DayJet announced 28 new destinations in November, in its first major expansion since launching per-seat, on-demand service with a fleet of Eclipse VLJs in 2007. The company will offer service to the cities from one of the company's five original Florida "DayPorts" - Boca Raton, Gainesville, Lakeland, Pensacola or Tallahassee - to destinations throughout Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. "Since initiating service in October, the feedback from our membership base has been overwhelmingly positive," said DayJet President and CEO Ed Iacobucci.
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.
Business Jet Center's facilities at Oakland International Airport (OAK) expanded by 15,000 square feet of hangar floor and 32,980 square feet of new apron, bringing its total at the airport to over 100,000 square feet. BJC already invested $4 million on renovation of the airport's executive terminal building.
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. . . .
The TSA and the U.S. Navy have teamed up to test a new extremely low-cost perimeter monitoring security system at Florida's new Panama City-Bay County International Airport. The Navy has been working on the new system for three years, said Michael Adams, program manager for the Naval Surface Warfare Center. "We went through operational evaluation and testing of the system this summer, and it fared very well," he said.
Voyager Jet Center broke ground in November 2007 at Allegheny County Airport (AGC) in West Mifflin, Pa., for a new phase of its planned FBO expansion. Following completion of new ramp and parking areas and other additions last year, the FBO will add hangars, storage space for equipment and a maintenance facility. Detailed plans for the next phase are due out this year.
Responding to yet more sad evidence that the U.S. government lacks fundamental understanding of general aviation, industry groups have cautioned that the proposed U.S. Customs and Border Protection manifest requirements on private aircraft probably would significantly hamper international flights - and urged the agency to provide greater flexibility for private operators.
Execaire, Montreal, appointed George Nader as director of sales and marketing. Kenneth F. Dandy joined the company as sales manager in Vancouver; John O'Brien is the new sales manager, maintenance and avionics repairs in Winnipeg and Harald Maron is sales manager, aircraft management and charter sales in Toronto.
The TSA is considering using a video game developed in house to train airport screeners. The game will help transportation security officers with object recognition.
FlightCAST, a new way of delivering training materials and information via Internet broadcasting, made its first appearance at the 2007 NBAA Convention amid pre-launch customer surveys to finalize development of the program. The idea is for subscribers to custom-build a stream of training videos using Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds of the type employed by many Web sites.
A bill to transfer airport employee badging responsibility from airports to the TSA for access to Federal Special Security Zones (FSSZ) has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in the wake of the arrest of 30 undocumented workers who carried illegal badges at Chicago O'Hare Airport. H.R. 4177, introduced by Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), would give the power to create FSSZs to the TSA administrator. Areas that could be covered include ramps, baggage-handling areas, baggage-loading areas and any other areas deemed appropriate.
The cover of Business & Commercial Aviation's January 1958 issue - our very first - featured an air traffic controller testing a then experimental television-aided radar display. Choosing such an image rather than, say, an aircraft for our debut might seem curious, but it was not. At the time radar and technically advanced ATC equipage was very much on the minds of those operating within the National Air System.
Both the National Air Transportation Association and the NBAA were asking for a delay in the compliance deadline for a new rule governing ETOPS published in January 2007. Schedulers and dispatchers can keep an eye on the NATA and NBAA information boards for the latest developments as the compliance date in February 2008 draws near. The rule broadens ETOPS (it's now "Extended Operations) to govern all multiengine aircraft in FAR Part 121 and 135 operations and introduces guidance for polar flights.
Jet Aviation will provide maintenance services at Moscow Vnukovo International Airport. When announcing the agreement in late November 2007, company officials said this makes Jet Aviation the first international business aviation maintenance company to provide services for business jets in Russia. Vnukovo handles 70 percent of all business aviation traffic in Russia. Under the agreement with Vnukovo Invest, Jet Aviation will provide line maintenance and AOG services at a hangar located next to the Vnukovo 3 FBO building.
On Nov. 20, 2007, Japan added several procedures at its customs checkpoints for all visitors age 16 and older entering the country. Digital fingerprints of the index fingers of both hands and headshot photographs will be taken simultaneously in a process that is expected to add about 30 seconds for each visitor's total processing time. Individuals who are entering in certain official capacities or by invitation of government agencies may be exempt, but even foreign residents of Japan will be re-checked at the time of every entry into the country.
Flight Options in December 2007 finalized an order valued at nearly $1 billion for 100 Embraer Phenom 300s and options for up to 50 more. The order was placed as the private equity investment firm H.I.G. Capital closed on the purchase of the Cleveland-based fractional aircraft ownership provider from Raytheon Co. The sale of Flight Options to H.I.G. was announced in late October. "This order is a defining moment for Flight Options and represents, in turn, a commitment from H.I.G. Capital to the long-term growth of this company," said S.
On Nov. 28, 2007, officials of Cessna and its corporate parent, Textron, Inc., struck an agreement with China's Shenyang Aircraft Corp. under which the Chinese firm will become the exclusive manufacturer of the Skycatcher. Cessna's new light sport aircraft, the Skycatcher is a high-wing, two-seat aircraft that carried an introductory price of $109,500 when Cessna began taking orders for it at last summer's Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wis.
THE INTERFACE AND TRANSITION of technologies always carries with it risk and requires of us heightened alertness. Those interconnections are common in aviation -- pistons to turboprops, turboprops to jets, steam gauges to glass panels, fly-by-cable to fly-by-wire all are examples. So to our subject this month -- the transition of flight-directed approaches to flight-managed approaches.
