TAG AVIATION teamed with Air Routing International to develop a new fuel management program. Under the TAGFuel program, Air Routing will help TAG purchase fuel at negotiated, discount prices for customer aircraft. The program includes a TAGFuel Desk to allow TAG crews to communicate directly with personnel negotiating the fuel discounts. Air Routing named Kim Ratcliff director of TAGFuel, with responsibility for oversight of the program. Ratcliff will be based in Houston, Texas.
Model 600N helicopters (Docket No. 2001-SW-57-AD; Amendment 39-12706; AD 2001-24-51) - publishes an amendment adopting AD 2001-24-51, which was sent previously to all known U.S. owners and operators of MD Helicopters, Inc. (MDHI) Model 600N helicopters by individual letters. This AD requires, within five hours time-in-service, inspecting both upper tailboom attachments, nutplates and both angles for a crack or thread damage and repairing or replacing any cracked or damaged part before further flight.
Citing concerns that low visibility during twilight contributed to the March 29, 2001 crash of a Gulfstream III in Aspen, Colo., the National Transportation Safety Board last week urged FAA to expand nighttime flight restrictions in mountainous terrain. The Gulfstream III, N303GA, operated by Avjet Corporation on a charter flight from Los Angeles, hit the ground about 2,400 feet short of Runway 15 at Aspen-Pitkin (ASE), killing three crew members and all 15 passengers on board.
THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT completed its regulations for flight training companies to submit the names of foreign student applicants who are seeking training on aircraft that weigh at least 12,500 pounds, but it may be months before new foreign students can begin flight training in the U.S. The Aviation and Transportation Security Act requires flight schools to notify the Department of Justice when they receive applications from foreign nationals for flight training in aircraft weighing 12,500 pounds or more.
The aviation maintenance community is renewing efforts to establish an industry-set standard that would recognize corporate aircraft technicians who meet certain requirements. Efforts to establish such recognition in the past have proven unsuccessful, but the latest effort is focused solely on the corporate maintenance technician and involves the building of a coalition of organizations to develop the series of standards that the maintenance technician would meet.
TWO PERSONS were killed last week when their Model 35 Beech Bonanza, N4487D, crashed near Willows, Calif. A preliminary FAA report said "witnesses on the ground reported seeing a wing come off of the aircraft prior to the crash."
WALTER BERCHTOLD was appointed vice president-refurbishment and completions at Jet Aviation West Palm Beach, Fla. He was most recently vice president-SAP implementation for operations. Berchtold joined Jet Aviation in 1981 and has more than 20 years of business aviation experience.
The long-awaited reopening of Washington Reagan National Airport to general and business aviation could happen as soon as next month if plans to publish a rule establishing new security requirements are approved.
BUSINESS AVIATION FATALITIES DOWN SHARPLY IN FIRST QUARTER - The number of people killed in accidents involving U.S. business jet and turboprop aircraft was down sharply in the quarter ended March 31, compared with the same period a year ago, according to Robert E. Breiling Associates, Inc. of Boca Raton, Fla.
The number of people killed in accidents involving U.S. business jet and turboprop aircraft was down sharply in the quarter ended March 31, compared with the same period a year ago, according to Robert E. Breiling Associates, Inc. of Boca Raton, Fla.
REGARDING UAL CORPORATION'S failed attempt to get into the fractional ownership business, Ricci said "To some extent, I really didn't want to see Avolar fail" because "they would have brought some confidence to the industry" and drummed up business for other fractional providers. And the existence of Avolar would have put United in the position of approaching its large corporate airline customers and saying, 'Why don't you come out of First Class' and fly in a business jet.
Regarding UAL Corporation's failed attempt to get into the fractional ownership business, Ricci said "To some extent, I really didn't want to see Avolar fail" because "they would have brought some confidence to the industry" and drummed up business for other fractional providers. And the existence of Avolar would have put United in the position of approaching its large corporate airline customers and saying, 'Why don't hour come out of First Class' and fly in a business jet.
