If the Vietnam War could be said to have provided anything good, it was its technological advancement of turbine-powered helicopters and development of a pool of qualified pilots to fly them. At the peak of the war, the U.S. Army was churning out some 300 pilots a month.
In August, Beechcraft and Wheels Up, a new members-only air transportation club, announced an agreement for the largest order for turboprop airplanes and services in general aviation history, a deal potentially worth $788 million for the acquisition of up to 105 King Air 350i aircraft along with another $600 million in nose-to-tail support services, including engine reserves, airframe and avionics maintenance, scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, even consumables. The contract is for 35 firm aircraft orders plus options for another 70.
If you want a solid indicator of where the economy is heading in the next few years, watch the private aviation industry. From the 1980s to today, economic data shows that when the private aviation and small aircraft manufacturing industries are doing well, so is the rest of the economy. If you want to get ahead of market trends, watch and see how much money banks are loaning the leaders of industry to finance corporate jets. The spending trend here is usually ahead of the rest of the market. Think of corporate jets as a high-end stimulus package.
Moscow-based ViraZH is buying 79 Cessna 172s for use at various flight schools throughout western Russia. The aircraft, which feature a Garmin G1000 panel, are to be delivered by the third quarter of 2014. The order follows a purchase of 11 Skyhawks by the training company in 2011 and makes ViraZH's one of the largest fleets of the Cessna model in the world. The Skyhawk is the most populous single-engine aircraft in production.
Beechcraft King Air 350, or Model B300, is the largest business turboprop yet built by the Wichita manufacturer and by far its most versatile performer. More than 600 first-generation aircraft built between 1990 and 2008 still are in service. In 2009, it was succeeded by the more luxurious King Air 350i.
TAG Farnborough Airport, Farnborough, U.K., has been awarded Airport Carbon Accreditation at the “Optimization” level, recognizing a reduction in carbon emission under the airport's direct control between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2012.
The aircraft electronics market softened a bit in the second quarter of 2013 with total sales reaching$1.62 billion, according to the Aircraft Electronics Association (AEA). The sales, reported by 20 aviation electronics manufacturers, were down about 5% from the $1.71 billion reported in the first three months of this year. AEA this year began reporting sales figures to provide a picture of the overall market and its contributions to the economy.
Swift Fuels LLC has opened their new aviation fuel blending facility in Lafayette, Ind., where it is also building a pilot plant. The company is investing $2.5 million in the facilities. The blending facility will store at least 50,000 gal. unleaded, high-octane aviation components for sales and shipment. The pilot plant will produce more than 10,000 gal. of 100SF avgas per month when it reaches full capacity. It can produce the fuel from petroleum or bio-sourced material.
Retrix Aviation has begun construction on the company's new FBO at Worcester Regional Airport in Massachusetts. The new Worcester facility is one of two FBOs that the Retrix will be constructing as a result of a multi-million dollar contract awarded by Massport. The other facility will be at Hanscom Field, and combined, they will create almost 100 new jobs and will be large enough to accommodate business jets.
Standing before hundreds of business aviation operators clustered into hotel ballrooms at annual NBAA International Operators Conferences over the past decade, Bill Stine has urged attendees to begin mapping out plans for equipping their transcontinental business jets with FANS 1/A avionics.
GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems has joined the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, raising the trade association's total membership to 84. The unit is a division of GKN Aerospace, one of the world's largest independent first-tier suppliers to the global aviation industry with over 100 years of aerospace experience and 12,000 employees in more than 35 facilities worldwide. GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems designs and manufactures glass, acrylic and polycarbonate transparency systems and tests and certifies cockpit and passenger windows.
Shadin Avionics now has TSO approval on the initial release of its flyTab Aircraft Interface Module (AIM), a data converter that integrates an iPad into the cockpit accessing real time flight data for iPad applications. The AIM was developed in collaboration with the Avionics & Systems Integration Group, as a part of the flyTab Class 2 Electronic Flight Bag announced in 2012. The current model provides an ARINC 429 interface for two iPads from a single unit. Shadin Avionics St. Louis Park, Minn.
