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.
Pending the output of Special Committee 203 of the RTCA, which has been charged with formulating technical specifications for UAVs in civil airspace, the FAA has been dealing with these unique aircraft (it prefers the UAS nomenclature) on an ad hoc basis. The feds have made it very clear that the guidance issued to hobbyists operating scale-model aircraft with radio controls, as found in Advisory Circular 91-57, does not extend to sheriff's departments or police chiefs who want to use pilot-less aircraft to search for perps in backyards before sending a patrolman in.
So far in this series reviewing aeronautical fundamentals, we've looked at factors that affect how an airplane behaves. (Board Time, July 2007, page 76; Energy Management and You, October 2007, page 76). Let's now look at some that we must consider when we want to stay up for extended periods as we head for somewhere far away. As we taxi our shiny business jet toward the end of the runway we look back at those wings, long and smooth, flexing slowly with the weight of a full load of Jet-A.
Two overseas operators have signed letters of intent with Project Phoenix, a program to convert Bombardier CRJ-200 regional airliners into executive transports.
I've got my hobby for the rest of my life," says Mike Kullenberg, and it's a hobby he can live in -- his pre-Civil War era house, which he and his wife, Deedee, are restoring and refurbishing while preserving as much of the original as possible. The Greek Revival style "cottage" is mounted on brick piers in traditional South Carolina Low Country style, and the only nod to modernity since it was built in 1846 was the addition of indoor plumbing and electricity sometime in the 1930s.
A long-feared push by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to tighten entry requirements on private aircraft took another step forward with publication in November 2007 of a DHS fact sheet on general aviation* in which the agency reiterated its views on the "vulnerability" of GA and private aircraft flights to misuse that could be harmful to the nation.
Bombardier Aerospace has launched a new fee-based support program for older Learjets and Challengers so it can focus on the needs of the operators of these so-called "classic aircraft" and provide "effective technical and service solutions."
The board of directors of Canadian aerospace and rail car manufacturer Bombardier in December 2007 approved the appointment of Pierre Beaudoin as president and CEO, continuing the Beaudoin family leadership of the company that has been controlled by the Bombardier family since its inception in the 1940s. Beaudoin will assume his new duties June 4, 2008, the date of the next annual shareholders meeting. His father, Laurent Beaudoin, 69, will continue as chairman of the board.
You are correct. We should have written "current production" Gulfstreams. And thanks for your active involvement in reading and reviewing Business & Commercial Aviation.
Cobham plc has purchased general aviation autopilot specialist S-TEC Corp. from Meggitt plc for $38 million. S-TEC employs 180 people at its facility in Mineral Wells, Texas. Cobham said the company is "an excellent technological and market fit in the development of a Cobham cockpit of avionics." Airplane manufacturers increasingly want autopilots included in an overall avionics package, particularly as they move toward EFIS displays, Cobham said. S-TEC also has a strong presence in the retrofit market which Cobham can leverage, the company said.
IBA, London Gatwick, U.K., announced that Owen Geach has returned to the company as commercial director overseeing sales and market, business development, commercial contracts and public relations.
With the introduction of airborne radar systems for target acquisition in the early 1940s, designers needed to protect the delicate antenna from wind, rain, hail, bugs and FOD. The cover had to be strong, yet permit the signal to pass and return uninhibited. Recently discovered fiberglass proved to be the right material for the job and the first radome was born. Combining the words radar and dome, radome became the generic term for any type of radar enclosure.
Westchester County Airport (HPN) in White Plains, N.Y., presented its 13th annual Spirit of Noise Abatement Awards to: Air Frantz, Air Life Line, Richard A. Foreman & Associates, Steven Foote, John Friel, Greenhill Aviation, K.F. Griffen Packaging, Joe Howley, Dr. David Volpi and Robert Wilner.
CRS Jet Spares, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has added Forrest Bullard to the CRS Repair Control Department to be an assistant repair coordinator. Steve Sharkey has joined the sales team as the representative for Florida.
The FAA will form an Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) to develop recommended requirements for aircraft landing distance performance assessments prior to landing. In an announcement in the Dec.
In December 2007, we surveyed a modest sample of schedulers and dispatchers to determine what new challenges they've been facing and what changes they've made based on lessons learned. Because some of the specific details of their replies might shed light on company operations that must remain confidential, we agreed to mask anything that might identify the operator or the names of participants. We're grateful to the participants in this survey, who were surprisingly candid, particularly when the challenges they faced were sometimes internal.
IT'S HARD TO IMAGINE TODAY, but the Boeing Model 314 - a slow, unpressurized, cantankerous beast - was in its day an aeronautical wonder. Combine the space shuttle, the A380, Concorde and Gulfstream V, and you get a sense of its stature.
The Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) is a non-profit international organization that hosts working groups whose purpose is to guide development of all systems that relate to the airspace or to air traffic management. It draws upon the expertise of thousands of people in the aerospace industry, who form Special Committees when called upon. SC-203 was formed about three years ago at the request of the AOPA to address UAS issues.
IN LATE NOVEMBER, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) decided she was going to switch subcommittee assignments within the Senate Commerce Committee, giving up the ranking Republican slot on the space, aeronautics and related sciences panel to become the senior minority member on the aviation subcommittee. Such moves are usually not a big deal other than to the senator involved, some of her staff members and a few of her colleagues.
Kellie Lewis grew up in a military family; her father, all of her uncles and her brothers have served, and her little brother did a tour as a Marine in the second Iraq war. She and friends at Universal Weather and Aviation, where she works as a client relations specialist, put together care packages and letters for him, and her mother got involved with the Texas chapter of Blue Star Mothers of America, an organization for mothers of service men and women.
Aspen Avionics, Albuquerque, has hired Stephen J. Senyszyn as a systems engineering manager. Rhonda Hinsen joined the company as supply chain manager; Dorothy Gilbert joined the company as a marketing manager; Sean Rieb was promoted to software engineering manager and David Berlin was promoted to senior staff engineer.
