Phoenix -- Garrett Aviation's The Jet Center at Santa Barbara, a dedicated Boeing Business Jet facility, recently was awarded its FAA repair station certificate.
Given the rapid progress the aviation industry is making with ADS development, it would be tempting to presume that civil aviation authorities, airlines and data-link developers all are working towards adopting common data-link technology. That's not happening.
FlightSafety International has received three-year contracts from the FAA for the training of Challenger 600 and Challenger 604 pilots. Meanwhile, FSI's Houston Training Center at Hobby Airport landed Level D certification for the company's fourth Embraer ERJ-145 full-flight simulator. And the company's second Learjet 60 full-flight simulator has been delivered to the Tucson Learning Center.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) has upheld its earlier decision that the regional aircraft subsidy schemes employed by Brazil and Canada are a violation of international law. The WTO's ruling could end the two nations' three-year trade war over regional aircraft sales, by depriving proxies Embraer and Bombardier of the ability to offer soft, government-backed loans and other economic incentives to prospective aircraft buyers.
As part of its larger restructuring, Sikorsky Aircraft will relocate its West Palm Beach, Fla.-based flight test and S-76 helicopter completion and delivery center operations. The company says several possible new locations are being evaluated, and it has yet to determine if the West Palm employees will be relocated or offered early retirement. In July, Sikorsky instituted a company-wide voluntary early retirement program, and parent United Technologies has agreed to provide benefits for laid-off employees for up to one year after ceasing employment.
New York City air tour operator SeaAir New York is facing eviction from New York City's only seaplane base. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is attempting to alter the 23rd Street seaplane base's special-use permit to prevent commercial air tours. SeaAir New York President Patrick Mallen says the city is ``using the permitting process to achieve political goals'' and says the local community planning board, which opposes local helicopter operations, supports his operation.
Krechet, a Russian helicopter tour operator with exclusive helicopter sightseeing rights to Kamchatka's Geyser Valley and volcanoes in the Russian Far East, is seeking a U.S.-based partner to inject capital and expand its business. The Vladivostok-based operator of four ex-military helicopters and several local resorts claims to host 2,000 to 2,500 tourists annually on a variety of skiing, mountaineering and fishing tours, specializing in small groups.
Making mistakes entering information is not the only problem that can surface when entering holding. Scanning the NASA ASRS reports uncovered some interesting reports. There are some lessons that can be learned.
As Internet theorist Nicholas Negroponte predicted in his 1993 book Being Digital (Vintage Press), more and more products made of atoms are going to be transformed into digital products that can be delivered electronically.
Propelled, in part, by the merging of European economies under the EU, European aerospace emerged as the continent's leading high-tech industry in 1998, with substantial gains in growth, profits and exports. European aerospace exports to the United States rose 30 percent last year, while exports to the rest of the world fell 20 percent. The European Association of Aerospace Industries, whose membership includes manufacturers and trade groups, projects that growth will continue for the next 20 years at the rate of two to three percent.
Edited by Paul RichfieldDavid Rimmer, in Oshkosh Wis.
Business aviation was well represented this year at AirVenture '99 -- the Experimental Aircraft Association's annual convention in Oshkosh, Wis. Airframe manufacturers displayed an assortment of aircraft, including two Cessna Caravans and a Cessna CitationJet, two Raytheon King Airs and a Raytheon Beechjet 400A, a Bombardier Learjet 31A, two Pilatus PC-12's, as well as mockups of the VisionAire Vantage and Piper Meridian.
The FAA has proposed an AD requiring Bombardier Regional Jet operators to revise flight procedures in icing conditions. The notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) calls for an Aircraft Flight Manual (AFM) change requiring flightcrews to activate the wing anti-ice system during any flight in icing conditions, rather than waiting for the ice detection system to indicate an ice buildup, as is the current practice.
BIZJET International Sales and Support (Tulsa) -- Robert Randall was named director of avionics, and Larry Siegrist came aboard as manager of the company's aircraft interior completions department.
Aviation fuel trucks have been exempted from a National Conference on Weights and Measures rule requiring them to be retrofitted with ticket printers. The regulation, proposed more than a year ago, was principally intended to reduce fraud in deliveries of home heating oil. The National Air Transportation Association (NATA) takes credit for the decision, saying the rule was unnecessary for aviation because of the low likelihood of fraud in aircraft fueling and the technical problems and cost associated with implementation.
Rifton Aviation Services (Newburgh, N.Y.) -- Rick Makkawy joined the company and its partner, Wings Associates, as an aviation marketer, with responsibility for marketing preowned business jets and Rifton's FBO services in New York and the United Kingdom.
DaimlerChrysler Aviation is reentering the air charter business with an unlikely partner -- General Motors. The structure of the partnership allows it to bypass rules preventing foreign ownership of U.S. FAR Part 135 operations, rules that forced Chrysler Pentastar Aviation to cease operations after its parent company merged with German automaker Daimler-Benz in November 1998. U.S.-owned GM will retain a majority stake (51 percent) in the venture. The new entity will operate 16 aircraft, including four Gulfstream Vs and five Citation Xs.
Face it -- the cybernerds have won. We are living in an ever more computerized world, and business is setting the pace in IT, or information technology. ``The first thing you do when you show up at work is turn on your computer,'' flight scheduler/dispatcher Holly Pendleton of Columbus, Ga.-based Aflac, Inc., pointed out by way of showing how wired into the cyberworld we are, no matter what our business happens to be. ``To do this job, you have to have computer skills.''
Women in Corporate Aviation (West Alexandria, Ohio) -- Gail Julien, a regional manager at MultiService, is the new interim secretary of the organization for the next two years.
Raytheon Control-By-Light and Smiths Industries Aerospace have teamed to offer an all-optical fuel quantity indicating system for business and commercial aircraft. The system uses Raytheon's all-optical, distributed sensor system and requires no copper wiring bundles between the aircraft fuel tank and the avionics and power buses. This system is not ``susceptible to electromagnetic interference from radar, lightning, cell phones and other electronics.'' Price: On request Raytheon Control-By-Light 528 Boston Post Rd.
Jim Wright is one of the dozens of turbine aircraft pilots who have flown an instrument approach the hard way -- using the standby or secondary instruments (peanuts) for attitude reference.
Seattle's Museum of Flight raised more than $2 million at its second fundraising auction. The highest bid was on a flag that the late astronaut Pete Conrad took to the moon on Apollo 12, which sold for $250,000. Conrad was honorary chair of the auction until his death in a motorcycle accident in July. Other popular aviation items up for bid included flights on a Learjet, a MiG 29 and the Museum's restored Boeing 247D; dinner with Moya Lear; various pieces of aviation art; and passage on a Boeing 777 delivery flight, which sold for $21,000.
ADS-B has three basic components: (1) a GPS or FMS box, (2) a two-way digital data link, and (3) a Cockpit Display of Traffic Indicator (CDTI). The GPS or FMS furnishes the system with precise aircraft position data, along with a velocity vector.
Subscribers to Jeppesen's NavData service now can update the databases of their Garmin, Trimble, Magellan, Northstar and ARNAV GPS datacards via the Internet. Called the Skybound Datawriter, the software package can be used on a computer with a PCMCIA drive. Users then can update their GPS data-cards within minutes, by visiting Jep- pesen's Web site at www.jeppesen.com/ prodserv/navdata. Skybound includes an installation CD-ROM, which will be available this month. Jeppesen says the new
