In the September ``Maintenance Resource Management'' feature, we reported that Grey Owl Aviation Consultants was located in Manitoba, Ontario, Canada. It should have read Onanole, Manitoba, Canada.
Cal Corporation of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada is marketing an airborne telephone providing voice, fax and data services via American Mobil Satellite Corporation's AMSC-1 satellite. The firm says its Calquest phone services cover an area extending from Alaska to the Panama Canal and 200 miles off the North American coasts. Two special features are claimed for the Calquest: a low price of $15,500 (compared to that of other flight phones) and ease of use.
AlliedSignal, Bell Helicopter and Allison Engine Company have begun testing an accumulator staging valve (ASV) to prevent rotor droop in helicopters. Rotor droop occurs when the available torque to a helicopter's blade is reduced and rotor speed momentarily drops. A Bell 206L-4T TwinRanger, powered by two Allison 250-C20R turbines, is being used for the flight-test program. Following FAA certification on the TwinRanger, ASV conversion kits will be developed for other applications, including AlliedSignal (Lycoming) LTS-101 engines and other Allison 250 engines.
Following in the footsteps of Signature Flight Support and some other FBOs, all Atlantic Aviation facilities now are charging a ramp service fee to customers who do not purchase fuel. However, under the company's new Incentive Fuel Pricing program, the per-gallon cost of fuel decreases on a sliding scale, based on the maximum fuel capacity of the aircraft. AOPA members with piston aircraft receive an additional five percent off the price of avgas over the IFP discount price.
Available from Sporty's Pilot Shop is the JD-200 handheld transceiver, the follow-on to the A300. Newly incorporated features are a CDI with OBS and an LOC. Sporty's claims screen lighting has been improved, and keypad lighting has been added. EIght AA batteries operate the unit, and it can be powered by an optional cigarette-lighter adapter in aircraft with either a 12- or 24-volt system. The JD-200's other features are 760 comm frequencies, 200 nav frequencies, 20 memory channels, a to/from indicator for VOR operations, duplex communications and a low-battery indicator.
Executive Jets International of Montvale, New Jersey will introduce its NetJets fractional-ownership program to European operators through a marketing alliance with Zimex Aviation of Zurich, Switzerland. Zimex is a maintenance facility and charter/management operator (B/CA, March, page 26). Initially, four Cessna Citation S/II business jets will be committed to the European operation, but Executive Jet says its Zimex connection could grow to 10 to 12 aircraft in Europe.
Imagine a King Air B-100 with another 30 to 35 knots in cruise, and up to double the standard rate of climb. Throw in the ability to maintain full power to 16,000 feet. Now cut hot-section inspection costs by 30 to 50 percent, and fuel nozzle maintenance by 75 percent. Those are the claims of Executive Wings for its King Air B-100 Super 6, the latest in a series of ``Super'' aircraft STCed modifications from the Lakeland, Florida company.
FlightSafety International will install a full-flight simulator of the Bell 212 and 412 series at the company's Paris, France (Le Bourget Airport) training center. The device will be equipped with FSI's new VITAL VIII ChromaView system for improved visuals and panoramic MultiView display. Also, FSI will upgrade two Bell 212 and 412 simulators in Fort Worth to ChromaView levels. Meanwhile, FSI is expanding its Fort Worth operation to accommodate a simulator for the new Bell 430. That unit is scheduled to be installed in October 1996 and to meet FAA Level D standards.
It was a fleet of British Aerospace 146s and Avro Aerospace RJs to the rescue at Stuttgart, Germany recently when the airport's main, 8,220-foot runway was closed for resurfacing and lengthened to 10,975 feet. The runway handled between 260 and 270 flights daily at Germany's sixth busiest airport.
If you don't want to spend nearly $500,000 to purchase a set of winglets for your Gulfstream II, you now have the option of renting them. Seattle-based Aviation Partners Incorporated has a program under which G-II operators can lease the company's winglet installation for $7,500 a month over a six-year period with a 10-percent residual. The company, which says it has equipped nearly 30 G-IIs with its winglet system, claims the installation cuts fuel consumption by more than seven percent, translating into a gain of nearly 175 nm.
