Business Aviation

The market for business-aircraft engines is expected to grow in the 10 years spanning 2016-25 from 61,400 to 74,600, a new forecast projects.

Global Jet Capital, a less than year-old finance provider, is buying GE’s business aircraft finance organization in a deal valued at $2.5 billion.

For many years Africa has been seen as a high-risk investment. Access to structured finance has been hard to break through, but are things changing? From modernising fleets to introducing new business aircraft, international markets are responding.

Expansion is rife within the business aviation sector with Textron continuing its broad-swath approach, including new training centers and BBA Aviation consolidating other FBO giants. And NTSB offers light-plane LOC guidance.

Could billions of batteries be stuck on the tarmac until safer packaging materials are available?

Flexjet and Flight Options will be recognized as a single carrier within Directional Aviation, the National Mediation Board ruled on Sept. 30.

Piper Aircraft is delivering its first Piper M500 single-engine turboprop to a customer in Poland.

Georgetown, Texas-based Red Aviation has acquired DFW Instrument in Addison, Texas.

King Schools, founded by John and Martha King, has made some leadership changes.

Pentastar Aviation is adding a new aircraft interior design studio at the firm’s site at Oakland County International Airport, where it has its headquarters.

Aerial markers are used to highlight structures and wires when it is impractical to make them conspicuous by some other means and rely on the pilot’s ability to spot them during flight. According to FAA Advisory Circular 70/7460-1K “Obstruction Marking and Lighting,” markers should be recognizable in clear air from a distance of at least 4,000 ft. and in all directions from which aircraft are likely to approach.

During this year’s HAI Heli-Expo in Orlando, Florida, I got the chance to fly in a Bell 206 JetRanger equipped with Safe Flight Instrument Corp.’s Powerline Detection System (PDS), which senses the electromagnetic fields surrounding power lines.

Given sufficient forward speed, a power transmission cable will easily slice through a helicopter’s windshield. So, should a pilot fail to spot a wire ahead, Magellan Aerospace’s Wire-Strike Protection System (WSPS) can be the final line of defense for the impact that follows. A typical installation consists of a roof-mounted cutter and one or more cutters mounted on the helicopter’s fuselage. A deflector running vertically along the middle of the windshield guides the cables into the high-tensile-steel cutting blades.

Believing aircraft instruments when they are at odds with our bodily sensations is difficult. After all, the brain is taking in thousands of inputs a second from the body’s sensors, but information from the aircraft instruments only enters the computations when we attend to them.

Selected accidents and incidents in August 2015. The following NTSB information is preliminary.

Aerion Corporation, Reno, Nevada, appointed Sean McGeough as regional vice president for the Northeast U.S. Airbus Helicopters, Marignane, France, announced that Guillaume Steuer is head of External Communications reporting to vice president of Corporate Communications Yves Barille. Banyan Air Service, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, named Andy Joran as sales manager for HondaJet Southeast responsible for an eight-state territory.

Apex Aviation, an FAA-approved repair station in Las Vegas, is the new owner of Kings Avionics, based at Henderson Executive Airport near Las Vegas. Kings Avionics is a factory-authorized warranty and repair facility, with dealerships that include Avidyne, Mid Continent, Aspen Avionics and Sandia Aerospace. Several others are in the works, the company said.

The group restoring a historic B-29 Superfortress has launched a 30-day Kickstarter campaign to get the aircraft in the air.

Astra Aviation, the African flight support company, has signed a new Ground Handling Agreement with airport services provider, National Aviation Services (NAS), at Felix Houphouet Boigny Airport, Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Under the terms of the agreement (NAS), part of the Agility group, will provide the physical ground handling, whilst Astra, via its local company and offices, will handle and coordinate the customers' requests, along with managing the administration of payments for airport, handling, navigation and crew costs.

Still thinking like a professional FAR Part 25 aircraft pilot, I ask what I need to learn first about operating a multiengine FAR Part 23 airplane? The answer came to mind almost immediately: What to do when one of the powerplants takes a vacation right around liftoff.

The House and Senate have approved a measure to extend FAA funding through March 31, 2016.

A Windecker Eagle – the first composite aircraft to ever receive FAA certification – is close to flying again.

Corporate Eagle, a fractional and managed business aviation company, has taken delivery of the first of four Falcon 2000s as it expands its fractional fleet.

A crowdfunding campaign has received commitments for $10 million for the development of a vertical-takeoff-and-landing business jet called the TriFan 600.

Signature Flight Support's owner has agreed to purchase Landmark Aviation to create the world's largest FBO network. Plus, the Pilot’s Bill of Rights 2 has gained supermajority support in the U.S. Senate. And the National Business Aviation Association is urging its members to plan for the worst if a government shutdown occurs because Congress does not approve a spending bill by Sept. 30.