RAYTHEON AIRCRAFT said a Hawker 700 was delivered to a large aluminum mining and smelting company in Siberia. Based in Krasnoyarsk, the Hawker will fly regularly to Moscow, more than 2,000 miles away. Sib Avia Trans operates the aircraft for the aluminum company.
ALTHOUGH a provision to remove the aviation trust fund from the federal budget was pulled from the House FAA reform bill, proponents of the measure last week staged a rally to continue momentum for "off-budget" transportation trust funds. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), who introduced legislation, H.R.842, to remove transportation trust funds from the federal budget, said the bill has more than 220 co-sponsors and is expected to come up for a vote on the House floor next month. Meanwhile, Rep.
Clinton Administration officials have decided not to pursue the proposed $2.3 billion National Wind Tunnel Complex, opting to shelve the project after a System Design Review (SDR) scheduled this month. A NASA spokesman said the White House dropped plans for the advanced subsonic and transonic wind tunnels "given the tough budget environment for the foreseeable future." The decision will affect about 100 workers nationwide, and will close the National Wind Tunnel Project Office at Lewis Research Center in Cleveland by June.
BOMBARDIER of Canada has seen its revenues more than triple in the past three years, but 1995 net income was off sharply after a $231 million writedown of some of the company's non-aviation holdings. See article below.
After months of bouncing through the federal bureaucracy, a new set of medical standards for U.S. airmen will be published tomorrow (March 19) by the Federal Aviation Administration. The new standards, which FAA Administrator David Hinson had hoped to unveil at last summer's Experimental Aircraft Association convention, spent the intervening months being vetted by officials at the Transportation Department and White House Office of Management and Budget.
NATIONAIR INSURANCE AGENCIES this month completed the acquisition of Minneapolis, Minn.-based Weber&Bauer (BA, Jan. 22/33). NationAir merged former Weber&Bauer accounts into its Minneapolis office with former Weber&Bauer partner Jeffrey Bauer becoming branch manager and John Weber account executive. Bauer replaces James Erickson, who departed NationAir to pursue a career flying charter jet aircraft.
WORLD AUXILIARY POWER COMPANY and Daimler-Benz Aerospace Airbus reached agreement on the purchase of one on-board airstair for installation on a VIP A340 currently undergoing modification by Daimler-Benz Aerospace. The airstair will be manufactured by WAPCO in Alameda and Chico, Calif. The airstair for the A340 is the eighth airstair model to be designed and built by WAPCO, which has produced more than 40 airstairs for use on civil and military aircraft. The fully-retractable stair is approximately 24.5 feet long and weighs more than 800 pounds.
ALLIEDSIGNAL AEROSPACE named Jim Strang vice president of Space Station programs for the Aerospace Equipment Systems (AES) business and Peter Machuga vice president of materials management. Strang formerly was vice president of product development and technology for AES and Machuga previously served as director of materials and management for the unit.
Summary: Pursuant to FAA's rulemaking provisions governing the application, processing, and disposition of petitions for exemption (14 CFR Part 11), this notice contains a summary of certain petitions seeking relief from specified requirements of the Federal Aviation Regulations (14 CFR Chapter I), dispositions of certain petitions previously received, and corrections. The purpose of this notice is to improve the public's awareness of, and participation in, this aspect of FAA's regulatory activities.
Summary Of Costs and Schedules For FAA's Major Modernization Projects 2-yrs comparison of total F&E cost estimates (In millions of dollars) Projects Description/Anticipated Benefits 1995 1996 Change -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fokker Aircraft Friday declared bankruptcy, dismissing some 5,664 employees and ending 77 years of aircraft manufacturing in The Netherlands. The Dutch government, which in January granted Fokker temporary protection from creditors to allow the manufacturer to line up a buyer (BA, Jan. 29/44), Friday lifted that suspension of payments, forcing Fokker into bankruptcy. "During the limited suspension of payments period, it proved impossible to realize an association with an industrial or financial partner," Fokker said in a prepared statement.
FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, defending its budget shortfall projections after the General Accounting Office disputed the agency's estimates (BA, March 11/109), said it faces "a drastic curtailing of current FAA services, let alone meeting new safety and capacity demands" if budget cuts continue at the rate of the past five years.
