LEROUX STEEL, INC., added a second Piper PA-46-350P Malibu Mirage to its corporate fleet. The New Piper Aircraft, Inc. said Leroux purchased its first Mirage in May 1996 to enable officials to visit its net-work of 18 steel service centers and client base of more than 7,000 firms in Eastern Canada and the Northeastern U.S. Leroux, founded in 1887, is the largest steel distributor in Quebec with more than 600 employees.
CESSNA AIRCRAFT delivered the first new Model 182 Skylane built at its Independence, Kan., facility Thursday to Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association President Phil Boyer. The association purchased the aircraft as the grand prize in its 1996 sweepstakes contest and presented the keys to N182FN to the contest winner, Michael Raisler of Clermont, Fla. The final letters in the N-number stand for "first new."
RAYTHEON AIRCRAFT'S Chester Service Centre joined the company's chain of fixed-base operations, Raytheon Aircraft Services. The United Kingdom facility is authorized to work on Hawkers and plans to expand its capability to provide maintenance on other Raytheon aircraft, including the Beechjet, King Air family, and the Premier I and Hawker Horizon. The center will service Raytheon aircraft operators in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Raytheon Aircraft Services comprises 14 facilities in the U.S. along with the Chester facility.
A VARIETY of metalworking and finishing equipment at Lockheed-Martin's Littleton, Colo., manufacturing facility will be auctioned May 20-21. Norman Levy Associates, Inc., will conduct the auction of equipment used to build Titan rockets, including machining and turning centers, presses, brakes and a Giddings&Lewis CNC horizontal skin mill. For more information, contact Levy at (810) 353-8640.
AIR BP is offering a new "DealersChoice" leasing program to help dealers acquire fuel-related equipment. Air BP General Manager Jim Timmons called the acquisition of equipment "one of the biggest challenges our dealers face. Most lending institutions are not familiar with the FBO business which makes it even harder to get financing." The program includes any equipment involved in the fueling process such as ground tanks, refuelers or self-service fueling systems.
LYNN PROTHERO, postal affairs director for Trans World Airlines, was elected to chair the Airline Postal Advisory Committee of the Air Transport Association. Prothero began her 25-year career with TWA in Boston as a reservation agent and currently is based in Los Angeles.
VINCENT AMBROSIA joined Garrett Aviation Long Island as air-frame administrator. Ambrosia, who has more than 16 years experience in corporate aviation, most recently was chief of maintenance with Glaxo Wellcome's flight department.
ATTORNEYS representing various parties in the litigation over new air tour overflight restrictions at Grand Canyon National Park are scheduled to file a joint briefing schedule with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. today, outlining proposals for scheduling briefs and oral arguments in the case.
General Aviation Manufacturers Association President Ed Bolen last week urged a congressional panel to help the Federal Aviation Administration modernize its regulatory effort and oppose efforts to charge aviation user fees. Testifying before the Senate manufacturing and competitiveness subcommittee, Bolen said Congress, regulators and industry must focus on "how we can promote safety by adapting and modernizing our regulatory process to the new manufacturing techniques and technologies" used in the business world.
THE CONGRESSIONAL Joint Committee on Taxation, in an analysis of the Clinton Administration's fiscal 1998 budget proposal, said extension of the aviation excise taxes through 2007 "would provide a stable funding source for national aviation programs."The committee noted alternative plans - such as a user fee system - but said recent studies of FAA's cost structure have shown that "it may be impossible to demonstrate whether any alternative tax structure more, or less, accurately assigns tax burdens to persons creating FAA costs." It added that any allocation of FAA costs
The Orenda Aerospace Corp., which has been developing for years a series of reciprocating engines for the aviation market, will move the program to the site of a former Canadian Forces base near Truro, Nova Scotia this summer.
NATIONAL AIR TRANSPORTATION ASSOCIATION named Jacqueline Guennewig specialist, government and industry affairs. Guennewig joins NATA on a permanent basis after serving in the association's government affairs internship program. She is a certified flight instructor and recent graduate of Southern Illinois University's Aviation Management Program.
Bombardier Business Aircraft, which has been reorganizing the operation of its business aircraft functions since Michael Graff took over as president in June, last week announced creation of "a new integrated sales organization...for the entire line of Bombardier business jets." The action is the latest in a series of moves designed to bring the disparate elements of Bombardier's business aircraft business into a single organizational structure.
