Frasca International has delivered the first of six TruFlite H helicopter simulators to Silver State Helicopters of North Las Vegas, Nev. The units are installed in mobile trailers and will be assigned to training facilities in the United States. Silver State has ordered 22 simulators, which are reconfigurable as the piston-powered Robinson R22 and R44 and the Schweizer 300.
U.S. standard classifications for fire extinguishers are based on the type of fuel for which they are intended. Each type is marked by a distinctive symbol:
The Asian Business Aviation Association (AsBAA) has set up an office in Hong Kong with a full-time executive administrator, the organization's first full-time employee. Ekavaj Amornvivat will be loaned to the AsBAA Hong Kong office for a year from Xjet Bangkok, Thailand.
Intelligence | 13 ?228-137? EBACE Is a Success Drawing 9,743 ?228-137? Boeing Considers a 737-700C Combi ?228-137? Falcon 7X Performance Confirmed ?228-137? Level D Electric Motion Simulator Certified ?228-137? The Foxjet Is Back Edited by James E. Swickard Commentary 7 | Viewpoint By William Garvey Plus Foie Gras? 80 | Cause & Circumstance By Richard N. Aarons Over Gross, Over Tired and Iced Over
EVAS Worldwide cites FAA data and the Air Line Pilots Association when it says that inflight smoke causes an average of one diversion a day. But there's still no regulation requiring aircraft transporting passengers to equip with the Emergency Vision Assurance System that provides pilots with the only FAA-certified long-term guarantee they can see their primary flight instruments and continue to fly the airplane while they troubleshoot the source of the smoke.
When weather moves into the Central Idaho highlands, it can be tough getting into the Sun Valley Airport. The instrument approaches just can't bring an aircraft very close to the runway due to those mountains towering nearby. And so as happens regularly, one day in 2005 ours was but one of many SUN-bound aircraft stacked at the beacon at Hailey listening to the three previous aircraft go missed approach.
Jet Aviation, London Biggin Hill, England, appointed Michael Girps to vice president and general manager. He will move to London from San Antonio, where he was in charge of Jet Aviation Engineering Services.
Thales ATM signed a cooperative agreement with the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), the LFV Group (Sweden) and Naviair (Denmark) to upgrade their existing air traffic management systems through a joint procurement. The agreement calls for incremental upgrades tailored to requirements under the Single European Sky initiative. The three air navigation service providers will collaborate to "bring real benefits to airlines" by moving toward common systems. The agreement was structured to allow other air navigation service providers to join the cooperative effort later.
Landmark Aviation has signed an agreement with BLR Aerospace to become an authorized dealer for the Everett, Wash.-based aerospace research and development firm. The arrangement allows five Landmark Aviation locations that have previously been designated as Raytheon Authorized Service Centers to install winglets designed, certified and manufactured by BLR on King Air 200 aircraft. The Landmark Aviation sites are located in Leesburg, Norfolk and Roanoke, Va., and Winston-Salem and Greensboro, N.C. www.LandmarkAviation.com
Max-Viz, the Portland, Ore., maker of enhanced vision systems for corporate aircraft, has adapted its EVS-1000 for use on the Gulfstream III. In April, Colorado-based WestStar Aviation outfitted the initial GIII with the system, and delivery of that aircraft was anticipated in May.
As an ex-Navy pilot (and basic aerodynamics ground instructor), I enjoyed Richard Aarons' article on AOA in the April issue of B&CA ("Using Angle-of-Attack Indicators," page 46).
Feb. 9, 2004, Sturgis, Mich. Aircraft: Cessna 402B Injuries: One Serious, One Minor When flying over a friend's house, the pilot-in-command executed a steep left turn for 360 degrees and leveled the airplane just in time to spot a large pine tree about 30 feet ahead. The pilot began to pull up, but not in time. The twin Cessna smacked the tree, causing serious injuries to the pilot, but the pilot-rated passenger took control and landed the airplane without further incident.
During a House Aviation Subcommittee hearing on lost airline passenger baggage, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) complained about the security plan in place at DCA and said more needs to be done to facilitate general aviation access. The chairman, John Mica (R-Fla.) echoed those concerns and said he wanted to have a closed-door meeting with the TSA on the matter.
As business aviation grows, so does the need for more hangar space. With busy air carrier airports straining at the seams, formerly quiet general aviation airports have become an attractive alternative. My local airport -- Waterbury-Oxford (OXC), in Oxford, Conn. -- has seen its business jet hangar space triple in the last 10 years. Meanwhile, some older hangars at many airports are getting upgraded to accommodate business turbines.
The FAA has committed to adopting ADS-B, which stands for Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast. ADS-B provides: (1) automatic broadcast of an aircraft's position, altitude, velocity and other data; (2) enhanced "visibility" of aircraft and vehicle traffic for pilots and air traffic controllers; and (3) use of GPS, allowing less reliance on ground-based radars.
The sharpest questioning at the hearing (see above item) came from the panel's Ranking Democrat, Patty Murray (Wash.), on the safety-inspector workforce at the FAA. Early this year, Murray said, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said the agency would hire 238 safety inspectors during the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, but the number has dropped to 171, down 28 percent from Mineta's estimate and fewer than last year's new hires.
When B&CA presented complaints from the charter industry about certain provisions of the revised A008 Ops Spec to FAA Flight Standards chief Jim Ballough for comment, we were referred to the aviation authority's legal department in Washington for a response.
The U.S. Air Force has solved the safety problem posed by unmanned aerial vehicles' (UAV) inability to "see and avoid" other traffic. Aviation Week & Space Technology reported that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 10 small UAVs were dispatched to New Orleans to assess damage and locate survivors. However, the FAA did not let the unmanned craft fly in the helicopter-congested area. So, USAF operators sawed the wings off the UAVs and taped six of them to the landing skids of manned helicopters.
Pratt & Whitney and Aviation Fleet Solutions (AFS), a Renton, Wash., company that develops aftermarket improvements and modifications for commercial aircraft, have received FAA certification of the QuietEagle, a noise-reduction system for JT8D-200-powered MD-80 aircraft.
The first U.S. customer took delivery of an ACJ, Airbus Corporate Jetliner. The customer, Florida-based Pharmair Corporation will have Landmark Aviation's Associated Air Center complete the cabin interior. Airbus has sold 70 aircraft in the ACJ family, the A318 Elite, the ACJ and the A320 Prestige.
Europe's business aircraft fleet will grow by about 4 percent per year over the next 10 years -- from around 2,000 today to approximately 3,000 by 2015, says a report issued by Eurocontrol on May 3. This means around 1,100 extra flights each day in Europe by 2015, which will add between 0.4 percent per year to predicted growth in flights -- or up to 0.7 percent in a scenario with strong growth in VLJ traffic. The new report, "Getting to the Point: Business Aviation in Europe," says that in 2005, 6.9 percent of the 9.2 million flights in Europe were business aviation.
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.
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.
