Eurocopter closed out 2007 with a sale of 11 new helicopters to the Spanish Interior and Defense Ministries. The Director for Traffic will take delivery of four AS355NP twin-engine and two EC135 twin-engine helicopters valued at 20 million euros. The military contracts for five AS532AL (Cougar) helicopters were valued at 116 million euros.
Aerion, which reports letters of intent in hand for $1.5 billion worth of its Supersonic Business Jet (SSBJ), is still negotiating with potential OEMs to manufacture its aircraft. It hopes to announce that manufacturing partner later this year. If its schedule holds, Aerion estimates that the aircraft would earn certification and enter service by 2014. The Aerion aircraft is designed to cruise at up to 1.15 Mach over land without producing a sonic boom and 1.6 Mach over the oceans. The SSBJ will seat up to 12 passengers and have a range of more than 4,000 nm.
Duncan Aviation appointed Doug Alleman to the position of manager of service and engine sales for the Lincoln, Neb.-based airframe and engine sales teams. Alan Monk has been added to the Battle Creek airframe service sales team; Cary Loubert is the new Bombardier tech representative at the Battle Creek, Mich., facility. Brad Homeyer has joined the airframe services sales team in Lincoln.
John Douglass, the departing president of the Aerospace Industries Association, a former Pentagon official and a former staffer in the Reagan White House, was in Iowa serving as a volunteer adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), who is seeking the Democratic nomination. Douglass says he plans to continue advising the Clinton campaign this year.
Armies used to hate to move, much less fight, at night. And nighttime has been the eternal cloak of criminals. But now all that has changed. Beginning with a U.S. military initiative that had its roots in the Korean and more notably the Vietnam wars, American infantrymen took up the slogan "we own the night" and began using new technology that delivered near daytime vision in darkness to gain an advantage over adversaries. Because American forces are airmobile, it was inevitable that helicopter transport would require vision enhancement for the aircrews as well.
The FAA plans to expand improved taxiway centerline marking requirements to all certificated airports as part of an effort to reduce runway incursions, the agency announced in mid-January. The FAA also is recommending regular recurrent driver training for people with access to the movement and ramp areas at certificated airports. The announcements stem from a "Call to Action" plan that the FAA and industry unveiled in August 2007 to improve airport safety by focusing on cockpit procedures, airport signage and markings, air traffic procedures and technologies.
Aerospace industry sales and backlogs are at record levels, and the industry's profitability also is improving according to the AIA. For years aerospace industry profits had lagged behind other industrial sectors, but the profit margin for 2007 is estimated at 8.1 percent, just slightly lower than the 8.4 percent mark for industry overall.
Intelligence | 17 * Used Aircraft Market Remains Robust * Aerion Gets $1.5 Billion in LOIs * Aviation Taking Sides in Presidential Race * PlaneView Gulfstreams Earn RNP * Eclipse Gets $100 Million in New Equity Edited by James E. Swickard Commentary 9 | Viewpoint By William Garvey She Really Knows Her Way Around 32 | Business & Commercial Aviation 1958, a Year in Review 82 | Cause & Circumstance By Richard N. Aarons
Regarding the avionics on the Gulfstream G200 (20/Twenty, October 2007, page 112), it is not the only GAC family member to have Collins avionics - the G100 has Pro Line 4, and the G150, Pro Line 21. As the OEM account director handling Gulfstream for Rockwell Collins during the time of the G150 program, I can assure you this is the case.
Washington aviation lobbyists competed to see who could say the nicest things about Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) after she decided to accept the post of ranking Republican member on the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the hotly contested FAA reauthorization bill (see Washington, page 75). By replacing Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who retired from Congress at the end of December 2007, Hutchison will move into a critical position. Lott had joined forces with Sen.
Executive AirShare, Kansas City, Mo., named Keith D. Plumb president and chief operating officer. He takes over the position from company founder Robert D. Taylor, who will continue to serve as chairman and CEO.
The FAA has issued a stern warning to Santa Monica, Calif., city officials that a proposed ordinance to ban larger business jets at Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO) would violate federal laws and result in enforcement proceedings against the city. In early December 2007, the City Council agreed to a "first reading" of a proposed ordinance that would ban Category C and D aircraft - those with approach speeds faster than 121 knots - from using the airport. Santa Monica estimates that about 50 percent of the business jets that operate at SMO are Category C or D aircraft.
Regional carrier Chautauqua Airlines, a subsidiary of Indianapolis-based Republic Airways, reportedly is requiring all of its pilots to complete the AOPA Air Safety Foundation's Runway Safety online course as part of the airline's runway safety initiative. "There's really nothing better out there; it's certainly better than what we could have put together in-house," said Chautauqua Airlines Manager of Flight Standards Dirk Melchior. The AOPA says in its e-mail member newsletter, "You don't have to be an airline pilot to benefit from this free training.
*Bell 204, 205, 210, 212 and 412 helicopters - Replace certain rotor blades serviced by Rotor Blades, Inc. with airworthy ones. *Bell 206A and B helicopters - Remove certain main-rotor latch bolts. *Bell 206, 222, 230, 407, 427 and 430 helicopters - Replace certain rotor blades serviced by Rotor Blades, Inc. with airworthy ones. *Cessna Citation 525B airplanes - Incorporate an electrical-power relay circuit-protection kit.
Let's not kid ourselves. Business aviation is extremely vulnerable to political attack from environmental activists. Inevitably it will come to their attention that those of us who fly in business jets burn a lot more fuel than most people. Simple math will tell anyone who bothers to do the calculation that a business jet can burn as much fuel in an hour as a car will burn in a year.
* Lead feature: "Will The Airports Be Ready for the Jets?" *Grumman was weighing the business case to "mass produce its one-place, agricultural biplane." *Beech "stated emphatically recently it has no definite plans to start turboprop production." *General aviation interests were urging that the floor of controlled airspace be raised to 3,000 to 5,000 feet; the airlines wanted it kept at 700 feet.
The AOPA Air Safety Foundation is offering a series of free Web-based general aviation safety seminars recorded at AOPA Expo in October 2007. The ASF SafetyCast series provides 17 hours of Webcasts that cover a range of topics from presenters including aviation author and humorist Rod Machado, ASF Executive Director Bruce Landsberg, AOPA Medical Certification Services Director Gary Crump and AOPA General Counsel John Yodice. The Webcasts are available at www.asf.org.
In the mid-1960s, Piper Aircraft realized that it needed to develop a twin turboprop as a step-up airplane for its cabin-class piston-twin customers. The quickest and least expensive approach was to strap a couple of 620-shp Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A turboprops to the existing Pressurized Navajo airframe, increase the fuel capacity, bump up the takeoff weight by 1,200 pounds and rename it "Cheyenne."
Associated Aircraft Group (AAG), Wappingers Falls, N.Y., named Traci Blackwell to manager of relationship services between the company and its high-profile clients.
The International Air Transport Association recently reiterated its opposition to any congestion pricing system such as that often proposed for New York's JFK International Airport. "It is wrong to assume that peak pricing will help congestion at JFK. . . . Peak pricing in aviation has never been proven to effectively manage congestion anywhere in the world," an IATA spokesman said. "If attempted at JFK, it would likely lead to disruptions, distortions and discrimination. . . .
