The Pilatus PC-12 fleet has accumulated more than one million flight hours in the past 10-plus years. More than 500 owner-pilots, corporations, airlines, air ambulance operations, government agencies, fractional operators and charter operators fly PC-12s, Pilatus said.
Herve Pomerleau, Inc. of Saint-Georges, Quebec was selected to build a new hangar at the Greater Moncton International Airport. The new hangar will house a variety of Transport Canada and Royal Canadian Mounted Police aircraft and will serve as an operations and maintenance facility. "This project will provide the Greater Moncton International Airport with a state-of-the-art facility that will support the airport's long-term development plans," said Claudette Bradshaw, minister of state for Human Resources Development. Groundbreaking is planned for March.
BUSH SIGNS BILL TO MOVE CLASS ACTION SUITS TO FEDERAL COURTS - President Bush Friday morning signed a bill, passed overwhelmingly in the House and Senate, that will move many class-action lawsuits from state to federal courts (BA, Feb. 14/77).
Columbia Air Services added a new 20,000-square-foot hangar and 6,000-square-foot fixed-base operation building to its site in Groton, Conn. The new facilities include meeting rooms, crew lounges and a passenger area. Columbia plans to formally dedicate the facilities in the spring. Opening of the new facilities coincides with the aviation services company's 25th anniversary. Columbia said it plans this year to take delivery of an Adam Aircraft A500 centerline thrust twin, and the company will host the Malibu/Mirage Owners and Pilots Association 2005 Convention.
Pete Djordjevic was named chief pilot for Executive Jet Management (EJM). Djordjevic has more than 22 years of charter and corporate aviation experience. He joined EJM in 1985 as a first officer and most recently was a Challenger CL-604 captain. An airline transport pilot certificate holder, Djordjevic also is rated on the Dassault Falcon 50/900, Learjet 35 and Cessna 500/650.
BELL SELECTS HONEYWELL ENGINE FOR UPGRADED 407 - Bell Helicopter selected Honeywell's HTS900 turboshaft to replace the Rolls Royce 250-C47B engine on new Bell 407 single-engine turbine helicopters. The engine, with a takeoff rating of 925 shaft horsepower, is expected to boost power by 15 percent, which will improve hot/high performance and lower fuel consumption.
French manufacturer Dassult rolled out the first of its new Falcon 7X aircraft Tuesday at the factory in Bordeaux, France, culminating the latest stage in development of a new family of business jets. Dassault said the company recently accepted an order for the 51st 7X to be produced, a backlog that extends into 2009.
FAA'S KEEGAN TO HEAD PLANNING FOR ATC - Agency veteran Charles Keegan was selected by FAA Administrator Marion Blakey to provide broad oversight of FAA's air traffic control planning efforts. Keegan was named vice president-operations planning in addition to his role as director of the Joint Planning Development Office (JPDO).
Pia Bergqvist was named western region sales representative for Liberty Aerospace, the Melbourne, Fla.-based maker of the XL2 single-engine aircraft. Bergqvist, former senior editor of Plane & Pilot and Pilot Journal magazines, is a multi-engine commercial pilot and an instrument instructor. Bergqvist will be based at Santa Monica Municipal Airport. Liberty said the Santa Monica location is the first of several regional offices Liberty plans to open around the U.S. in the next few months.
U.K. MOVING FORWARD WITH NATIONAL ID CARD - The United Kingdom is moving closer to creating a national identity card program after Parliament voted this month to introduce a universal ID card for all British citizens. The Identity Cards Bill passed the House of Commons Feb. 10 on a 224-64 vote and will be debated later by the House of Lords. Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke in favor of the measure, which he said was supported by police and security forces.
Two Virginia legislators, Sen. George Allen (R) and Rep. Tom Davis (R), last week introduced companion bills in the Senate and the House directing the secretaries of homeland security and transportation to implement regulations within six months that would allow general aviation and charter operations at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA).
SOUTH KOREA TO REINSTATE EARLY WARNING AIRCRAFT COMPETITION - South Korea's defense ministry said it will resume a stalled $1.9 billion program to acquire early warning aircraft, according to the Korean Information Service. The ministry will receive bids for the program again in late March, and plans to pick a winner in December. Israel's Elta and Boeing had been competing for the work, Elta with a Gulfstream G-550 and Boeing with a 737. Elta's bid didn't meet requirements, falling short in radar detection range, the ministry said.
