Baseops now automatically files to reclaim eligible European Value Added Taxes (VAT) for its clients retroactively to January 1994. Most handlers assist in reclaiming VATs on request, but the Baseops system is instituted automatically and documentation for refunds is provided at no charge. Reclamation may take as long as 12 months (Baseops International).
Flight Safety Foundation recently expanded its customized technical and management support offerings. The new program, called Aviation Safety Services, will focus on operational safety audits, design and development of safety programs, regulatory compliance audits, review of ICAO safety oversight, contingency planning for accidents and incidents, and airworthiness assessments. Bart J. Crotty, former FAA safety specialist, is the new director of Aviation Safety Services. Phone FSF at (703) 522-8300 for more information.
Security measures aimed at safeguarding business-aviation operations have continued to proliferate, although the number of recorded threats and attacks against those operations have been mercifully small during the last decade. Today an active and resourceful aircraft-security industry provides corporate operators with a variety of onboard security alarm and alerting systems and offers security seminars, executive protection services, consultants and international handlers-all in the interest of protecting domestic and international flights.
In another of its tactics to keep Chicago's Meigs Field open, the NBAA recently sent faxes to nearly 400 members in a four-state area asking them to express to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley their opposition to plans to close the airport in September 1996 (B/CA, February, page 22). The association says Daley claims he is being pressured by a local group, ``Friends of the Park,'' to convert the facility into a park. To date, neither the FAA nor the Illinois DOT has taken a public stand in support of the airport, which handled 16,896 GA operations in 1994.
Aerospatiale's Socata unit signed an agreement with American General Aircraft Corporation of Greenville, Mississippi for the rights to manufacture the Cougar, a light-piston twin originally developed by Grumman and last built in 1979. Renamed the TB320 Tangar, the four-place aircraft is powered by two 160-hp Lycomings and is particularly suitable for multiengine flight training.
The FAA and ICAO are sponsoring a seminar on the planned implementation of the 1,000-foot vertical separation minima for operations between FL 290 and FL 410 in the North Atlantic Tracks (NAT) Region (B/CA, June, page 43). The seminar is scheduled in Reston, Virginia on August 27-29. Effective in January 1997, all aircraft operating in NAT Minimum Navigation Performance Specifications (MNPS) airspace must be able to meet new Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) standards, according to ICAO.
The following sources provide information on the effects and hazards of high-altitude flight: -- Mohler, Stanley R., ``A Sudden High-Altitude Cabin Decompression Immediately Threatens Safety of Aircraft Crew and Passengers,'' Human Factors&Aviation Medicine, Vol. 41, No. 6, November-December 1994. Flight Safety Foundation, 2200 Wilson Blvd., Ste. 500, Arlington, VA 22201. (703) 522-8300. -- Reinhart, Richard O., Fit to Fly, 1993. Tab Books Inc., Blue Ridge Summit, PA 17294. (717) 794-2191.
Long Island Sound, the 100-mile-long Atlantic Ocean tongue that separates New York's Long Island from the State of Connecticut, is ringed by small community airports, including Sikorsky Memorial Airport (BDR) at Bridgeport, Connecticut. The presence of this large body of water provides Sikorsky Memorial's runways with several unobstructed approaches. But it also provides the moisture for fog banks that drift on and off the shore-side runways on many spring nights. April 27, 1994 was just such a night.
Jetstream Aircraft announced in late June that it had received certification of the 70-passenger Jetstream 61 by the British Civil Aviaton Authority-even though the airplane will never go into production.
DOT will not abolish or revise the high-density traffic rule that sets IFR landing and takeoff slot limitations at four airports: Chicago's O'Hare (with 10 slots for GA), New York's Kennedy (with two GA slots) and La Guardia (with six), and Washington National (with 12 GA slots). Based on a study started in early 1994 (B/CA, May 1994, page 11), the DOT said the projected costs of eliminating or modifying the rule ``currently outweigh the benefits.''
Beech Aircraft Corporation has long had a reputation for high-quality aircraft, but being short on the future. As former export-department employee Alex Kvassay put it in his autobiography, Alex In Wonderland, the company was known for ``50 years of quality, uninterrupted by progress.''
Photograph: On June 12, Mesa initiated scheduled service with the first of two 79-passenger Fokker 70 regional jets (in the livery of America West Express). Mesa Air Group directors have rejected a Continental Airlines offer to take over ownership of Continental Express in exchange for a 32-percent stake in the company. The transaction would have given Continental effective control of the regional airline group.
