Inflite Engineering Services was appointed by Bombardier as a Challenger service facility. Inflite, at London's Stansted Airport, joins Metro Business Aviation at Heathrow Airport as an approved Challenger maintenance facility.
From May 10 through May 14, both runways at New York's Westchester County Airport will be closed as part of a surface renovation project. During this time, only helicopter operations will be permitted. In addition, both runways will be closed a portion of each day from May 15 through the beginning of August. The main runway (16/34) will only be in service for selected morning and afternoon hours during this period. Otherwise the shorter runway (11/29), with its displaced threshold, will be available 24 hours a day for all but two weekends during the period.
Flightcrews using selective calling (SELCAL) systems can anticipate receiving a greater number of activations for messages intended for other aircraft, said an ICAO official. The problem results because the availability of discrete code assignments has been depleted, and duplicate codes are being assigned to new requests, according to the official. Several solutions are being studied. In the interim, ICAO says it's essential for callers to ensure correct aircraft call-sign identification.
A Women in Corporate Aviation panel will discuss "Career Progression in Corporate Aviation on Saturday, March 14 at the Women in Aviation Conference in Denver. Among the speakers will be Katha House, chief pilot for AC Aviation Services; Jane Toth, Challenger 604 first officer with Wayfarer Aviation; Carroll Suggs, president and CEO of Petroleum Helicopters; and Ava Sumpter, an airframe mechanic for Garrett Aviation Services.
Bell Helicopter is expected to purchase Boeing's civil helicopter business-the former McDonnell Douglas Helicopters in Mesa, Ariz. If the deal is consummated, it is anticipated to mean the end of the MDH 902 Explorer, which has been a sluggish seller and competes with the Bell 427. Paving the way for the agreement was Boeing's announcement that it will transfer its 49-percent interest in the Model 609 tiltrotor program to Bell and would assume the role of a subcontractor for the program. There are more than 50 orders for the 609.
New United Express carrier SkyWest has completed its sweep of West Coast markets formerly and currently being served by Mesa unit WestAir. United has severed its relationship with WestAir and awarded all of its routes to SkyWest. To add insult to injury, SkyWest also is taking over WestAir's maintenance facility at Fresno.
The following manufacturer-sponsored maintenance and operations meetings have been scheduled for this year: Bombardier Challenger, April 30-May 1 in San Antonio; Cessna Citation, April 27-29 in Wichita; Dassault Falcon Jet, May 18-20 in Nice, France; Gulfstream Aerospace (including G-Is), June 2-4 in Savannah; Learjet, April 27-May 1 in San Antonio; Raytheon Hawker, August 31-September 2 in Hilton Head, S.C.; and Sabreliner, May 13-15 in St. Louis.
Edited By Gordon A. GilbertGordon A. Gilbert/Perry Bradley
Flying in Canadian airspace got more expensive March 1 as the country began implementing new user charges to support its shift to a non-profit, privatized ATC. The initial fee schedule applies to aircraft weighing more than 18,000 pounds and assesses charges for terminal operations, en route segments and some overflights of Canadian territory. As the program currently stands, U.S.-based operators will be charged for flights within Canada and for a portion of trips terminating in Canada.
A schedule has been finalized for the one-day "Executive Workshops on Business Aviation" to be presented by The VanAllen Group of Atlanta in association with Fortune magazine. Session dates and locations are as follows: April 23, New York City; June 4, Dallas; July 16, Chicago; August 18, Los Angeles; and September 22, Atlanta. The fee for the workshop, designed to describe the benefits of business aviation to top executives of companies that are not business aircraft users, is $795. For more details, phone (770) 507-5001.
-- The Aircraft Electronics Association Convention and Trade Show will be held at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando on April 7-10. More than 30 hours of seminars and some 120 exhibits are being readied for this annual gathering. Subjects to be covered in the seminar program include the FAR Part 145 rewrite, in-house training to satisfy FAA and Transport Canada requirements, determining overhead costs, GPS training, tracking parts, how to close a sale and Internet training. Gov-ernmental issues will be discussed by an FAA/JAA/Transport Canada panel.
James O. Rice, Jr., VisionAire Corp.'s chairman and CEO, inked an order worth $175 million for JT15D-5s with Gilles P. Ouimet, Pratt&Whitney Canada's president and COO, in late January. VisionAire chose the 2,900-pound-thrust JT15D-5 to power its single-engine Vantage business jet because of its "unequaled reliability," according to Rice.
