The 6th Annual European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE), held May 3 to 5 in Geneva, showed growing strength, drawing 9,743 attendees, a 27-percent increase over the previous year's 7,667 total. A total of 292 exhibitors displayed their products and services in 1,206 booth spaces on nearly 22,000 square meters of indoor exhibit space at Geneva Palexpo, and 52 static aircraft were displayed at Geneva International Airport.
If any aviation person walks with the angels, surely his name is Roger Baker for he is a man who preaches safety and builds churches--an unbeatable combination if there ever was one. He started Safety Focus Group four years ago after leaving the FAA and a 29-year career served almost entirely in the Flight Standards division. He spent his last 12 years there as the national manager for safety programs. But he got his start building churches when he asked a question at his own Providence Presbyterian in Fairfax, Va.
Raytheon Aircraft Services successfully completed the first retrofit of a Rockwell Collins Integrated Flight Information System (IFIS) into a Hawker 800XP aircraft at the Raytheon Aircraft Services facility in Little Rock, Ark. The system's electronic charting functionality provides operators with approaches, procedures, airport diagrams and NOTAMS. Operators of IFIS-equipped aircraft have ready access to the appropriate charts for the entered flight plan, and aircraft position may be viewed on geo-referenced charts, improving situational awareness.
The NTSB determined that the probable cause of the crash of a CL-600 in Colorado on Nov. 28, 2004, was the flight crew's failure to ensure that the airplane's wings were free of ice or snow that accumulated while the airplane was on the ground. The Canadair, Ltd., CL-600-2A12, registered to Hop-a-Jet, Inc., and operated by Air Castle Corporation dba Global Aviation as Glo-Air Flight 73, collided with the ground during takeoff at Montrose Regional Airport, Montrose, Colo. IMC prevailed, and snow was falling.
Do you manage an FBO or tenant hangar? Are you having trouble finding room for all of your aircraft on your ramp or hangar? If you are looking for a solution to your space problems, Hangar and Ramp Space Planner is a software program designed just for you. The software system uses scaled aircraft diagrams and helps you determine aircraft placement for your particular parking problem.
For most aircraft operators, emergency equipment is the least used hardware on the airplane. With the exception of personnel from flight departments who undergo on-site training using their own equipment, most corporate flight crews seldom touch such equipment as fire extinguishers, life rafts, medical kits and the like. Under FAR Part 91, the emergency equipment may be limited to whatever came with the airplane.
Obviously you are correct on all points. Especially the implied suggestion that all pilots should have a copy of Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators in their libraries and even take it down and go through it from time to time.
Adam Aircraft's A700 AdamJet flew to 41,000 feet and reached a true airspeed of 340 knots, the company says. The aircraft was crewed by Senior Turbine Test Pilot Ken Sasine and copilot Dan Brand. Passing through 39,000 feet the aircraft maintains a climb rate in excess of 1,000 fpm. "This flight signifies the continuing progress of the A700 program," said flight operations vice president Bill Watters. "Serial number 001 has demonstrated the aircraft's flight capabilities, s.n.
Austrian-based charter operator JetAlliance has placed a firm order for an Airbus Corporate Jetliner (ACJ), becoming the first Austrian customer. The ACJ will be powered by CFM International CFM56-5 engines. A completions outfitter has yet to be announced. This is the seventh ACJ order announced this year. JetAlliance Flugbetriebs AG has a fleet of 37 aircraft with an average age of 3.5 years -- one of the youngest in Europe. It operates under JAR OPS 1 in Europe, but is also FAA Part 129 certificated, allowing it to fly commercially in the United States and Canada.
Embraer began the Joint Definition Phase (JDP) of its Phenom 300 light jet program. "The Phenom 300 is the first clean-sheet design of its category in over two decades," said Luís Carlos Affonso, senior vice president, Executive Aviation Market. The Phenom 300 JDP will involve suppliers and Embraer engineers working together. According to Affonso, the company has assigned 300 engineers to the joint effort -- in addition to those already involved in the Phenom 100 program.
FlightSafety International and Cessna are developing an innovative pilot training program for the new Citation Mustang. The initial program will include two FlightSafety-designed and manufactured flight simulators, two avionics flight training devices, the industry's first Mentor Services program and distance learning. A joint FlightSafety/Cessna team has worked to develop a Proficiency Index to quantify the proficiency of new Mustang aircraft pilots, many of whom will have little or no jet time.
