(Englewood, Colo.) - Steve Crowley is this aircraft manufacturer's new vice president of sales, marketing and customer support. Crowley has 25 years of aviation industry experience, having held executive positions in sales, marketing, finance and program management. He most recently served with Bombardier Aerospace.
Russia has cut import duty on large business aircraft from 20 to 10 percent, which applies to aircraft in the 15-20t class. Reports suggest that this lower tax will also be applied to aircraft in the 2-15t category later in the year. Rumors had circulated for the last few years that the Russian government was planning to do this and encourage Russian business aviation growth. As many as 200 business aircraft around the world could be Russian owned but the vast majority have been operated under foreign registries to the present time.
Business is so good at FlightSafety International's Farnborough operation that the company is planning to double in size from 14 to 28 simulators over the next few years. Business is coming from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Pakistan and even South America because of the TSA requirements in the United States. Student throughput is currently 2,500 but will reach a ceiling of 3,000 next year. To cope with this, FlightSafety Farnborough will need another 30 instructors by early 2008, and it takes four to six months to train the trainers.
General aviation was not spared Blakey's rod. "I also think that our business jet and GA partners need to take a step in the right direction -- to be part of the solution," she said. "It's time to face up to the fact that your practices need to change as well. Flying to and from wherever you want whenever you want is not a free utility.
Under the terms of a teaming agreement signed in June, ARINC Direct will become a worldwide value-added reseller of Flight Explorer's FE Professional ASD. As a result of the partnership, ARINC Direct customers will be able to get global aircraft position reports for their 1,500-plus aircraft on the FE Professional aircraft situation display. The agreement follows hard on the heels of a link-up between Flight Explorer and SITA.
Aon Corp., New York, N.Y., announced that Peter Schmitz, Robert Beyers and Tracy Toro have joined Aon Risk Services to lead its U.S. national aviation practice. They will be based in New York.
(Moline, Ill.) - Mick Harrison, a longtime aircraft support executive, has been named president and chief operating officer of this aircraft sales and service company, marking the first time in the firm's 71-year history that someone outside of the Elliott family has held this post. Wynn Elliott remains chairman and CEO of Elliott Aviation.
Eclipse Aviation formally opened a new, two-story 41,500-square-foot Customer Training Center at Double Eagle Airport II (KAEG) on Sept. 13 with a ribbon cutting ceremony and open house. The Center, located on 3.5 acres of the company's 150-acre site, is the first Eclipse facility on the west side of the city of Albuquerque, and will serve as the transition leader as all other Eclipse facilities are moved there. The Center will house 100 employees, four simulators, four classrooms and eight briefing rooms.
The AOPA reports that its Pilot Information Center has been fielding an increasing number of phone calls regarding the buying and selling of aircraft. Consequently, the AOPA recently reminded members that if they are interested in acquiring or disposing of an aircraft, they should review the considerable resources available online at the association's Web site (aopa.org).
One night in 1969 in the village of Kien Duc in Quang Duc province, Republic of South Vietnam, two RVN soldiers were in their hooch playing cards and drinking beer. They began to argue and one shot the other with his service rifle, an old Garand M-1.
TAG Holdings officials are considering a number of options for their interests in the United States, including the possible sale of TAG Aviation USA and a minority stake in AMI Jet Charter (AMIJC), both headquartered in San Francisco, according to reports circulating in the industry. AMIJC, which flies charters sold by TAG, was the subject of an intense inspection by a team of FAA officials earlier this year to assess compliance with the provisions of OpSpec A008.
IT IS DON BATEMAN'S life mission to eliminate aircraft accidents. A widely acclaimed engineer at Honeywell (see "High Priest of Ground Prox," B&CA, September 2007, page 126), it was his efforts that led to the invention of the ground proximity warning system and, later, the Enhanced GPWS, which together have saved countless lives.
GAMA, Washington, D.C., has promoted Jens Henning to vice president, operations. His primary responsibility will be flight operations, safety and training issues, including policy related to the modernization of the ATC system.
It's your fourth leg of the day. Bad weather covers the Northeast and traffic delays have put you 90 minutes behind schedule. While taxiing into the FBO, your pager informs you a fifth leg's been added and it was supposed to depart 10 minutes ago. Upon shutting down, you ask the copilot to get the cabin ready while you go into the busy FBO to order fuel and grab the catering. Just when you discover the food's been delivered to the other FBO, you spot your passengers and they are clearly impatient. Time to go.
Aircraft management and charter operator JetDirect and Sentient Jet, Inc., which merged in April, said the combined company will now operate under the name Sentient Flight Group. Headquartered in Weymouth, Mass., the company has operations in New York, Philadelphia, Fort Lauderdale, St. Louis, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. In addition to offering aircraft management services for customers who own their own aircraft, JetDirect provided FAR Part 135 charter services through several subsidiaries and a number of independent Part 135 operators.
Step inside the super-midsize Galaxy, or today's Gulfstream G200, and you might think you're inside a slightly shorter Gulfstream II, albeit one with a four-inch dropped aisle in the main cabin and smaller, but more numerous side windows. Superior cabin comfort was the prime goal of Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) engineers when they designed the aircraft in the early 1990s. Indeed, this airplane feels as though its designers started with a best-in-class cabin and then wrapped the rest of the airplane around it.
At the National Air Transportation Association's Charter Forum in June, Hooper Harris, the FAA's former manager of the agency's Commuter, On-Demand and Training Center Branch, admitted that propagation of the revised A008 OpSpec into the field had resulted in some "unintended consequences," such as aircraft owners actually requesting their own Part 135 certificates when confronted with the exigencies of the new OpSpec to avoid "wet lease" situations and still be able to generate revenue.
Like many other aircraft brokers and dealers, Chuck Collins, the principal of the Carlsbad, Calif., aircraft sales firm that bears his name, is enjoying the robust market for late-model turbine-powered aircraft. "This year is probably my best year ever," Collins declared. "Business has been real good for the last three years. For any aircraft less than 15 years old, the market is superb."
Today it's known as Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport, but 80 years ago it was called Peninsula Field because of its location at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers. Dedicated in 1927 as Kansas City Municipal Airport by Charles Lindbergh, the airport has a long history of serving commercial airlines and general aviation.
Seven aircraft accidents over the three-day Labor Day weekend claimed 17 lives, according to preliminary FAA reports. The accidents included the crash of a Lancair near Kernville, Calif., that claimed six lives, and one involving a B36 Bonanza that claimed all five aboard when it crashed in mountainous terrain.