Canadian conglomerate Bombardier reported substantially higher revenues for the year ended Jan. 31, 1996, but a decision to write down the company's investment in the Eurotunnel project sharply reduced the company's profits.
JETSTREAM Model 4101 airplanes (Docket No. 95-NM-71-AD; Amdt. 39-9536; AD 94-24-09 R1) - revises an existing AD that requires repetitive inspections for damage to the overwing fairings and replacement or repair of structurally damaged fairings. That AD was prompted by a report indicating that an overwing fairing detached from an airplane. The actions specified by that AD are intended to prevent reduced controllability of the airplane due to loss of an overwing fairing.
Aviation industry leaders praised House passage of a bill to reform the Federal Aviation Administration last week, while Transportation Secretary Federico Pena again threatened to recommend a presidential veto. The House Tuesday approved by voice vote a pared-down version of the FAA Revitalization Act of 1995, H.R.2276, which would establish FAA as an independent agency overseen by a chief executive officer and a three-member federal aviation board.
AIR NOSTRUM, an independent Spanish regional based in Valencia, ordered three used Fokker 50s. The aircraft, scheduled for delivery in April and May, will service Air Nostrum's new routes in northern and central Spain. The order will boost the airline's fleet of Fokker 50s to 10. Air Nostrum began operations in December 1994 with three Fokker 50s.
RAYTHEON AIRCRAFT named Charles Lloyd vice president-international sales, Far East, and Nick Schneider vice president-international sales, Latin America. The newly created positions report to James Link, vice president- international sales. Lloyd, who has worked in the aircraft industry for nearly 18 years, most recently was director-used aircraft sales for Raytheon Aircraft. Schneider, who joined the international sales division as an associate regional manager, will sell the full line of Raytheon Aircraft products in Latin America.
TRO LEARNING signed an accord with FlightSafety International under which FSI will be able to use TRO's library of computer-based pilot and maintenance training courseware at its 40 training centers. The pact also allows FSI to market TRO's 1,200 hours of training courseware products to clients.
MICHAEL SENESAC was named director-continuous improvement for Howmet Corp. Senesac will be responsible for the organization's change initiatives such as Kaizen, synchronous manufacturing, process control and other continuous improvement efforts.
While the National Air Transportation Association last week continued its "devastation prevention" meetings around the country in opposition to FAA's flight and duty time proposal, the Air Transport Association filed a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in Washington, D.C. in search of evidence that regulators ignored "important factors" when crafting the proposal.
MIKE MURRELL has rejoined Miller Meester, the Minneapolis, Minn.-based advertising agency, as executive vice president/managing partner/director of integrated marketing. Murrell was with Miller Meester in the mid-1980s before joining Johnson Hill Press in Ft. Atkinson, Wis., where he held a number of posts including group publisher of a number of aviation titles including FBO Magazine, which later became Airport Business.
RICHARD EDINGER was promoted to vice president of engineering for Hartzell Propeller. Edinger has spent nearly 14 years with Hartzell in various engineering capacities.
ALLIANCE ENGINES completed correlation of the TPE331 test cell at its Maryville, Tenn. facility and filed the test data with FAA. The company said the test cell is "now operational for all TPE331 engines up to and including the TPE331-12." The turboprop test cell uses a conditioned air system that allows engines to run at standard day temperatures, precluding the need for data conversions based on non-standard temperatures.
GRA, the Philadelphia-based transportation consulting firm, formed GRA Aviation Specialists in Herndon, Va. to provide aircraft appraisals, marketplace analysis, asset management and aircraft lease and loan analysis services to the aviation finance, airline and legal communities. GRA said it will continue to concentrate on strategic and public policy issues while GRA Aviation Specialists will focus on aircraft values and the commercial and business aircraft marketplace.
REVISED AIRMAN MEDICAL STANDARDS will be published by FAA this week, eight months after FAA Administrator David Hinson's planned release of the document at last summer's Experimental Aircraft Association convention in Oshkosh, Wis. (BA, July 24/31) and more than 14 years since the medical standards review process began. The final rule deletes many proposals that drew strong opposition. See article below.
