Cessna Aircraft plans to offer an enhanced vision system (EVS) on the Citation Excel/XLS and an Integrated Flight Information System (IFIS) on CJ1 and CJ2 aircraft. The product enhancements were unveiled during Cessna's recent annual Citation Customer Conference in Wichita. The Max Viz EVS-1000 uses a fuselage-mounted infrared camera to enhance situational and terrain awareness during times of low visibility.
President Bush will nominate Robert L. Sumwalt III, a corporate flight department manager and former airline pilot, for a seat on the NTSB. Sumwalt will be nominated for the remainder of the five-year term of Richard A. (Dick) Healing, who left the board in 2005, and also for an additional five-year term expiring at the end of 2011. Once the Senate confirms Sumwalt, Bush plans to designate him as vice chairman of the Safety Board. According to the White House, Sumwalt was a US Airways captain for 24 years.
With an order for 50 Embraer Phenom 100s and an option for 50 follow-on aircraft, JetBird announced at EBACE in May that it will do for Europe what the low-cost VLJ-based on-demand services in the United States will do for North America. Domhnal Slattery, a veteran banker and aviation financier with the Royal Bank of Scotland, now retired from the bank and leading the jet service start-up from headquarters in Switzerland, heads the company.
Meanwhile, the Airline Transport Association (ATA), has been waging a campaign to shift about $2 billion of passenger taxes to business aviation operators. It wants to do this by suspending the tax and instituting instead a program of ATC user fees that would cost out the movement of any turbine aircraft regardless of size at roughly the same rate -- based on distance traveled and time in system. Lately the ATA has kicked up its public efforts (see the following item) several notches to win over legislators.
How amusing to read the letter of a simulator instructor insisting on the word "throttle" instead of "thrust" (or "power") in your very nice CJ article (Letters, June, page 8).
Mission impossible? Nope, mission accomplished, thanks to business aircraft. That's because the same qualities of flexibility, autonomy and performance that have traditionally endeared turbine-powered corporate aircraft to the business community are making them increasingly popular among governments, their agencies, research organizations and the military for "special missions."
Million Air Teterboro has renamed itself Meridian as part of an ongoing effort to consolidate its operations at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. In addition to the FBO's name change, the operation's aircraft maintenance division became Meridian Jet Center. The company also is adding new logos and signage. The rebranding comes as the company moves into its new 33,000-square-foot headquarters and FBO facility. A new 40,000-square-foot hangar and maintenance shop are slated for completion in October.
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).
Without entering the debate about whether the United States should levy direct charges for use of the ATC system, I have to take issue with the two operators who complained about ATC charges in Canada, Finland, England, etc ("The Battle Over User Fees," May, page 58).
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.
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.
