(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.
Intelligence | 13 * First Dassault Falcon 7X Delivered * Airlines Blames Delays on General Aviation * Boeing 20-Year Forecast Jumps by 1,400 Aircraft * FAA Releases Five-Year NextGen Guide Edited by James E. Swickard Commentary 7 | Viewpoint By William Garvey Shhhhhhhh. Hear the Jet? 86 | Cause & Circumstance By William Garvey Post-Maintenance Problem 88 |Washington By David Collogan Danger: Politicians at Work
The U.S. airline industry and the Bush administration are selling their case for user fees and airline tax relief to Congress and the public with a variety of deceptive media that distort the facts concerning business and general aviation's use of the National Airspace System.
ExecuJet Australia plans to build an FBO facility at Melbourne's Tullamarine International Airport within 24 months. The new facility will include a VIP passenger terminal and maintenance and storage hangars. The move is to support the growing population of long-range Bombardier business jets operating out of Melbourne. Earlier this year, ExecuJet deployed engineers to Melbourne's Airport at Essendon as an interim move, but its runways aren't long enough to allow MTOW flights in all conditions.
Vnukovo Invest and Lufthansa Technik have signed a letter of intent to create a joint venture company to provide a complete line maintenance services for business jets at Moscow's Vnukovo-3 FBO complex. A new 4,000-square-meter hangar, to be built by the end of 2008, will house spares. Maintenance services will initially be for Boeing, Airbus and Bombardier aircraft, with additional types added later. The dedicated hangar will be able to accommodate a BBJ III and a Global Express simultaneously.
When Annette Saunders and Mitchell Merchant met for breakfast at the Embassy Suites hotel in Scottsdale, Ariz., the coffee was perking, the juice fresh squeezed and the day's outlook was excellent. The two NetJets pilots were in the middle of their seven-day "tour" -- one that had involved trips mostly out west, which was a little unusual since they were both based in the Midwest and the majority of their trips were east of the Mississippi. The weather had been great, and was forecast to continue that way.
CMC recently received FAA approval to install the SureSight M-Series Enhanced Vision System (EVS) sensor on the Pilatus PC-12. The sensor and the PilotView Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) will be available as factory options. The EFB operates as a stand-alone system and as a display for the EVS sensor. An STC is expected shortly for the EFB.
In a 20-year deal, Australia's Hawker Pacific has won a franchise to operate Shanghai's first FBO at Hongquiao Airport in a joint venture with the Shanghai Airport Authority. The planned opening date is April 2008, before the Beijing Olympics. The facility, which is to be capable of handling up to 6,000 aircraft movements a year, will consist of an FBO, MRO, and will later offer corporate aircraft management services.
Whenever air traffic exceeds system capacity, air traffic control has to manage the excess flow. ATC uses various forms of metering from ground delays to holding patterns to balance capacity and demand, and, most recently, the Airspace Flow Program (AFP) has been added to the list of flow-control tools. During the summer, severe weather complicates this process, but there are also surges during high travel periods--Thanksgiving weekend, for example--when programs have to be applied to cope with the rising tide even in good weather.
RMS Technology has added Live Weather, a third weather solution, in a recent update to Flitesoft flight planner. With Live Weather, users let Flitesoft gather and update weather automatically. It includes nationwide (48-state) NexRad, METARs, TAFs, winds aloft and weather maps, among other features. There is no added cost when using Live Weather, no user name or password is required, and there is no advertising, cookies, or expense of any kind, according to RMS. Price: No charge RMS Technology, Inc. 124 Berkeley Av..
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) has introduced a bill designed to ban helicopter flights over Manhattan and increase security for helicopter flights alighting at the city's heliports.
At the recent EBACE in Geneva, EMS introduced its new voice solution, the eNfusion CNX-400 Cabin Gateway product. The fourth in the CNX Cabin Gateway family of airborne-networking products, it will enhance the user experience and will enable even further cost savings when Inmarsat's new SwiftBroad service goes live later this year, according to EMS. The CNX-400 networking device combines the exclusive compression and acceleration functionality of the CNX-200 Network Accelerator with a new multi-functional voice solution and an integrated PBX.
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who cast the deciding vote in May to keep a $25 per segment fee in the Senate version of the FAA reauthorization bill, now wants to exempt Alaskan pilots from paying any such fee. Stevens said he was surprised by reaction in his state against the fee. During a recent press conference, he said there was a lot of misunderstanding about the fee, which would only apply to turbine aircraft that fly between controlled airports -- for Alaskan pilots, that means for flights between Fairbanks and Anchorage.
In Paris on May 9, Bill Glover, managing director for environmental strategy at Boeing Commercial Aircraft, said his company's initial skepticism about alternative fuel plans has eased as technologies have advanced and regulatory pressures have grown, particularly in Europe. He said researchers are not optimistic about the prospects for synthetic kerosene derived from coal or natural gas -- a method being explored by the U.S.
The first customer Falcon 7X (s.n. 05) was delivered to Gilbert Chagoury, founder and chairman of The Chagoury Group June 13, after a non-stop flight from Dassault Falcon's Little Rock (Ark.) Completion Center to Le Bourget Airport in Paris, arriving at 0450 local time. The second customer delivery (s.n. 04) was also to Le Bourget where it reigned over the Dassault Aviation static display throughout the Paris Air Show before being turned over to proud owner Serge Dassault. This still leaves Dassault with a fat backlog of 165 orders for the flagship trijet.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Univeristy's Prescott, Ariz. campus launched FlightView Dispatch in its classrooms for spring semester on nine computers used to instruct students in the FAA approved dispatch course on the effects on the airspace and routing when severe weather erupts. RLM Software, maker of FlightView, said the selection of its software for ERAU's classrooms was made by Randy Rehbach, chairman of the flight department at the Prescott campus.
TAM/AIR, a division of Epic Aircraft, recently announced a flawless, 40-minute first flight of its new Elite, a single-pilot, twin-engine VLJ with company test pilots Dave Morss and Len Fox at the controls. The carbon-fiber Elite is powered by two Williams Jet FJ-33-4 engines, which deliver 3,120 pounds of thrust. The company expects the new jet to reach FL 410 in under 17 minutes, and have a top speed of 410 KTAS. Range at economy cruise is more than 1,600 miles with reserves and 1,330 pounds of usable payload.
For more than three decades, aircraft certification standards have become increasingly more stringent, thereby increasing safety margins and potentially reducing accident rates. During the same 30-year period, though, not much has changed with respect to pilot technique. The accident rate attributable to human error hasn't been reduced significantly. It still is a causal factor in nearly eight of 10 fatal accidents.
The FAA in May addressed remaining concerns regarding pilot payment and other issues within its Part 135 Operational Specification A008. The NBAA and NATA appear satisfied that the new guidance. "This notice provides our members with additional information that will assist them in fully understanding the FAA's expectations regarding operational control while maintaining their existing business models," NATA President James Coyne said. (see some details below)
WHEN MEMBERS OF CONGRESS begin legislating technical matters that should be left to regulators, there is no limit to the potential mischief and disruption that can result. The most recent example is a provision inserted in the Senate version of the FAA reauthorization bill, which would prohibit the FAA from challenging or influencing weight restrictions or prior permission rules at the Teterboro, N.J., Airport (TEB).
