Corporate Rotable & Supply announced that its STC/PMA-approved replacement generator, P/N A3579-000, applicable to Learjet 35/36/55 model aircraft, has received its first approval outside the United States from the aviation regulatory agencies in Austria and Germany. The A3579-000 has logged over 20,500 total fleet hours in the United States.
When the Starship entered service in 1990 after prolonged development, its price tag nearly topped $5 million, almost twice what its developers claimed it would sell for when the program was announced seven years earlier.
SkyTrac Systems Ltd. has signed a formal partnership agreement with Iridium Satellite to use Iridium for its automated flight following service, providing two-way voice and data messaging between aircraft and ground stations. Aircraft data, including GPS location, aircraft flight and operating parameters, and other mission critical information, are automatically transmitted from the aircraft via the Iridium satellite constellation to any Internet-accessible location in the world. In the same manner, messages are sent to and delivered from the aircraft.
AvTurf LLC of Chicago has received a U.S. patent for its synthetic grass surface designed to improve safety, reduce bird strikes and reduce delays associated with mowing operations for airport safety areas. According to its founder and president, Patrick Carr, the AvTurf system was tested at the FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, N.J. According to Carr, the AvTurf system was deemed acceptable by the FAA to install in the runway safety areas per 14 CFR Part 139 and applicable Advisory Circulars.
WHETHER YOU WERE WEANED hard by the stockyards of Chicago, the tire plants of Akron or the palm fronds of Beverly Hills, native soil is native soil. I have seen grown, intelligent and affluent men brim with nostalgia passing by the site of the infamous Chicago stockyards, whose summer effluvia would fell a dinosaur. One of my favorite citizens is a pilot fella from the Akron area who used to take me to his favorite bistro in downtown Akron, close enough to Firestone et al. to make your eyes water.
The NBAA's membership reached the 7,500 level for the first time. Five years ago in October 1998, the member level was at 5,700. Air Resources of DTI of Windsor, Calif., member number 7,500, operates a Beech King Air 200, which is flown by Chief Pilot Stanford Brown.
Tenzing, the Seattle-based provider of inflight e-mail and text-messaging services for commercial airliners, has announced a new e-mail system for business jets. Based on its airline installations, the business jet system operates through a laptop-size onboard device that incorporates Tenzing software and connects to existing aircraft communications systems. The system has been tested on many business aircraft communication systems and is scheduled to be available for business jet customers this year.
Jet Support Services Inc. (JSSI), Chicago, has named Michael Buell as its new director of domestic sales. Formerly president of O/E Systems, Buell brings 20 years of sales and management experience to JSSI.
A.O.G. Air Support Inc. of Kelowna, British Columbia, announced that it has a $1.1 million (Canadian) R&D contract to perform an engine and airfoil modification on a Cessna 208 Caravan. The airfoil mod will be based on A.O.G.'s STOL technology developed for de Havilland Beavers and Otters to increase takeoff and landing performance on both floats and wheels. It will also replace the Caravan's Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 with a Walter Turbine M601E-11 engine, which has 751 shp (an increase of 75 shp). A.O.G.
Thunder Aviation, Chesterfield, Mo., has appointed Scott LaVange to the position of regional sales manager. LaVange will be responsible for customer service and sales of Thunder Aviation's avionics repair, installations and modifications, and airframe maintenance service products in the Northeastern United States.
Triumph Group, Inc., Wayne, Pa., has named Michael Meshay as president of Triumph Components -- Arizona, which manufactures gas turbine engine components for the aerospace and power generation markets. Most recently, Meshay served as president of aircraft components and services for Fairchild Dornier Gmbh.
Bombardier Global Express XRS, Cessna Excel XLS and Gulfstream 450, three derivative aircraft, were announced at October's NBAA convention. The Weekly of Business Aviation reports pricing for the aircraft will be especially competitive compared with each of their respective predecessor models to maximize the perceived value of the new aircraft. Bombardier, Cessna and Gulfstream each stressed they were continuing to invest in research and development despite the rough economic conditions of the past two years.
Jan. 20, 2005. Mark that date. It's significant because it's the deadline for compliance with the coming Reduced Vertical Separation Minimums for flight operations in the U.S. National Airspace System from FL 290 to FL 410. A large number of general aviation aircraft operators are complaining about the short, 14-month fuse on this mandate, especially in light of the substantial expense of upgrading older turbine aircraft to RVSM standards. But the FAA's been warning about the new standard for a decade, and by world measure, it's been dragging its feet.
Diamond Aircraft previewed the first certified application of Garmin's fully integrated G1000 glass cockpit in its DA40 Diamond Star on Sept. 27 at Garmin's Olathe, Kan., headquarters. The system includes dual, sunlight-readable, 10-inch primary/multifunction display panels; a centrally mounted audio controller; and remote-mounted avionics rack. The G1000 has also been selected for Diamond's twin-engine DA42 Twin Star and the Cessna Citation Mustang. Pricing for the G1000 DA40 package has not been determined.
