Skyservice Inc., Canada's largest charter/management company, often dispatches Learjets from its air ambulance division to Cuba for patient-transfer missions. Based in Montreal, Skyservice has 56 managed and company-owned business aircraft in its stable, including five Learjet 35 air ambulances equipped with intensive-care units that routinely operate on a worldwide basis.
Similar to other Model 525 aircraft, the Citation M2 will be powered by two Williams International FJ44 turbofans. The current plan is to keep the 1,965-lb. takeoff thrust rating, but it's certain that the new engines will have more robust cores that will provide improved hot-and-high airport performance, more climb thrust and higher cruise thrust. Expect a slight improvement in specific fuel consumption because the new powerplants will incorporate more advanced technologies than the FJ44-1AP engines fitted to the CJ1+.
If you're a scheduler or dispatcher and you just received this issue of BCA, you have just about two weeks to make the Oct. 17 deadline for filing an application for a scholarship under the NBAA's Schedulers & Dispatchers Scholarship Program. The awards are announced in December and presented at the next S&D annual meeting, scheduled for Jan. 15-18, 2012, in San Diego.
Cuba is the largest and westernmost island in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea. It also bears the distinction of having been “discovered” by Christopher Columbus on his first journey to the New World in 1492.
Piper Aircraft is planning to lock down the design on its new single-jet Altaire in the fourth quarter, a final step before the first conforming test article flies next year. Executive Vice President Randy Groom says the project's critical design review is “imminent,” and that no real surprises have cropped up and no significant changes have been necessary since the company revamped the design a year ago.
Thirty years ago, Jim Haynes was working in finance in Washington, D.C., when an accountant friend mentioned that he was trying to settle the estate of a couple who had been killed in an automobile accident. He said it appeared that they had an interest in a business out at Leesburg (Va.) Airport. That tragedy and that piece of information would soon set Haynes off on a course of action that would cause a change in taxation and help transform a region in ways no one could have imagined.
Given all the problems facing the Obama administration — intractably high unemployment figures, plunging poll numbers for the president and lack of traction for his latest stimulus proposal — it is increasingly difficult to understand why the executive branch continues to waste energy defending its wrong-headed attempt to “out” the owners of private aircraft.
Step into the cockpit of a Hawker 4000 that has the newly available block point upgrade (BPU) package and it's immediately apparent that the super midsize aircraft has undergone quite a comprehensive improvement program. The FMS, flight guidance system, avionics and autothrottles offer new functions and greater utility. Airframe systems were upgraded to reduce workload and to provide better operating flexibility. In all, nearly two dozen hardware and software changes were made from which pilots can benefit in everyday operations.
Officials of the Chinese Civil Aviation Authority (CAAC) visited Raisbeck Engineering's Seattle headquarters on Aug. 30 to develop certification criteria for Raisbeck Performance Systems in China. The first two Raisbeck systems to complete the process are Dual Aft Body Strakes (DABS) and Nacelle Wing Lockers (NWLS) for the Beechcraft King Air 350, according to Bill Lally, Raisbeck's FAA coordinator.
The opening of a new FBO typically is cause for industry celebration in an age when then the number of FBOs has diminished from 5,000 in the 1980s to 3,000. For Million Air, this summer's opening of its newest facility brings the addition of a 29th location, another company-owned base, and an entrance to what company executives believe is an up-and-coming market. This comes when financing is hard to find for new FBOs.
Diamond Aircraft's DA20-C1 was granted expanded European Aviation Safety Agency type certification to include approval for night VFR operations, significantly increasing the aircraft's utility in the European market, the company says.
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As pilots we don't seem to think much about the brakes until we really need them, and then our interest intensifies in direct proportion to the proximity of the runway end and the speed at which it is approaching.
Minimize quick turn-arounds. Fully release brakes during turn-arounds. Don't drag a brake during taxi. Consider single-engine taxi. Use reverse thrust/flat pitch if allowed. Anticipate the need to slow down and make necessary power changes ahead of time. Minimize brake applications. Apply a smooth, firm pressure to slow down the aircraft. Land at the slowest speed consistent with safety. Land on longer runways with the wind.
Gulfstream Aerospace displayed three of its business jets at the sixth annual Jet Expo Russian International Business Aviation Exhibition held Sept. 14-16 at Vnukovo-3 Airport near Moscow: the wide-cabin, high-speed Gulfstream G150; the large-cabin, long-range Gulfstream G450; and the large-cabin, ultra-long-range Gulfstream G550.
Fresh off its July fiasco, when interminable political squabbling led to temporary unemployment for tens of thousands of FAA employees and construction workers assigned to FAA-funded projects, Congress returns to Washington this month faced with the same issue that led to the shutdown: the need to pass long-term legislation to authorize the FAA's operation.
Flying Colours Corp., the Ontario, Canada-based interior completions specialist, says it is experiencing increased demand for midsize business jet refurbishments. Since the beginning of the first quarter, the firm has seen “a steady growth in orders,” particularly from Bombardier Challenger 300 and 604, Dassault Falcon 900 and Hawker 800 operators.
Oliver Stone, a long-time broker with Texas-based Business Air International, is now the managing director of London-based Colibri Aircraft Ltd., a new firm that is offering aircraft acquisition, resale and asset consultation services. “My work was always based on being overseas, especially in London, so this takes advantage of being in the same time zone as a number of people who buy and sell aircraft,” said Stone recently.
Cessna is offering Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) upgrades for the Citation Ultra and Citation Encore. The STCed installation, which covers all Ultras and Encores serial number 260 through 750, includes dual Universal UNS-1Espw flight management systems certified for fully coupled WAAS LPV (localizer performance with vertical guidance) approaches.
Eclipse Aerospace Inc. (EAI) has completed a combustion liner recertification project that will enable its EA500 very light jet (VLJ) to return to its maximum certified service ceiling of 41,000 ft. EAI calls the FAA approval the last of a lengthy list of certification projects that the company has undertaken to fix problems and improve the aircraft since it bought the program out of bankruptcy in August 2009. The fixes are expected to increase the value of existing EA500s and set the stage for new production of the VLJ.
Blackhawk Modifications, the Waco, Texas-based company that specializes in engine performance solutions for turboprops, has won an FAA STC for its powerplant enhancement package for the Cessna Caravan 208B.
Garmin International has delivered the first Daher-Socata TBM 700 upgraded with the avionics maker's G1000 integrated flight deck. The airplane, which went to the French Ministry of Defense, is part of a contract to upgrade 27 TBM 700 aircraft that are in service with the French military. The cockpit modification has received both FAA and European Aviation Safety Agency approval.
When asked recently about the state of his used aircraft business, John Newton said Cessna's deliveries of previously owned Citations are 300% ahead of last year, and the order rate “is pretty consistent. I am feeling pretty good.”
Recent research reports published by corporate aviation information provider JETNET and J.P. Morgan's aerospace and defense analysts say there are some positive signs in the pre-owned aircraft market, but that a broad-based recovery has yet to take hold. In releasing first-half results for the pre-owned business jet, business turboprop and helicopter markets, Utica, N.Y.-based JETNET called 2011 a “year of correction.”