DE HAVILLAND DHC-6 series airplanes (Docket No. 91-CE-45-AD) - proposes to revise an earlier proposal that would have super-seded AD 78- 26-02. The AD requires repetitive inspection of the fuselage side frame flanges at Fuselage Station 218.125 and FS 219.525 for cracks and repair or replacement of any cracked part. The proposed AD would have required modification of the fuselage side frames at the referenced FS areas as a terminating action from the repetitive inspections required by AD 78-26-02.
GENERAL ELECTRIC CT7 series turboprop engines (Docket No. 96-ANE-34; Amdt. 39-9956; AD 97-05-12) - requires eddy current inspection of disk holes of Stage 1 and 2 gas generator turbine disks for cracks and, if necessary, replacement with serviceable parts. This amendment is prompted by a report of a Stage 2 gas generator turbine disk failure. The actions specified in this AD are intended to prevent a Stage 1 or 2 gas generator turbine disk failure, which could result in an uncontained engine failure and damage to the aircraft.
DE HAVILLAND DHC-7 series airplanes (Docket No. 97-NM-36-AD) - proposes to require revising the airplane flight manual to prohibit positioning of the power levers below the flight idle stop while the airplane is in flight and to provide a statement of the consequences of positioning the power levers below the flight idle stop. This proposal is prompted by incidents and accidents involving airplanes equipped with turboprop engines in which the propeller beta was used improperly during flight.
A recently installed composite tail rotor, portions of which separated from a Colgate-Palmolive Eurocopter BK-117 as the aircraft lifted off Tuesday from New York's 60th St. Heliport, is the initial focus of a National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the accident that claimed the life of a senior executive of the consumer products company and injured three others.
A group of four aviation veterans who formerly worked together at K-C Aviation, have formed a corporate aircraft refurbishment and retrofit company in McKinney, Texas and are attempting to reduce the cost of such services by outsourcing much of the work to outside vendors.
ALF502 and LF507 series turbofan engines (Docket No. 97- ANE-36; Amdt. 39-9955; AD 97-05-11) - supersedes an existing AD applicable to ALF502R series engines that requires initial and repetitive inspections of the oil system chip detectors and oil filter bypass valve and optional installation of an improved oil filter bypass valve, to ensure the integrity of the reduction gear system and over-speed protection system.
Bombardier Aerospace and Lufthansa's maintenance service subsidiary, Lufthansa Technik AG (LTAG), signed an agreement April 18 to create a new technical center to service Bombardier business jets in Europe. The new joint venture, Lufthansa Bombardier Aviation Services GmbH, will be based at Berlin's Schoenefeld Airport to carry out the maintenance, repair and overhaul of the Learjet 31, 35, 36, 45, 55 and 60 models; Canadair's Challenger 600, 601 and 604 models; and the long-range Bombardier Global Express aircraft.
Federal Aviation Administration revoked the air carrier certificate of Target Airways for alleged record-keeping violations. The Reno, Nevada- based charter carrier was flying as Great American Airways with nine DC-9s. FAA said it uncovered numerous falsifications of flight and duty time records, training records, and load manifest documents. FAA said the Regional Airline Safety Inspection Program, "triggered by a whistleblower's complaints," led to the findings.
TAC Air, the Texarkana aviation division of Truman Arnold Companies, realigned its management team, naming James McPhaul vice president and head of the division. McPhaul, most recently president and general manager of Jackson Hole Aviation (BA, April 14/164), spent eight years in management positions with AMR Combs and American Airlines. He will direct TAC Air's chain of seven fixed-base operations and charter business. Brian Harris, a TAC pilot from 1988 to 1994, returned to the company as director of operations.
GA TEAM 2000, the national initiative to boost the student pilot population, received about 250 calls on its 1-888-BE-A-PILOT line in the first few days the toll-free number was up and running.Organizers for the national campaign established the line as an information source for prospective student pilots. More than 900 flight schools signed up to participate in the program after GA Team 2000 organizers mailed certified letters to some 5,000 flight schools and fixed-base operators detailing the program (BA, March 24/131).
NATIONAL BUSINESS AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION will host a second reception and meeting for the business aviation community next month in Dallas, Texas. The May 22 event, which will be held in the K-C Aviation hangar at Love Field, will include briefings by NBAA President Jack Olcott and NBAA senior staff on industry issues including air traffic control user fees, FAA reform, NBAA's 50th anniversary celebration in Dallas this fall and the association's Travel$ense program. The first reception, held April 3 in San Jose, Calif., drew 170 attendees.
New Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards for methylene chloride - a primary component in aircraft paint stripper - are unworkable, are imposing unnecessary costs on the aircraft paint industry and should be rescinded, Stevens Aviation Chief Executive Kurt Herwald told a House congressional panel last week.
