October 30-November 2 - Air Traffic Control Association 50th Annual Conference and Exposition, Gaylord Texan Resort and Conference Center, Dallas/Ft. Worth, www.atca.org, e-mail [email protected] November 2-3 - Regional Airline Association Fall Meeting, Washington, D.C., (202) 367-1170 November 3-5 - Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, AOPA Expo 2005, Tampa Convention Center, Tampa, Fla., www.aopa.org/expo November 9-11 - National Business Aviation Association Annual Meeting and Convention, Orlando, Fla., (202) 783-9000
TIMKEN BUYS BEARING INSPECTION FIRM - The Timken Company, one of the world's largest manufacturers of bearings for a wide range of products, has acquired Bearing Inspection, Inc. (Bii), a leading independent provider of aerospace bearing inspection and reconditioning services. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. "This acquisition transforms Timken's position in the aerospace services market," said J. Ron Menning, vice president-aerospace, consumer and super precision for Timken.
AVIATION GROUPS URGE EPA TO DELAY SPILL PREVENTION RULES - Four aviation groups last week urged the Environmental Protection Agency to postpone implementation of new Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) requirements, saying the rules are still unworkable and lack adequate guidance. "Although the [aviation] coalition and EPA have worked hard to resolve critical issues regarding the scope and implementation of the SPCC rule, many of these issues, including those involving on-airport mobile refuelers...
FORMER HAI CHAIRMAN TO REPLACE RESAVAGE AS PRESIDENT - Helicopter Association International last week named long-time member and former Chairman Matthew Zuccaro to succeed Roy Resavage as president, effective Nov. 1. Resavage announced in June his intention to step down for health reasons. Zuccaro is president of Zuccaro Industries, LLC, an aviation consultancy specializing in helicopter issues.
BAE SYSTEMS Jetstream Model 4101 airplanes [Docket No. FAA-2005-21087; Directorate Identifier 2005-NM-019-AD; Amendment 39-14280; AD 2005-19-15] - supersedes an existing AD that currently requires operators to determine the number of flight cycles accumulated on each component of the main landing gear (MLG) and the nose landing gear (NLG), and to replace each component that reaches its life limit with a serviceable component.
V-22 OSPREY APPROVED FOR FULL-RATE PRODUCTION - The U.S. Defense Department has approved starting full-rate production of the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey, boosting the once-troubled tiltrotor aircraft program, according to a government source. A Defense Acquisition Board (DAB), which the Pentagon convened for about two hours Sept. 28 to weigh the program's fate, decided that the V-22 production rate, now 11 aircraft a year, should begin to rise in fiscal 2007 and eventually reach a top rate of more than 40 aircraft a year.
NORDAM'S SIEGFRIED DIES; LACKEY NAMED VICE CHAIR, UCZEKAJ PRESIDENT - Ray Siegfried II, 62, who steered Nordam from a small, bankrupt research firm into a $500 million global aerospace manufacturing and repair company, died Oct. 6 after battling Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's Disease. Siegfried's death came just days after the Nordam Group board of directors approved a leadership succession plan, naming Ken Lackey vice chairman of the board and promoting John Uczekaj to president.
FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center took delivery of a new Bombardier Global 5000 business jet to serve as an airborne research and development laboratory. The $24.8 million, 10-passenger aircraft will be used for a variety of safety, navigation and efficiency-enhancing programs, including monitoring the global positioning system, wide area augmentation and local area augmentation systems, automatic dependent surveillance/broadcast, reduced vertical separation minima, X-band airport surface detection equipment and next generation air-to-ground communications.
All three occupants were killed and a Robinson R44 helicopter, N9158U, was destroyed when it struck a power line Sept. 24 during a daylight sightseeing flight near Drummond, Wis. The aircraft was operated by Midstate Aviation.
CESSNA SECURES APPROVAL FOR LATEST CJ - Cessna Aircraft earned FAA type approval for the newest iteration of the venerable 525 CitationJet line, the CJ2+, a follow-on to the CJ2 that incorporates several features that were formerly options. The CJ2+ is equipped with upgrades to boost payload and performance.
Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., will provide its lighting research work as part of an FAA Center of Excellence (COE) for Airport Technology. The COE focuses on airport structures, pavement materials, wildlife issues, anti-icing, and lighting. LRC will evaluate applications for solid-state lighting and lighting technologies such as LEDs for runways, taxiways, approaches, and other areas of the airfield.
Jet Aviation Basel plans to increase its hangar space by a third under a new agreement with Swiss International Air Lines and airport authorities to take over the Crossair hangar in Basel. The 5,000-square-meter hangar boosts Jet Aviation Basel's total hangar space to 20,000 square meters. "We are very happy that we found a solution with Swiss and the airport authority to be able to handle the growing number of aircraft at our facility," said Rainer Albecker, senior vice president and general manager at Jet Aviation Basel.
FAA CALLS FOR MARCH 2007 END TO MODE S EXEMPTIONS - FAA Friday proposed to stop issuing exemptions after March 1, 2007 from requirements that mandate installation of Mode S transponders in aircraft operated under Part 135 or 121. FAA said it would continue to evaluate requests for extension of current exemptions until March 1, 2007, but the agency does not plan to grant any new exemptions after that date. FAA has issued numerous exemptions allowing operators to install Mode A or C in lieu of Mode S transponders.
Procrastinators who have not yet reserved exhibit space at NBAA's convention can still make reservations, if they act quickly. The exhibit hall in Orlando has room for 5,300 booth spaces, and last week NBAA had reservations for 4,762 spaces. The convention was moved from New Orleans to Orlando after Hurricane Katrina devastated southern Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama (BA, Sept. 5/101).
Genesis 3 Engineering, an aerospace engineering firm based in Woodland Park, Colo., has developed reduced vertical separation minimum approval modification kits for Dassault Falcon 20 aircraft. Genesis 3 is shipping the kits to installation facilities throughout the country. The kit is priced at $114,900 and includes on-site installation support.
BRIAN LASH was named vice president of client relations for Executive Jet Management. Based in Chicago, Lash will manage EJM client relations for customers in the Midwest. He has more than 10 years of aviation sales, management and marketing experience. Most recently, he was an aviation consultant and assistant to the chairman of Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos Inc. in Boston, where he helped establish a corporate flight department and evaluated the purchase of aircraft charter services.
Permira funds announced the completion of its acquisition of the Jet Aviation Group, one of the largest business aviation service companies in the world (BA, Aug. 15/65).
LARGE UAV FIRST TO WIN APPROVAL FOR FLIGHTS IN NAS - General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) became the first manufacturer of unmanned aerial vehicles to win FAA approval to operate its Altair high-altitude unmanned aerial system (UAS) in the National Airspace System under an experimental certificate.
Embraer Aircraft officials are targeting their new business jet products at the lower end of the market because they believe that's where the action will be over the next decade. The Brazilian manufacturer predicts 44 percent of new business jet deliveries will be aircraft in the very light or light categories through 2016. The company is forecasting deliveries of 9,680 aircraft valued at $144 billion during the period. See charts below.
BLAKEY: FAA WILL ACCOMMODATE UAVs, BUT SAFETY COMES FIRST - FAA Administrator Marion Blakey told a group of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) supporters that the agency will accommodate the use of the unmanned flying machines in civilian airspace, but only after safety concerns are addressed.
FAA OPENS INDEPENDENT DISPUTE RESOLUTION CENTER - FAA last week opened its new Center for Early Dispute Resolution after employees voiced concerns about the way the agency handles internal conflicts.
Bell Helicopter and Boeing handed over the first production CV-22 Osprey to the U.S. Air Force. A variant of the Bell Boeing V-22, the CV-22 will be used for long-range special operations missions, contingency operations, evacuations and maritime operations. The CV-22 is fitted with a similar communications and navigations suite to that of the V-22, but also includes an electronic warfare package, a multi-mode radar for low-altitude, low-visibility flight, a retractable aerial refueling probe, four radios and a flight engineer seat in the cockpit.
