THE CELL PHONE GOES OFF late in the day. It's one of your senior captains calling from Colorado. This, the second day of a three-day winter trip to Vail, was downtime for both pilots and the flight attendant, and they had all headed for the slopes. It turns out that the day's skiing excursion had been planned well in advance, since all three crewmembers were experienced skiers. Although you were unaware of the outing, that sort of thing is typical.
Finally! After getting some time and experience under your seat belt you have been promoted into the left seat of your company's flight operations. So now, do they give you a Supervisor's Manual or send you to CEO school? Not likely. Still, whomever selected you for the position thought you had the maturity and leadership potential to carry out the job. You may have been lucky enough to be promoted from within and already have a working knowledge of your aircraft and people.
MD Helicopters Inc. (MDHI) kicked off its sixth visit to Heli-Expo by announcing three sales and several pending deliveries. Pea Aero Taxi, of Brazil, has ordered an MD 600N slated for delivery this fall. The aircraft will be used for charter work in the Amazon jungle, company officials said. In addition, one MD 520N and one MD Explorer have been sold to the company's new distributor in Russia. Those deliveries also are planned for this year.
With its 10-by-8-inch DU1080 flat-panel displays borrowed from the Primus Epic suite, the XLS's cockpit seems inspired by the Sovereign's design. Primus 1000 CDS, though, retains the well-proven hub-and-spoke architecture of the original P1000 design, with integrated avionics computers at the heart of the system. The units are now IC-615 boxes that have additional slots for popular peripherals such as basic NZ-2000 FMS cards, a feature conspicuously absent in the original IC-600, which require separate, stand-alone FMS boxes.
Honeywell is touting its Bendix/King IHAS 2000 Integrated Hazard Avoidance System as a low-cost, easily retrofitted system to provide data link weather and traffic information in the cockpits of corporate aircraft, including older jets. The manufacturer points out that the TSOed KMD 250 MFD, in combination with the KDR 510 VDL Mode 2 data link weather receiver, can superimpose data-linked weather over a GPS-driven map display. Adding a KT 73 Mode S Transponder with Traffic Information Service (TIS) displays traffic information from many FAA sites across the country.
FlightSafety International, Flushing, N.Y., has announced three new appointments. Bill Magyar has been promoted to director of regional maintenance training operations. In his new position he will be responsible for FlightSafety's Maintenance Learning Centers in Wichita serving Cessna customers and Raytheon customers, and the Falcon Jet Little Rock maintenance training center. He has over 40 years of aviation maintenance experience. Jim Scott has been named director of government programs.
The Experimental Aircraft Association has enlisted actor Harrison Ford to serve as the new chairman of the EAA Young Eagles Program. Ford, who first began flight training in the 1960s but put those ambitions on hold until the early 1990s, is a pilot who is rated in rotorcraft and tailwheel aircraft.
Tech-Tool Plastics unveiled several new window replacement products for Bell 407 and Eurocopter EC 120 and BK 117 helicopters at the recent Heli-Expo 2004. For the BK 117 there's a new line of standard replacement windows. For the Bell 407, Tech-Tool introduced a custom aft door window with a long slide for photography and observation missions. And there's a new pilot's door window for the EC 120 without a slide, which enhances visibility. Call for pricing Tech-Tool Plastics 7800 Skyline Park Dr. Fort Worth, TX 76108 (817) 246-4694 www.tech-tool.com
But wait, there's more! Scaled back is not dead. Boeing's ATM organization demonstrated its technology for fusing radar and ADS-B data and processing it for display on a single screen. ``Rather than three potentially confusing blips representing the same airplane appearing separately on the radar screen, our demonstration flights show we can `fuse' signals to provide more accurate tracking,'' said Dave Jones, Boeing's Global Communications, Navigation and Surveillance System (GCNSS) program manager.
The FAA's final revised FAR Part 139 will require small airports handling scheduled commercial service of aircraft with between nine and 30 seats to meet safety and operational requirements including Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) regulations. Airports serving scheduled carriers using aircraft with under nine seats, or unscheduled operations with aircraft fewer than 30 seats, are not affected by the new rules, which were published in the Feb. 10 Federal Register.
AgustaWestland has begun a major plant expansion in Philadelphia. The new facility, scheduled to open by the end of the summer, will provide additional space for the manufacturer and will be the site for final assembly of the Agusta A119 Koala helicopter, which is currently manufactured in Italy. The expansion comes as AgustaWestland, Lockheed Martin and Bell Helicopter are teamed to compete on the US101, a derivative of the AgustaWestland EH-101, for the VXX presidential helicopter contract.
Johnston & Murphy's Signature Series of dress and casual shoes is designed for those who trek through airport security machines on a regular basis. The Signature Series features a soft gel cushion insert, a shock dispersion heel that minimizes impact and fatigue, and a durable rubber outsole for a high degree of flexibility. Most notably, the new shoes are constructed with a composite shank instead of the typical metal shank, which is the piece that frequently activates metal detectors at airports.
