When your passengers arrive at the entry door, they want to board an aircraft that offers a heated or air-conditioned refuge from the outside environment, just like the cabin of a modern jetliner. They also expect that you'll be ready to start engines and taxi within moments of shutting the cabin door. And they'll want the aircraft they're boarding to have such capabilities at any landing facility, regardless of the availability of ground support equipment.
Honeywell has won an FAA technical standard order for its new Primus Epic Control Display System/Retrofit (CDS/R), an approval that will clear the way for the avionics maker to retrofit the system, which features eight-by-10-inch LCDs, on nearly a dozen aircraft.
Just 202 days after design work began, the Epic Victory single-engine, build-it-yourself jet made its maiden flight July 6, from Redmond, Ore. The company planned to debut the aircraft publicly at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wis.
Agusta Global Support Plan (GSP) -- Designed to provide comprehensive cost control measures, the GSP covers parts and labor for both scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, repair and replacement of components, overhaul, life-limited parts and pilot refresher training. Parts and labor for mandatory Service Bulletins are included. Avionics are also included. Engine services are provided by engine OEMs. The contract is transferable.
In his June Washington column, "Getting Greener" (page 90), David Collogan seems to have imbibed a little too much of the "Al Gore green tea." All this talk about reducing CO 2 emissions, and remaining "carbon neutral" is going to make my head explode.
I WAS ONE OF SEVEN PEOPLE on the aircraft when we had a midair over the Amazon. I am grateful we survived. It was really a matter of less than an inch that was the difference between our surviving or perishing. And it was a matter of several feet that was the difference between the lives of the people on the airliner being spared. Sadly, that didn't happen.
Reader Hogan is right. The first guy to say he's too tired will be the last guy called and that guy will get plenty of rest while he watches TV and waits for the phone to ring. We know of no ALJ rulings on that subject so far.
CAE and Bombardier Aerospace signed a 20-year agreement during the Paris Air Show under which CAE will become Bombardier's authorized training provider for the Global Express, Global 5000, Global Express XRS and the Challenger 300. The two firms will collaborate to provide standardized state-of-the-art training programs for pilots and maintenance personnel that will incorporate Bombardier's OEM courseware with the latest simulation-based training methodologies, such as CAE's Simfinity tools. The programs will be delivered to customers worldwide by both CAE and Bombardier.
In a July 11 speech in Washington, D.C., FAA Administrator Marion Blakey announced her agency's new "Operational Evolution Partnership," which replaces the "Operational Evaluation Plan" launched in 2001. The new OEP lays out the agency's path to the Next Generation Air Transportation System through 2025, and now encompasses all of the FAA's NextGen-related activities, not just capacity improvement. But the original OEP goal of a 30-percent increase in system capacity by 2013 remains.
The Spaceship Company -- jointly owned by Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites -- has selected Pratt & Whitney Canada's PW308 turbofan to power the White Knight II (WK2) launch aircraft. Virgin Galactic has ordered five SS2s, billed as the world's first commercial passenger suborbital spaceship, with options for another seven, plus the launch aircraft. Equipped with two PW308 engines rated at 6,900 pounds of takeoff thrust, the WK2 will take off horizontally with the manned SS2 attached underneath. It will launch the SS2 into suborbital space from about 50,000 feet.
Columbia Aircraft recently announced that it has restored its production level to three aircraft per week and that most employees furloughed in late March are now back at work. "We made a lot of dramatic moves earlier this year with the objective of increasing our efficiency and strengthening Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation," said Columbia President Wan Majid. "We've made significant improvements to our production processes and tooling and laid a foundation for our future success.
Charles Bergman, a former U.S. Air Force pilot and ALPA employee, was named executive director of the Next Generation Air Transportation System Institute, the third person to hold the job in the past two years. The first man in the job was hired in July 2005, but stayed just two months before resigning.
Dangle the Dunlops!" Heard that before? How about, "Rollers!" These are two of the colorful, but definitely non-standard expressions used to call for extending the landing gear. While some might regard such callouts as those of a pilot merely trying to introduce some originality and humor in the cockpit, and dismiss any suggestion that they pose some kind of a problem, statistics suggest otherwise.
Western Aircraft, Inc. - the FBO, aircraft sales and maintenance provider in Boise, Idaho -- has been sold to Berkley Aviation Investors, Inc. Closing of the deal, details of which were not released, is expected this month. The acquisition will be the second this year for Berkley, which purchased Atlantic Aero Holdings and the Atlantic Aero FBO in Greensboro, N.C. in February. Western has the largest presence on the Boise airport, with five large hangars and office space.
The flight crew of a Cessna Citation II 550 that crashed into Lake Michigan in June began having control problems shortly after takeoff, according to the NTSB. The aircraft, with two pilots, had taken off from Milwaukee's Mitchell Field (MKE) carrying a four-member medical team and harvested human organs that were to be implanted in a patient in Michigan. All six people aboard were killed when the airplane, which was attempting to return to MKE, crashed into 60 feet of water at about 1610 CDT on June 4.
Air Partner has signed an 80-year lease with Biggin Hill Airport for a new 115,000-square-foot site where it will develop a new high-security private jet enclave, at a cost of $10 million, the nearest such facility to the city of London. The company is a leading provider of private aviation services worldwide. Work has started on two state-of-the-art aircraft management and maintenance hangars.
FlightSafety International will install Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 avionics in a Dassault Falcon 50 full-motion simulator scheduled to be operational by December. Some 25 Falcon 50s have been retrofitted with Pro Line 21.
Researchers probing possible changes in the Earth's atmosphere as a result of global warming have a new source of data. NASA's Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft has returned its first images of noctilucent clouds, wispy accumulations of what are believed to be ice crystals that form in summer at altitudes of about 50 miles over the polar regions. As seen in this image from the 440-pound spacecraft, the clouds (white and light blue) range across the pole.
Corporate Angel Network added the top executives of two more business jet manufacturers to its board of directors: Jack J. Pelton, chairman, president and CEO of Cessna Aircraft Co., and John G. Rosanvallon, president and CEO of Dassault Falcon Jet Corp. Jim Schuster, chairman and CEO of Hawker Beechcraft Corp., joined the CAN board earlier.
Saraya Private Aviation has ordered six Piaggio P180 Avanti IIs to be delivered in 2008 and 2009 for private charter and air taxi operations across the Middle East and Northern Africa. Saraya, founded in 2005, is part of a real estate development company specializing in the travel and tourism industries.
Aviation industry lobbyists have been hearing that FAA Administrator Marion Blakey would leave the agency Sept. 13 when her five-year term expires and that she was looking forward to stepping away from the high-pressure post. But at a July Senate Finance Committee hearing, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) praised Blakey and asked if she would consider staying on at the FAA after Sept. 13 to help ensure that new FAA reauthorization gets enacted into law.
Cessna announced at the Paris Air Show that NetJets -- Cessna's largest Citation customer -- had ordered another 96 Citations. The order includes 50 Encore+, 37 XLS+ and nine Citation X aircraft and totals more than $1 billion. Cessna Chairman, President and CEO Jack Pelton said his company had delivered 340 Citations to the fractional operator over the past 21 years.
(Hillsboro, Ore.) -- Phil Bridge has joined the helicopter sales and service company's sales team, which markets new Bell helicopters in the Western United States and used rotorcraft worldwide. Bridge has sales experience in the aviation, automotive and commercial real estate industries.