The first Legacy 650 business jet assembled in China under a joint venture by Embraer and Aviation Industry Corporate of China (AVIC) took flight in late August. Guan Dongyuan, senior vice president of Embraer and president of Embraer China said the 2.5-hr. flight was “an important milestone not only in the Embraer-AVIC partnership, but also in the history of the Chinese executive aviation industry, as the jet is also the first large executive jet assembled by a joint venture in China.” Delivery of the aircraft is expected by year's end.
Jet Aviation recently received CAMO certification authorizing the company to manage the maintenance of aircraft registered in Bermuda. For aircraft registered in Bermuda, a CAMO is a mandatory requirement that was implemented in 2010. “With this service expansion, we now have the ability to offer our services to over 700 Bermuda-registered aircraft,” said Don Haloburdo, vice president and general manager of Jet Aviation Flight Services.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Council has agreed to a compromise solution on the introduction of global market based measures to tackle aviation emissions. The global market concept is expected to be adopted at ICAO's assembly in 2016 and be implemented by 2020. The Council adopted a European proposal that allow states to implement a market plan prior to global implementation that covered aircraft emissions “for the portion of those flights within the airspace of that state or group of states.”
The repair station security rule continues to languish at the Office of Management Budget, where it has now been under review for six months — twice the typical 90-day review time for most rulemakings. While the repair station rule sits at the White House office, the resulting ban on FAA certifying any new foreign repair stations has passed the five-year mark. Congress prohibited FAA from certifying new foreign repair stations until the Transportation Security Administration releases the long-awaited security rule. That prohibition took effect in August 2008.
Lufthansa Bombardier Aviation Services has opened an additional hangar at its home base in Berlin-Schoenefeld. The increase in capacity has also created 12 new jobs (10 of which are technicians), bringing the number of staff currently employed at LBAS to 183. Following the renovation of a hangar taken over from Lufthansa Tecnik, the MRO provider can handle one aircraft in the Bombardier Global series and up to four aircraft the size of a Challenger 850. Expansion includes a battery shop and a wheel reconditioning worshop.
If you're willing to dig for it, one of the great troves of information regarding operations in Europe and the North Atlantic region is ICAO's Paris website, or more formally, “The European and North Atlantic Office [EUR/NAT] of ICAO.” It can be found at www.paris.icao.int/welcome/welcome.htm
Bennett E. Taber (Manager, Bay Area Operations Dreamline Aviation LLC San Carlos, Calif. )
I enjoyed “Flying Among Robots” (September 2013, page 26), especially since I just had one zip by me the other day on its way to check out the Rim Fire. But I wanted to point out an error in syntax that one often finds when the author is not familiar with all things nautical: When speaking of a vessel, military or civilian, the vessel type should precede the vessel name, thus: The aircraft carrier Ford, not the Ford aircraft carrier;
In mid-December 2011, NTSB investigators viewed black and white video images recorded on Nov. 23 by an outdoor security surveillance camera located about 6 mi. south of Superstition Mountain at Apache Junction, Ariz. The video file contained about 50 min. of image data covering the period from about 1810 to 1900.
Dallas Airmotive, Dallas, appointed Thomas Kennedy regional engine manager representing all of the company's engine and auxiliary power unit service for customers in the New England area.
China's Avicopter will build cabins for the Sikorsky S-76D as a second-source supplier of the executive/transport helicopter. The work will be done by Avicopter's Changhe factory at Jingdezhen, which previously made eight cabins for the S-76C++. Czech supplier Aero Vodochody also makes S-76D fuselages. Avicopter will deliver its first cabins in 2016, according to the schedule. The cabins — fuselages forward of the tail booms — will be delivered to Sikorsky fully fitted with equipment.
Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) is seeking to potentially add one or two more fixed-base operations at Van Nuys Airport (VNY) in California. LAWA, which oversees VNY in addition to Los Angeles International (LAX) and Ontario (ONT), issued a request for qualifications (RFQ) for parties interested in operating an FBO at the airport. LAWA says it anticipates that two FBO areas will be made available — one on a lot that has been vacant for some time and the other on a site that Pentastar Aviation vacated last spring. Both involve parcels of up to 15 acres.
