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.
"I think we're probably in the healthiest market I have observed since I have been in the business," declared Nick Cerretani, who co-founded Miller Aviation in Binghamton, N.Y., in 1975. He helped grow that flight school and Cessna dealer into a full-service aviation support company that produced FBO management software and eventually merged with Corporate Wings. After a stint at Flight Options, Cerretani formed his own aircraft sales company in 2002. Cerretani Aviation now has East and West Coast offices in addition to its headquarters in Boulder, Colo.
After an overrun of a snow-covered runway at Midway Airport in December 2005, in which a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 struck two vehicles on a nearby road, killing a six-year-old child, the FAA released a controversial policy statement calling for FAR Part 121, 135 and 91 (K) operators to add a 15-percent safety margin in landing distance calculations, based upon runway conditions that exist at time of arrival.
Stevens Aviation, the aircraft sales and support company that announced its Lear 4 Ever upgrade program in late 206, has received an STC for the comprehensive refurbishment of a Learjet 25 at its Nashville base. The company's Denver location is presently working on a similar upgrade program for Learjet 35s and 36s and hopes to exhibit an example of one of those refreshed aircraft at the NBAA convention in Atlanta in September.
Premier Aircraft, the East Alton, Ill., company that developed the Falcon 50 Dash 4 upgrade, is seeking European Aviation Safety Authority (EASA) certification of the powerplant modification for the three-engine French business jet. Company officials hope to secure EASA approval within six months.
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.
(Stratford, Conn.) -- Napo Hohn has been named chief executive of the North American arm of this aircraft charter, sales and management business. Hohn has held several senior management positions with the company during his 20 years with the firm.
The U.S. Air Force is conducting aerodynamic tests of a 2 percent model of a blended-wing-body (BWB) design at the Arnold Engineering Development Center near Tullahoma, Tenn. The object of the tests is to provide data to help evaluate the BWB's flight characteristics at higher Mach numbers than those applied to the same model earlier this year at NASA Langley Research Center's National Transonic Facility in Hampton, Va. The tests -- a joint effort by the Air Force, Boeing and NASA -- are sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Worldwide Campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has teamed with New Zealand-based Aviation English Services (AES) to provide the industry with aviation English training solutions to address ICAO's new requirements, which identify English as the official, recognized language of aviation.
Waterbury-Oxford (Conn.) Airport FBO Key Air hosted an invitation-only Jet Day event co-sponsored by Porsche and Airport Journals on June 21. Airframe manufacturers brought their aircraft to OXC, and Porsche brought a lineup of cars for the 1,000 attendees to drive. Among the exhibitors were FlightSafety International, AvFuel and Virgin Galactic (which actually sold a few seats on future suborbital rocket rides).
GKN Aerospace has been selected to manufacture the HondaJet fuselage barrel in Alabama, says GKN's CEO Marcus Bryson. The wings are to be built by Avcorp Industries, Garmin will supply the avionics and final assembly will be at Honda's plant, now under construction at Greensboro, N.C. First HondaJet deliveries are scheduled for 2010.
Virgin USA, the North American headquarters of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group, is starting Virgin Charter, a new online marketplace that brings convenience and efficiency to private aviation, according to the company. It is a full-service marketplace that brings together buyers who want to book private air travel with safety-rated charter operators.
U.S. business and corporate turbine-powered aircraft were involved in 25 accidents during the first six months of this year -- as compared to 29 accidents in the same period in 2006 -- according to information compiled by Robert E. Breiling Associates. Eight accidents through June resulted in the deaths of 21 passengers and crew. That compares with nine fatal accidents that claimed 22 lives during the first half of 2006. FAR Part 135 operators were involved in 15 accidents during the first half of this year, including five that resulted in 14 fatalities.