The Helicopter Association International presented its 1997 Outstanding Certificated Flight Instructor Award to Robert Holmes, a helicopter pilot/check airman for Chevron U.S.A. The award was presented at Heli Expo '98 in Anaheim, Calif. Holmes has been a member of Chevron's flight department since 1985.
Of the countries tracked by the DOT, only four now require spraying of insecticide with passengers still on board, down from 24 in 1994, when DOT began a campaign to stop spraying in the interest of passenger health. Grenada, Kiribati, Madagascar, and Trinidad and Tobago still spray while passengers are on board. Six countries allow spraying empty aircraft: Australia, Barbados, Fiji, Jamaica, New Zealand and Panama. For more complete information on spraying, check out this DOT Internet site: http://ostpxweb.dot.gov.
The movement toward global application of satellite-based communications, navigation and surveillance, and air traffic management systems (CNS/ATM) will be the center of attention at an ICAO-sponsored conference in May in Rio de Janeiro. The agenda: a discussion on the status and schedule for worldwide implementation of CNS/ATM.
A wave of consolidations has, for the last few years, been sweeping through the aircraft service market. Its most dramatic impact in business aviation was General Electric's fall 1997 purchase of Greenwich UNC, which included Airwork and the Garrett Aviation Services.
The National Aeronautic Association's prestigious Robert J. Collier Trophy was awarded to Gulfstream Aerospace and the G-V program team. The company was recognized for introducing the "world's first ultra-long-range business jet." More than 80 G-Vs have been sold to date, according to Gulfstream, and the first delivery of a completed aircraft was in July 1997. The NAA has awarded the Collier Trophy annually since 1911 to honor significant achievements in aeronautics in the United States. Formal presentation of the award will be at a banquet in Washington, D.C.
In early February, NASA kicked off an international research effort that the agency hopes will validate a new runway friction index that can be simply applied to a variety of aircraft. The index is intended to assist air crews and airport management in making go/no-go decisions based on assessments of runway slipperiness from snow, ice or slush.
The Honeywell/Pelorus Satellite Landing System (SLS-2000) is expected to receive operational approval by summer-the final step leading to use of the first differential GPS system (DGPS) ground station. The system received FAA approval in August 1997. Commissioning of the ground station and an STC for the avionics were received in January. The first systems scheduled to go on line will serve Newark and Minneapolis-St. Paul international airports (August 1997, page 28 and November 1997, page 92).
Available from Paravion Technology is an STCed air-conditioning system for Bell 407s. The condenser mounts below the baggage compartment floor, pulling in air from the sides of the aircraft and discharging heated air underneath. The installed weight of the 7,000 BTU-rated system is 75 pounds. Standard features include dual forward evaporators and a third mounted in the rear of the aircraft. Uninstalled price: $19,000. Paravion Technology, 2001 Airway Ave., Ft. Collins, Colo. 80524. (970) 224-3898.
To compete in an increasing market for single-grade oils, Phillips 66 has reintroduced an SAE 50. Phillips discontinued single-grade oil in favor of multi-grade oils in 1970. Phillips concedes that it thought single-grade oils would become a "thing of the past."
Global Energy has entered the avcomps market with an aviation CD-ROM containing a full FAA database-more than 660 megabytes of information, says the Madison, Wis. firm. The CD-ROM includes the following: -- FAA written tests for certificates and ratings. -- FARs (required Adobe Acrobat reader is included). -- Pilot names, addresses, ratings and medicals (660,000 records).
Starting in the second quarter, AlliedSignal will offer Learjet 35/36 operators a -2C engine upgrade, which incorporates more-robust parts from higher thrust versions of the TFE731, thereby increasing ITT margins and extending maintenance intervals. The goal is to increase reliability to better than 6.7 unscheduled removals per 100,000 flight hours. The current mean time between unscheduled removals is about 10 events per 100,000 flight hours. (See related feature article beginning on page 76.)
Connecticut DOT has collected "three or four bids" to date in answer to Governor John G. Rowland's proposal to reduce state expenses by placing five state-owned general aviation airports under contract management. The airports affected would be Danielson, Groton-New London, Hartford-Brainard, Waterbury-Oxford and Windham. Danielson and Windham currently are under contract management by their FBOs. "Within the next three months, we should know if we'll be going forward with this," said a spokesperson in the state's aviation/ports office.