Ronald Worley was named director of sales, Rolls-Royce Spey/Tay programs, for Dallas Airmotive. Worley will oversee sales for business and general aviation customers who operate Spey and Tay engines. Worley previously was an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) account director for Rockwell Collins, overseeing sales, marketing, program management and support activities for Gulfstream. Before that, he served as OEM sales account manager for AlliedSignal/Honeywell.
Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) this month introduced a bill that would permit charter operators to provide limited scheduled service. The bill, Serving Economies through Aviation and Technology in the 21st Century Act, H.R.488, would allow Part 121 and Part 135 operators to conduct no more than five round-trip public charter flights in turbine aircraft with nine or fewer seats. The bill is intended to supplement air service to small communities.
EUROCOPTER FRANCE Model AS350B, BA, B1, B2, B3, C, D, D1, and EC130 B4 helicopters [Docket No. FAA-2004-19038; Directorate Identifier 2004-SW-24-AD; Amendment 39-13964; AD 2005-03-08] - requires removing and modifying the fuel bleed lever. This amendment is prompted by some cases of loss of the fuel bleed lever in flight. If the tension of the control cable is too low, the cable may vibrate out of its notch, resulting in the fuel bleed lever separating from the hinge.
RAYTHEON Model DH.125, HS.125, and BH.125 Series airplanes; BAe.125 Series 800A (C-29A and U-125) and 800B airplanes; and Hawker 800 (Including Variant U-125A) and 800XP airplanes; equipped with TFE731 Engines [Docket No. FAA-2004-19561; Directorate Identifier 2004-NM-50-AD; Amendment 39-13972; AD 2005-03-16] - requires installing insulating blankets on the engine compartment firewall and the wire harness passing through the firewall fairlead.
AirCell is offering a new flight tracking service for customers of its airborne telecommunication systems. Customers can track aircraft equipped with AirCell's Iridium-based satcom system on the ground through Flight Explorer software. The AirCell satellite transceiver and a tracking controller transmit GPS position data over the Iridium satellite network at customer-selected intervals. Customers on the ground can view the aircraft with weather overlays, generate alerts and record events using Flight Explorer.
THE NEW PIPER AIRCRAFT PA-34 series airplanes [Docket No. FAA-2004-19960; Directorate Identifier 2004-CE-47-AD] - proposes to supersede AD 93-24-14, which currently requires repetitively replacing the bolt and stack up that connect the upper drag link to the nose gear trunnion. This proposed AD is the result of many service difficulty reports related to the collapse or inadvertent retraction of the nose landing gear (NLG).
Bizjet International received FAA approval to become an authorized Rolls-Royce overhaul facility for the Tay MK 611-8 engine. Tulsa, Okla.-based Bizjet is now authorized to do overhauls on both the Spey MK 511-8 and Tay MK 611-8 powerplants.
AAR is selling its Engine Component Repair business unit to Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corp., a unit of Sequa Corp. Chris Richardson, president and chief operating officer of Chromalloy Aircraft Engine Services, said the combination of the AAR unit with the existing Chromalloy repair operations in Wallingford, Conn. "will provide important economies of scale and lead to enhanced service to our aerospace customers."
BOMBARDIER Model CL-600-2B19 (Regional Jet Series 100 & 440) airplanes [Docket No. FAA-2005-20353; Directorate Identifier 2004-NM-255-AD] - proposes to require installing additional shielding of the hydraulic lines in the wing box area. This proposed AD is prompted by the determination that the additional hydraulic line shields will protect the lines from possible impact by tire debris if the tire tread fails.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) last week asked Transportation Security Administration chief David Stone whether this is the right time to impose a 120 percent security fee hike on air travelers, saying, "There's no such burden on other people who use other forms of transportation, and I think that's wrong." Stone said he believes the idea of adopting a user fee approach across different modes of transportation "merits review" because "it really has to be a shared responsibility.
FORMER HAI, RTCA EXECUTIVE FRANK JENSEN DIES - Frank Lewis Jensen, Jr., 76, a decorated Army veteran who spent more than 20 years heading two Washington-based aviation trade and technical associations, died Feb. 12. Jensen began his military career at 15, when he joined the U.S. Navy in 1943, becoming a combat aircrewman. After World War II, Jensen joined the U.S. Army, graduating with honors from Officer Candidate School and serving as a parachutist in the Korean War with the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team.