FlightSafety Simulation, Tulsa, Okla., is building a Level D full flight simulator for the Bombardier Global Express business jet. Delivery of the unit is scheduled in the fourth quarter of 2003, but FlightSafety has not announced where it will be located.
TSA OUTLINES PLANS TO RESTORE BUSINESS AVIATION ACCESS TO DCA - The long-awaited reopening of Washington Reagan National Airport to general and business aviation could happen as soon as next month if plans to publish a rule establishing new security requirements are approved.
Model CL-600-2B19 series airplanes (Docket No. 2001-NM-346-AD) - proposes to require inspection of certain installed electrical relays to determine whether they have certain manufacturing date codes, and replacement of the electrical relays with those date codes with new relays with different manufacturing date codes. This action is necessary to prevent the failure of an electrical relay due to a defective moving blade assembly, which could result in the inability to generate electrical power from the emergency system.
FLIGHTSAFETY SIMULATION, Tulsa, Okla., is building a Level D full flight simulator for the Bombardier Global Express business jet. Delivery of the unit is scheduled in the fourth quarter of 2003, but FlightSafety has not announced where it will be located.
Although it received a letter from the Federal Aviation Administration warning of potential grant violations, the Naples Airport Authority has begun to enforce its ban on Stage 2 aircraft at Naples Municipal Airport that it adopted more than a year ago. NAA last week assessed its first fine on a violator of the Stage 2 ban, the Southwest Florida newspaper, the News-Press, reported. The authority fined a New York-based operator $500 and refused to allow the operator to pick up a passenger at Naples. NAA ordered the airplane to divert to Marco Island Airport.
AERODYNAMICS, INC., of southeastern Michigan was approved as an authorized Hawker service center by Raytheon. ADI, located at Oakland County International Airport (PTK), employs 32 mechanics who provide 24-hour service in four hangars with 80,000 square feet of space.
FAIRCHILD DORNIER'S insolvency administrator Eberhard Braun still wants to sell the company as a whole, but said the schedule to achieve his "strategic goal" is very tight. Braun has two and one-half months left to find a buyer for the company. He is allowing spending only where it is absolutely necessary, and he defended the move to lay off virtually all sales staff except three Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany-based employees (BA, April 8/163).
Aerodynamics, Inc., of southeastern Michigan was approved as an authorized Hawker service center by Raytheon. ADI, located at Oakland County International Airport (PTK), employs 32 mechanics who provide 24-hour service in four hangars with 80,000 square feet of space.
JAMES HARRISON was named director of completions and maintenance sales at Jet Aviation West Palm Beach. He has worked at Jet Aviation for eight years and has more than 21 years of experience in corporate aviation. Harrison was most recently the completions manager at the facility.
JET AVIATION'S U.S. aircraft sales division recently sold six aircraft, including a Gulfstream II, two Challenger 601s, a Hawker 800, a Falcon 50 and a Falcon 100. Revenues from the aircraft sales totaled $50 million, said Walt Wakefield, Jet Aviation vice president of aircraft sales for North and South America.
Bombardier Aerospace named Jahid Fazal-Karim as regional vice-president, sales, Americas. He will be responsible for sales in South America, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean Islands and Canada. Fazal-Karim joined Bombardier last year with 10 years of sales and marketing experience for used and new aircraft.
BOMBARDIER OFFICIALS were expected to spend a nervous weekend awaiting the outcome of a vote by the manufacturer's 8,000 Machinists union members on a new contract.Union members staged one-day strikes April 1 and April 11 because of dissatisfaction about the company's latest contract offer, and union officials have refused to endorse the company's offer. The vote was scheduled for Saturday.
An Internal Directive from the INS Commissioner to inspectors ordering "zero tolerance" spurred at least one group of inspectors to seek out office space at an FBO for interrogations of passengers arriving in the U.S. A Dulles International Airport FBO received that request from area inspectors, who said the alternative would be to send arriving passengers to the main terminal at Dulles for interrogation, said Pete West, senior vice president of government and public affairs for NBAA. While INS has jurisdiction for passenger interrogations, the U.S.
