Here are some tips from our readers: Hydraulic fluid can be extremely dangerous if you get it on your skin or in your eyes, so always wear appropriate protective gear when working around the stuff. Have a large bucket or two handy when opening a hydraulic line. Once the fluid starts coming out, it will keep flowing — and quickly. Be sure to wash your hands thoroughly after handling hydraulic fluid or hydraulic components, since even a tiny bit can burn your eyes or skin.
While aircraft design and certification has certainly minimized the occurrence of Mach Tuck, there are many important lessons to be remembered from earlier investigations that apply to swept-wing training.
Southeast Aerospace, Melbourne, Fla., appointed Darrel Davies regional representative for Canada. He will help expand SEA's service in the Canadian helicopter market.
New charter operator World Health Jets of Jackson, Miss., has contracted with JDA Aviation Technology Solutions (JDA) for the company's 135Pro product. The program is a low-cost FAR Part 135 certification support program designed to simplify the certification process and lower costs. It includes manuals tailored to help new charter operators and corporate flight departments satisfy FAA requirements and while obtaining full-time support from the JDA expert 135 team. Visit www.jdasolutions.aero for more information.
Jan. 27 — About 0530 PST, a Beech C90 King Air (N350WA) experienced a hard landing at Columbia Airport (O22), Columbia, Calif. Axis Jet was operating the airplane under FAR Part 91. The commercial pilot and the airline transport pilot were not injured, but the airplane sustained substantial damage by impact forces and the post-crash fire. The cross-country aero-medical positioning flight departed Sacramento, Calif. It was VFR and there was an IFR flight plan filed.
Rockwell Collins, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, announced that James “Jim” Walker has joined the company as vice president and managing director of Asia Pacific reporting to Colin Mahoney, senior vice president, International and Service Solutions.
A half century ago, the 280 kt., 1,800-nm range Howard 500 represented the pinnacle of business aviation's Big Piston Era. Durrell Unger “Dee” Howard of San Antonio, Texas, built 16 of these 5,000-hp beasts before losing the sales war to Leroy Grumman's new turboprop Gulfstream in the early 1960s.
Here are prominent references addressing the necessity for the Strategic Lateral Offset Procedure and how and where it can be flown: International Civil Aviation Organization, Document 4444, Air Traffic Management (PANS-ATM), Chapter 16 (“Miscellaneous Procedures”), Paragraph 5. This is the source document for the justification, implementation, definition, and execution of the Strategic Lateral Offset Procedure in oceanic and “remote continental” airspace. The section is short and to the point, including:
Beechcraft is approaching initial deliveries of the Hawker 400XPR upgrade aircraft, with the first three undergoing final airframe modifications. The handover should occur in the first half of this year. The XPR mod involves installation of a Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 avionics suite (Garmin's G5000 suite is optional), replacing the original Pratt & Whitney JT-15D-5 engines with Williams International FJ44-4A-32 turbofans, and winglets, among other improvements.
The National Transportation Safety Board said in its determination of probable cause for the loss of Beech E90, N987GM, that “Contributing to the accident was the failure of air traffic control personnel to use available radar information to provide the pilot with a timely warning that he was about to encounter extreme precipitation and weather along his route of flight or to provide alternative routing to the pilot.”
The Middle East Business Aviation Association (MEBAA) is expanding its categories of membership to include academic institutions and individual aviation professionals, including retirees. MEBAA Founding Chairman Ali Al Naqbi said, “Our additional categories will bolster our plans to introduce students to the business aviation industry and support those already working within aviation to develop their contacts and knowledge in their respective field of expertise.
For the aviation industry, Jan. 13 marked the end of a long decade. That was the day that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at long last published its repair station security rule. The action was a bit tardy. After all, Congress had mandated it more than a decade ago, and then became so frustrated by agency inaction that it forbade the FAA from certifying any new foreign repair station until TSA released the rule. That ban has been in place since August 2008.
Air Medical Group Holdings (AMGH), one of the largest independent providers of helicopter air ambulance services, is buying 20 Bell 206L4s. Deliveries are scheduled to begin this year and continue through 2017.
