern Ghana with a name like a discotheque honored Kennedy by making him a chief.
In April, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke finally admitted publicly what many observers who had been scrutinizing the U.S. financial numbers had suspected for months: The American economy is slipping and likely will contract during the first half of 2008. This isn't news to homeowners ensnared in the subprime mortgage crisis, residents of Northern states who paid record prices for heating oil this past winter, or drivers nationwide who are spending hundreds of dollars a week to fill up their gas tanks. However, how large an impact a U.S.
New from Howard Leight are the Thunder T2HV high-visibility earmuffs that provide users with a total solution for hearing protection and visibility. The bright green earcups provide a highly noticeable contrast against dark settings especially in low lighting or inclement weather. They also incorporate an exclusive reflective headband that illuminates when exposed to light. Dielectric construction in Thunder T2HV earmuffs will not conduct electricity, making them ideal for almost all high-noise environments.
