After decades of fighting for a place at the table, business aviation is finally coming into its own as an accepted component of the European air transportation system. While not exactly sharing equal standing with airlines and military aviation, it is now perceived as a viable alternative to the scheduled air carriers and an efficient tool for furthering business interests.
We are at takeoff," radioed the KLM copilot on the evening of March 27, 1977, at Tenerife in the Canary Islands. The ambiguity in those words, along with other instances of poor communication between the air traffic control tower and two airliners, resulted in a Boeing 747 operated by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines executing a takeoff on a runway occupied by a Pan American 747 taxiing in the opposite direction.
FirstFlight, based at New York's Elmira/Corning Airport, has expanded its charter fleet and extended its presence to the West Coast with the addition of a Falcon 50 based in Napa Valley, Calif. The FirstFlight fleet now totals 17 executive jets available for charter, according to FirstFlight President John Dow.
Pilot safety committees at several of the large operators of Beechjets have been flooded with questions from their pilots about aircraft flameouts. One pilot undergoing recurrent training at a major simulator training center stated, "We had our instructor walk us through a dual engine flameout to land. . . . I have to say that it was kind of creepy. . . . If you have seen a space shuttle approach and landing then you know what kind of pitch and vertical speed rates you are looking at. . . . I swore it wouldn't work, but it did!
Despite the booming business-jet market, Bombardier reported big drops in net income for the second quarter and first half of its fiscal year, weighed down by a sluggish market for its RJs and continuing inefficiencies in delivery of completed business jets. Net income for the quarter ended July 31 totaled $58 million (U.S.), or three cents per share, compared with $117 million, or six cents per share, during the same period in 2005.
Aircraft price indexes published by Vref, the Shawnee Mission, Kan., publisher, show that the composite values for popular corporate turboprops continued their gradual climb into the third quarter of this year. Meanwhile, Vref's price index for light business jets remained flat, and the indexes for heavy-iron and medium business jets dropped by the end of June (see accompanying chart).
Seattle-based Raisbeck Engineering has received FAA certification of a new, larger nacelle wing locker for Beech King Airs. The so-called Crown Locker is available for the King Air C90, E90, C90GT, 200, B200, 300 and 350.
NASA, the FAA and Ohio State University conducted an extensive joint research program on tailplane icing during the mid-1990s, the results of which were published in NASA and FAA research reports and incorporated into FAA guidance. Research on critical ice shapes continues by NASA, the FAA and others, and this work is applicable to both wings and tailplanes. For example, in recent years there has been extensive research on residual and inter-cycle ice shapes for pneumatic boot deicing, and runback ice shapes for thermal ice protection systems.
Runway incursions can happen to pilots of any experience level and at any airport. Staying current on ground operations is essential. Sporty's new "Pilot's Guide to Runway Safety" DVD helps pilots do just that, going far beyond the basics in the AIM. The program was developed using video combined with state-of-the-art 3-D animations to give pilots of all skill levels a review on all aspects of airport ground operations. It provides an in-depth look at airport signs, markings and lighting and includes some sobering case studies of real accidents.
Raytheon Aircraft Services (RAS) now holds an STC for the installation of an Auxiliary Ground Heating System for the Beechcraft Premier I/IA. This electrically powered system provides pre-heat to the cabin without the engines running which in turn helps to maintain a stable cabin temperature while en route. Even in sub-freezing weather, passengers have the pleasure of boarding into a luxuriously warm cabin. All Raytheon Aircraft Services locations are certified to install this upgrade on the Beechcraft Premier I/IA.
The Experimental Aircraft Association's Young Eagles Program hit a milestone in July, when the 1.25 millionth Young Eagle took flight. Young Eagles Chairman Harrison Ford and Executive Director Steve Buss announced the milestone during the EAA's AirVenture in Oshkosh. Larry Durst, a pilot from Roseburg, Ore., flew 14-year-old Tucker Morey in a Cessna 182.
Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer has appointed Central European Aerospace as its authorized sales representative for the Legacy 600, Legacy Shuttle, Phenom 100 and Phenom 300 in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Based in Prague, the Czech Republic's capital, Central European Aerospace has 10 years of experience in acquisition, management and operation of a variety of executive jets in the region.
Defining the atmospheric environment has been an awesome and very expensive research project, but it is now well in hand. The Aircraft Icing Research Alliance was formed, which now includes the FAA, NASA, NOAA, Environment Canada, Transport Canada, National Defense Canada and the Canadian National Research Council. You can read about the Aircraft Icing Research Alliance on its Web site, http://IcingAlliance.org, and find a feast of technical papers detailing this research at http://airs-icing.org.
The U.S. State Department has started issuing electronic passports to the public. As we go to press, production has started at the Colorado Passport Agency and will be expanded to other production facilities in the next few months, the State Department said. Consistent with "globally interoperable specifications adopted by ICAO," the new passports have biometric technology. A contactless chip in the back cover of the passport has the same data as those found on the biographic data page of the passport, and will also include a digital image of the bearer's photograph.
ACCIDENTS SEEM to cluster in types. We'll see a series of IMC approach mishaps, then the word gets out, folks start to pay attention and they go away -- for a while. Next, we'll see incidents stemming from systems mismanagement. Again, the NTSB or the NBAA's Safety Committee or the Flight Safety Foundation will draw attention to those events, and they'll go away -- for a while. Now it seems we are seeing numerous high-performance aircraft accidents punctuating unstabilized approaches.
The peripatetic life of Lloyd Carlton Stearman was full of moving vans and irony. When he was an elementary school student in Kansas, Stearman caught sight of his first airplane. It was being flown by an adventurous fellow by the name of Clyde Cessna, a man whom years later would become Stearman's partner.
It was early afternoon when the de Havilland Twin Otter took off from Sullivan, Mo., Regional Airport with skydivers aboard. Witnesses said the airplane climbed to about 150 feet and at the runway's end when the aircraft made a Poof! sound and flames erupted from the right engine. The airplane began turning right and shortly thereafter struck trees and the ground behind a residence about a half mile northwest of the end of Runway 24. The pilot and five passengers were killed. Two remaining passengers suffered serious injuries.
EADS Socata said orders for its new TBM 850 have exceeded expectations with a backlog of more than 50 aircraft. The company has received orders for 32 aircraft that will be delivered in 2007. Socata valued those orders at $91 million. Introduced in December 2005, the TBM 850 is a higher-speed follow-on to the single turboprop TBM 700.
