Embraer’s 37-year-old application aircraft, the Ipanema, has a new lease on life as green as the crops it sprays. Developed in the late 1960s by Brazil’s Instituto Tecnologico de Aeronautica with financing from the country’s agriculture ministry, the Ipanema first flew in 1970 and was awarded certification the following year. Thereafter, production was turned over to the newly formed Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica S.A. (Embraer).

In the midst of unprecedented growth for business aviation on the Continent, the European Parliament has tossed a noxious stink bomb among business aircraft operators there.

Long after Richard Santulli's NetJets fractional ownership program achieved so-called "critical mass" in the United States -- the threshold beyond which the number of shareholders begins to generate a profit from associated operating contracts -- its European subsidiary was struggling for survival.