CSD, Inc. is expanding marketing and customer support for the PRIST family it acquired from PPG Industries about a year ago -- after serving as a licensee for a number of years. The PRIST brand includes a family of premium solvents, additives and lubricants designed for the aviation and aerospace industries. Among the better-known products in the family are PRIST Hi-Flash Hi-Flo/Lo-Flo additives and PRIST aircraft acrylic/glass cleaner.
The NBAA urged the TSA to consider a national rollout of the TSA Access Certificate program. The final round of compliance evaluations for Transportation Security Administration Access Certificate (TSAAC) holders was conducted on March 8. The TSA will review the proof-of-concept TSAAC program that has been under way at Teterboro (TEB), Westchester County (HPN) and Morristown Municipal (MMU) airports. The NBAA said that it anticipates that after this review, a determination will be made in favor of expanding the TSAAC program nationally.
In ``Where Are You, Really?'' (B/CA, December 2003, page 68) Dick McKinney described some of the dangers associated with using GPS for navigation in areas where imprecise methods may have been employed in determining the official latitude and longitude of objects. This time, we'll look at using GPS to show an aircraft's position on electronic airport diagrams, and how software and avionics manufacturers deal with various accuracy issues.
Executive Aircraft-Wichita has named Nick Murphy, an 11-year aviation veteran with 19 years in the electro-mechanical technology field, as its avionics manager. Murphy comes to Executive from Cessna Citation Service Center, Newburgh, N.Y.
Bombardier Aerospace has added Global Wings, Inc. of Tokyo, Japan, as the newest operator in its Bombardier Flexjet Asia-Pacific charter network. Global Wings will fly the new Learjet 45XR super-light business jet beginning this spring. Other operators in the Bombardier Flexjet Asia-Pacific network include: Rainbow Jet Co. Ltd. of China, Macau-based Jet Asia Ltd., Subic International Air Charter Inc. of the Philippines, Singapore-based Pacific Flight Services and ExecuJet Australia. All charter operators in the network are certified by Wyvern International.
Feb. 25 -- Arriving from Denver International, a Fairchild AS227 freighter was substantially damaged when it slid off of the runway during landing roll at Garfield County Regional Airport (RIL), Rifle, Colo. Neither the ATR pilot nor commercial first officer were injured. IMC prevailed at the time. The pilot stated that they had flown the approach at a higher speed than usual and, as a result, the airplane touched down approximately 2,500 feet beyond the approach end of Runway 26, which was wet with rain.
Smoke and Fire Prevention Systems is marketing lightweight fiberglass fabric curtains designed to contain smoke and toxic fumes in aircraft hangars. Toby Newcomb, executive vice president of the Clarksville, Va., company, says the translucent FabriLock fabric offers lower-cost protection than heavy drywall and metal smoke curtains. Moreover, he says his product is accepted by all building codes. In addition to locking in smoke and toxic fumes to protect lives and property, the translucent curtains help illuminate hangar interiors.
The Gulfstream G550 got its JAA recommendation letter and a type certificate from the new European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). The G550 with its PlaneView cockpit and Enhanced Vision System was FAA certificated in August 2003. EASA certification allows the aircraft to be registered in 37, mostly European, countries.
Eaton Aerospace is the latest company to join the Chinese ARJ21 regional jet program. The agreement with AVIC 1 Commercial Aircraft Co. of Shanghai to supply integrated cockpit assemblies and cockpit lighting control assemblies makes Eaton the 11th supplier to the Chinese-led project. Mel Drummond, Eaton's vice president of product support and services, said that the contract is worth $20 million on more than 500 aircraft.
The NBAA has published a children's book, The Flying Office: Aviation Goes to Work, as part of the association's AvKids initiative. AvKids is designed to introduce students in grades two through five to aviation, and business aviation in particular, through a curriculum that incorporates science, math, geography and language arts. The Flying Office was written by Cassandra Bosco, NBAA director of public relations, who spearheaded AvKids, and veteran business aviation journalist Robert Searles, and is illustrated by Mike Perry.
Testifying in mid-March before the House Subcommittee on Aviation, GAMA President Ed Bolen and NATA President James Coyne urged the federal government to promptly develop security procedures that will return general aviation operations to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). According to Bolen, scheduled airlines [and FAA-operated and -chartered general aviation aircraft -- Ed.] were able to resume service to DCA because the organizations in charge of U.S. security were committed to finding solutions to security challenges.
Bombardier Flexjet, a subscriber to the NBAA General Aviation Desk at the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center since August 2001, marked a milestone for business aviation operators in becoming the first nonscheduled operator to successfully transmit flight intent data to the FAA's ATC host system.
ANSV, the Italian national air safety agency, issued a report on the Oct. 8, 2001, runway collision at Milan Linate Airport between an MD-87 and a Citation CJ2 that killed 118 people. The Citation was cleared to taxi for a Runway 36R departure via Taxiway R5, which does not cross either of Linate's parallel runways but has a holding point short of the extended runway centerline. The Cessna pilot correctly read back the clearance to taxi via R5, but mistakenly turned onto taxiway R6, which crosses the main runway, 18L/36R, and also has a holding point short of the runway.