Photograph: Older converted airliners are particularly suited for flight-testing new business turbine engines. Two 30-year-old-plus, four-engine Boeing 720 airliners are still in regular service in North America, but they haven't carried revenue passengers in decades. These two veterans, instead, are stuffed with test equipment and telemetering avionics. They are configured to fly with a fifth engine bolted onto a specially reinforced fuselage section just aft of the cockpit.
Italy's Agusta Group introduced a single-engine helicopter at the Paris Air Show in June. The prototype of the eight-seat, skid-gear A119 Koala is powered by Turbomeca, but Agusta is considering offering the Allison 250-C40. Certification of the A119 is scheduled for late this year. Agusta also unveiled another version of its twin-turbine A109 series. The new A109 (dubbed ``Power'') is equipped with two 639-shp PW206C turbines, putting the aircraft midway between the A109C with 450-shp Allisons and the A109K2 with 771-shp Allisons.
The news from Cessna at Paris is an internal training program aimed at making Citation Service Center employees more responsive to customer expectations in such areas as ``on-time delivery, fair treatment, fast response, no surprises and getting work done right the first time.'' The ``Sensible Service People'' program includes sending out an evaluation form with each invoice inviting customers to provide Cessna with comments on the quality of the service.
From the FAA's Aircraft Certification Service offices near Seattle, the 16-g seat controversy looks a little different than it does from industry's perspective. Led by Ronald Wojner, the organization views itself as a catalyst for safety. ``Our role is to be the spark plug for pushing incorporation of higher standards of safety,'' Wojner said in an interview with B/CA.
User charges in Europe are threatening regional air services, according to a comprehensive study recently completed by the European Regional Airline Association (ERA).
Consumer concern over commuter safety is waning, East Coast fares are rising and investors are betting on improved earnings for publicly held regional airlines in the June quarter.
Bombardier became the first aircraft manufacturer to directly involve itself in shared ownership when it launched a joint venture earlier this year with AMR Combs (B/CA, June, page 26). Called Business JetSolutions, the new company initially will offer shared ownership of Learjet 31As, Learjet 60s and Canadair Challengers through a program called FlexJet. Eventually, the program will be expanded to include the new Bombardier Global Express and, possibly, corporate versions of the Canadair Regional Jet.
Photograph: A corporate jet taxis across the Snowfree-heated dry and clear patch of taxiway Mike-5 this past winter. The condition of the tested taxiway looked like this throughout the 1994-1995 winter. The latest technology for removing snow and ice from runways and taxiways is, literally, hot news. An electric pavement-heating system called Snowfree is now being tested on a patch of taxiway at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
ICAO and the FAA have scheduled a seminar August 28-29 in Washington, D.C. to discuss changes in operational requirements that will occur due to implementation of 1,000-foot vertical separation minimums between FL 290 and FL 410 in the North Atlantic Track Region. Those minimums are scheduled to be in effect by January 1, 1997 (B/CA, June, page 43). For details of the seminar program, contact the FAA's Carl Bowlin in Washington, D.C. Phone: (202) 233-5172.
Let me assure you and your readers that a coalition of U.S. aviation organizations heartily supports the effort to achieve harmonization of standards and practices between the FAA and the 23 nations of the European Joint Aviation Authorities [JAA]. We intend to go at this tooth and nail.''
The first supplemental type certification (STC) for installation of a head-up display in a business jet was issued by the FAA in May to Elliott Aviation of Moline, Illinois. The STC applies to the installation of a Flight Visions FV-2000 Advanced HUD in a Cessna Citation II operated by Deere&Company. The system consists of a glareshield-mounted optical projection unit, a HUD computer and a control-display unit (CDU). Elliott says the installed price of the FV-2000 Advanced HUD on a Citation is about $100,000.
Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation of Harbin, China received FAA certification for its 19-seat, turboprop-powered Y-12, thus paving the way for sales to U.S. regionals. The STOL aircraft, powered by two P&WC PT6A-27s, was certified in China in December 1985 and in the United Kingdom in June 1990. The U.S. certification process took more than three years, and includes production of Chinese-made aircraft tires that can be sold in the United States.
The former Mather Air Force Base, 12 miles from downtown Sacramento, is now Sacramento Mather Airport, and Trajen Flight Support is the former military airfield's first and only FBO. Trajen now offers full line service and hangar parking. There are no noise restrictions or airline traffic. The airport, with an 11,300-foot runway and IFR approaches, also is home for an 18-hole golf course. In the near future, Trajen plans to introduce maintenance.