At press time, the first Learjet 45 was undergoing final checks in preparation for its inaugural flight. The flight-test program will be initiated on aircraft 45-001, the first production unit. But Learjet chose to use serial number 45-002 for the rollout ceremony on September 22, because it could be painted for the occasion without disrupting preparations for the first flight. (Original plans called for the inaugural flight to occur before the NBAA convention.)
Sikorsky Aircraft relocated its S-76 helicopter program management and marketing office from Stratford, Connecticut to West Palm Beach, Florida. ``Current and future customers will now be able to contact one facility for all their S-76 needs,'' said Sikorsky. West Palm Beach has been home to Sikorsky's final assembly plant, flight-test facility, training operations and customer delivery center since 1977. S-76 airframe assembly and several subassembly operations will remain at the Stratford plant.
Barely a year after celebrating passage of federal product-liability reform legislation, the aviation community is finding Washington to be an extremely hostile environment. Hardly a week goes by without the industry having to dive into its foxhole to avoid another salvo of misdirected regulation from the DOT or some legislative tax grenade hurled down from Capitol Hill.
Gary Adams, director of the Arizona Aeronautics Division, was elected president of the National Association of State Aviation Officials (NASAO) at the organization's 64th annual meeting. He succeeds Gary Ness, director of the North Dakota Aeronautics Commission.
FAA has codified in the FARs a previously announced policy that permits pilots to deviate from ATC clearances when they are responding to a TCAS Resolution Advisory (B/CA, June 1994, page 15). Revised FAR Part 91.123 permits pilots to respond to an RA immediately, although they must advise ATC as soon as possible. A reminder: December 31 is the deadline for commercial operators of FAR Part 135 turbine-powered aircraft with 10 to 30 passenger seats to have TCAS I systems installed, and operators must complete an FAA-approved TCAS course.
NTSB and FAA report that wake-vortex flight tests completed recently provided a great deal of data but revealed no significant clues as to the cause of the September 1994 crash of a USAir Boeing 737 near Pittsburgh. Detailed results of the tests will be disclosed on November 15 when the Safety Board is scheduled to open public hearings on the accident (B/CA, September, page 22).
The Phillips 66 self-service fueling program is at a standstill, and in October the company entered mediation with Cornerstone Fuels, the supplier of the self-fueling units. Since launching the program in mid 1993, Phillips and Cornerstone have fallen far short of their goal of installing at least 20 self-service units a year (B/CA, December 1993, page 42). Meanwhile, Chevron Aviation, which launched its self-service fueling program in early 1994, has reportedly installed more than 30 units (B/CA, May 1994, page 18).
Standard Aero of Winnipeg, Manitoba now is marketing Crosscheck, a trend-monitoring system for Pratt&Whitney Canada PT6As. Crosscheck, developed in cooperation with Altair Corporation of Norwood, Massachusetts, is designed to record exceedances of critical engine parameters such as torque, temperature, gas-generator turbine speed and power turbine speed. The company says Crosscheck hardware can be installed in less than three hours, and that engine data can be downloaded to a Windows-based laptop PC. The system can record up to 500 flights and 1,500 events.
Conflicts over fueling rights at Illinois' DuPage Airport have been settled, with the airport's operating authority becoming the exclusive fuel-providing FBO. An agreement with independent J.A. Air Center has given fueling rights to the airport authority's DuPage Flite Center and, in return, the authority relinquished all its non-fuel-related services, including avionics repair, chartering, flight training and airframe/engine maintenance.
Major international handlers remind operators that European ATC slots are now issued through Eurocontrol Central Flow Management Unit (B/CA, May, page 30). The filing of a flight plan prompts the Integrated Initial Flight Plan Processing System to issue a slot-allocation message no earlier than two hours prior to the estimated time of departure.
Express Airlines I owner Michael Brady has named Jim Nides vice president of flight operations. Nides was most recently director of operations at Delta Connection Comair, where he was one of the original pilots and a 16-year veteran of the company. At Express, which operates as a Northwest Airlink carrier at both Memphis and Minneapolis/St. Paul, Nides will oversee flight operations, flight training, system-operation control and publications and compliance. He is type-rated in the EMB-110 and 120, Saab 340, Shorts 360 and the Canadair Regional Jet.