There are two articles in the January 2014 edition that take medical issues from one extreme to the other. The first, “Keeping your Medical Qualifications,” has the Federal Air Surgeon on his own basically deciding that every pilot take a sleep apnea test. Pilots with a body mass index (BMI) over 40 or a neck circumference over 17 inches will be the first that take the test. Then the BMI will be lowered and lowered “until every pilot with OSA [obstructive sleep apnea] is identified and receives treatment.”
The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) wants FAA to permit limited unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) operations before the agency's small UAS rule is finalized. Beyond that, the association is urging FAA to meet its revised deadline for publication of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on small unmanned aircraft, and to make the issue a top priority this year. The agency has been working on the NPRM since 2009 and has indicated it expects to publish it this coming November, a schedule, AUVSI notes, that is almost four years late.
Is there a chance that the Standard Lateral Offset Procedure, or some variation on it, will be authorized for use in non-oceanic U.S. airspace? The answer is a qualified, “Yes.”
The 52-year-old pilot of Beech King Air N987GM, an E90 model, was certainly experienced — the FAA's airman records showed he reported 5,300 hr. total time at his most recent second-class physical examination even though, inexplicably, his personal logbooks showed over 9,000 hr., 6,500 hr. of that in multiengine airplanes. The logbooks also indicated the pilot had accumulated 718 actual instrument flight hours. Whatever the case, he had spent a good amount of time in the cockpit.
RUAG has delivered the first Dornier 228-212 to the Venezuelan government at the end of January. This is the first of 10 Dornier 228s in passenger configuration ordered by that government and includes spare parts, ground equipment and training. The Dornier fleet will improve travel between remote areas and regional hubs, and will give residents in hard to reach areas greater access to medical care and government support.
Bombardier Aerospace recently received a $537 million order from an undisclosed customer for three Global 6000, two Global 7000 and three Global 8000 jets. Still in development, the Global 7000 and is slated to enter service in 2016, and the 8000 is to follow in 2017. So much for the good news. In January, the Montreal manufacturer announced plans to lay off 1,100 employees in Canada and 600 in the U.S. to contain costs after stretching out development of its CSeries jetliner by at least 12 months and seeing business and commercial aircraft orders decline in 2013.
Gulfstream Aerospace and Jet Aviation, which comprise General Dynamics' aerospace group, posted significant gains in 2013 and entered 2014 with strong bookings. For the year the group posted $8.18 billion in revenue and $1.41 billion in earnings. In the year, Gulfstream delivered 139 green aircraft, or 18 more than in 2012. Of those total deliveries, 110 were large-cabin models with the balance mid-cabin. Additionally, for the year, deliveries of fully outfitted (completed) aircraft were up to 144, compared with 94 in 2012.
Recent high-profile aircraft accidents, most notably the Asiana 214 crash at San Francisco in July 2013, have air safety mavens asking tough questions about the state of flight crews' stick, rudder and energy management skills. Periodic refresher training most often focuses on instrument and night proficiency, systems knowledge and the perfunctory engine failure scenarios. But most refresher training only pays token attention to basic VFR piloting.
"Boosting DCA" (Washington Watch, February 2014, page 59) is the first article regarding Reagan Washington National Airport that hasn't totally ignored the fact that access to DCA is still severely limited. I've been getting very tired of aviation publications extolling TSA's superb efforts at relaxing the guidelines at DCA every time a new gateway airport is added. You are right on in acknowledging that there has been progress, but we are a long way from where we should be.
The long running fight for control of Santa Monica, Calif., Airport entered a pitched legal battle recently to determine the future of the facility, a key general aviation field outside Los Angeles — and possibly put hundreds more airports in jeopardy. Late last October the city filed suit with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California seeking to control the fate of SMO, insisting it has “unencumbered title” to the airport property and can do with it “as it chooses.” The municipality wants the option to close the airport after July 2015.
Organizers of the 2014 Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition (ABACE), set for April 15-17, report exhibitor registrations early this year were far ahead of last year's pace and have expanded the exhibit hall and pavilion to allow for more booths at the Shanghai Hawker Pacific Business Aviation Centre. ABACE is produced through a partnership between the Shanghai Airport Authority and National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), and co-hosted by NBAA, the Asian Business Aviation Association and the Shanghai Exhibition Center.