Rolls-Royce re-appointed Vector Aerospace subsidiary ACRO Aerospace of Richmond, British Columbia, as a Model 250 Authorized Maintenance Center (AMC). The six-year contract was signed at Helitech 2003. The license agreements covering all 27 current Model 250 AMCs expire Dec. 31, and Rolls-Royce will be restructuring its AMC network, incorporating Rolls-Royce-owned service centers. According to Rolls-Royce, the new network will consist of 23 independent Model 250 repair and overhaul facilities, three company owned service centers and one partially-owned facility.
Honeywell received an FAA STC of its KFC 225 flight control system and KCS 55A compass system for the PA-31-350 Piper Chieftain aircraft. The KFC provides an upgrade from the Bendix/King KFC 200, which is no longer in production. The KFC package includes a new compass sensor, horizontal situation indicator and flight director. Currently, there are 880 Chieftains on the U.S. Registry.
Rockwell Collins and Connexion by Boeing introduced their broadband connection offering for corporate aircraft at the NBAA Convention in October. Dubbed Collins eXchange, the package integrates with Collins' Airshow 21 cabin electronics system to allow passengers to access the Internet, firewall protected corporate intranets, e-mail, news, weather and destination information, and direct broadcast satellite television programming at speeds comparable to a cable modem.
One thing Beech did get right in the Starship was the structure. The graphite/epoxy and honeycomb layups used to build the Starship may have been controversial, but it's possible that the composite media and the fashion in which it was used may have resulted in one of the strongest general aviation aircraft ever produced. Some observers of the program believe FAA certification authorities forced Beech to over-design the aircraft.
To help memorialize Veterans Day (Nov. 11) and recognize those members of the U.S. armed services who demonstrated extraordinary heroism under fire, Jet Aviation is giving flight crews who visit its U.S. bases complimentary copies of ``Medal of Honor.'' The handsome coffee-table book profiles 118 recipients of the nation's highest medal and includes sections written by former President George Bush, U.S. Sen. John McCain, and NBC newsman Tom Brokaw.
Tom Weil is the 2003 recipient of the Joseph P. Crotti Award for General Aviation Advocacy in California. AOPA President Phil Boyer presented the award to him in September. Weil is the airport manager at California City Municipal Airport (L71) and a member of the board of directors for the Association of California Airports. The Crotti Award cites Weil for ``extraordinary advocacy and leadership in the preservation of general aviation funds during the 2002-2003 California budget crisis.''
B/E Aerospace, Inc. announced that it has expanded its Ice Shield deicer product line for general aviation aircraft, introducing pneumatic deicers for: Beech 1900D; Cessna Citation 501, 525 and 551 and Cessna 210, T210, P210, T-303 Crusader and 441 Conquest; Jetstream 32; Pilatus PC-12; Piper Aerostar 600, 601 and 602, PA-46 310, 350 Malibu/Mirage and PA-42 Cheyenne. B/E also has Ice Shield systems for various Embraer, Gulfstream, Fairchild and Mitsubishi aircraft, as well as for other Beech, Cessna and Piper models.
Thunder Aviation, the aircraft servicing company and FBO based at Spirit of St. Louis Airport (SUS), is teaming with Honeywell in offering RVSM upgrades for Falcon 20s equipped with either APS 105 or SPZ 500 autopilots. The company, which anticipates FAA award of a group STC for the update in December, says the retrofit will require about two weeks of downtime and cost $165,000. Thunder plans to offer RVSM upgrades for Falcon 10 aircraft beginning in March 2004.
Air Security International introduced ASI Travel Security Manager, a system that enables security departments to track travelers and set alerts, advisories and notification trees that will distribute critical information automatically to employees around the globe. At the same time, ASI announced an alliance with Nationwide Intelligence to use the latter's city and airport information covering 50 of the most popular business travel destinations in the United States for the ASI Travel Security Manager service.
Mxi Technologies announced that Dassault Aviation has selected its Maintenix maintenance management software for tracking the utilization and reliability of its customer fleet. ``Faster access to a complete data set of the performance of our aircraft fleet will help us as a manufacturer to provide the best level of customer support,'' said Jacques Pellas, Dassault Aviation Information Systems, senior vice president.
Banyan Air Service plans to build a new 25,000-square-foot terminal to be completed by winter 2004 at Florida's Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE). The two-story FBO will house a 2,800-square-foot customer lobby with a 35-foot-long customer service desk, a television lounge, pilot lounge, snooze room and separate full-size bunk room, shower facilities, a weather and flight planning room, two conference rooms, a business center, wireless Internet, public phone terminals, a large vending area, a baggage holding area, six restrooms and 22 offices.