So, the GWX 68 has a wonderful big display, excellent performance and many useful features. Are there no howevers? Yes. First, the radar display is an MFD, meaning it has many knobs and buttons, which are unnecessary for staying away from thunderstorms. For radar operation you need only four controls -- MODE, RANGE, TILT and CALIBRATION, plus a couple of on/off switches. But on a multifunction display you also get multifunction buttons and knobs. On the G1000 MFD we counted 32 buttons and eight dual, some triple, function knobs.
Altour, a travel company, teamed with private jet services company Whirlwind Jet to form a new charter brokerage, Altour Air. The new company will arrange domestic or international charter flights for individuals, businesses and large groups. Altour Air also will facilitate ground transportation through Altour affiliate Altour Limousine. Altour 1270 Ave. of the Americas, 15th Fl. New York, NY 10020 Phone: (212) 897-5000 or (800) 847-7466 Fax: (212) 897-5134 www.altour.com
FARMERS ARE NOTORIOUSLY tight with a dollar. But even the most parsimonious of farmers knows that no matter how good or bad this year's harvest, he has to set aside enough money to buy seed for next season's planting -- or he won't have a crop.
Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh has purchased four Eurocopter EC 145s for Allegheny's LifeFlight AMS service. The decision to buy the four EC 145s came after Allegheny conducted a competitive bidding process in which Agusta, American Eurocopter and Bell took part. Two of the EC 145s will be delivered in early 2007; the other two in mid-2007. Configured for a pilot and up to nine passengers, the EC 145 is powered by two Turbomeca Arriel 1E2 turbine engines.
Evergreen Air Center, Marana, Ariz., has appointed T.J. "Jim" Toomey as its new president. If you would like to submit news of hires, promotions, appointments or awards for possible publication in On Duty, send e-mail to [email protected] or call (914) 933-7614.
SOUTHWEST-BOUND ON V39 the other day, I looked down and watched Reading, Pa.'s Carl A. Spaatz Field pass by. More major highways laced the vicinity, and development was denser than when I, and a hundred thousand others, used to make the journey there each June to the air show, which marked the beginning of every aviation summer.
Raytheon Aircraft Co., Wichita, has announced two new leadership positions: Randy Groom has been appointed president, Global Customer Service and Support, and Brad Hatt assumes the role of president, Global Commercial Sales for Beechcraft and Hawker. Chris Charnley was appointed regional vice president of sales for Canada and Latin America.
More than a half-century before the 1989 movie "Field of Dreams" brought to the silver screen the wholesome goodness and potential for renewal that the fertile farmlands of Iowa can offer, the Elliott family was sowing the seeds of general aviation in the state's Quad Cities area. With the same fervor that the film's lead character, farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner), pursued his dream of building a baseball diamond in the heartland, Herb Elliott nurtured grassroots aviation in the Midwest.
Corporate operators received a reprieve from two tax measures in a bill that would have dramatically increased the tax burden for use of aircraft for personal or recreational purposes. House and Senate negotiators agreed to strip out the two measures in the Tax Relief Act of 2005 that would have increased the tax liability of business executives who use company aircraft for personal reasons and limit the tax benefits companies receive when the aircraft are used for recreation. The House passed the Tax Relief Act on May 10, followed by the Senate the next day.
Honeywell has announced software upgrades for the GNS-XLS Enhanced FMS. New European and U.S. standards include Precision Area Navigation (P-RNAV) compliance, AC 90-100 compliance and memory expansion to allow for a worldwide navigation database. The new software enables access to a 20 megabyte PCMCIA memory card containing the 28-day Worldwide Navigational Database, which succeeds the multiple regional databases currently used by the GNS-XLS, allowing operators to load a single database, regardless of where the aircraft travels in the world.
Seemingly contradicting the conclusions of the Eurocontrol air traffic report (see above), Bo Redeborn, director of ATM Strategies at Eurocontrol, said, "Growth on these levels presents a number of challenges for air traffic management. Business aviation generates peaks of demand at airports, and while it uses different flight levels from the major carriers, getting the different types of traffic to their preferred levels creates additional traffic complexity for controllers, particularly given the concentration of business aviation in an already busy airspace.
