Bell Helicopter announced at Heli-Expo that the Bell Helicopter Training Academy received EASA Training Approval for Bell 206 series, 407 and 412 helicopters. In addition to normal theory approvals, the Training Academy has been granted practical approval, making it the first training school anywhere in the world to receive practical hands-on training approval from EASA. Academy graduates can now greatly reduce the amount of on-the-job proficiency demonstrations they need to become type-certified as a mechanic under European regulations, the company said.
Rockwell Collins announced the first installation of a Pro Line 21 avionics system on a rotary-wing aircraft. A Pro Line 21 Integrated Display System (IDS) was integrated into a Sikorsky S-61 long-range helicopter. The retrofit was a collaborative effort with Toronto -based Vector Aerospace.
FBO Million Air Houston announced in January a new general manager in the person of Robert Lee, most recently GM at Atlantic Aviation in Wheeling, Ill. He has more than 20 years of experience in aviation operations.
Bell Helicopter received 41 signed contracts at Heli-Expo 2011. The orders included 412EPs, 429s and 206L4s, as well as 11 new 407GXs from customers in North America, Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. At this year’s Heli-Expo, Bell announced the 407GX, a new version of the Bell 407 equipped with Garmin’s G1000H Integrated Flight Deck, and the 407AH, the first Bell-qualified armed commercial aircraft.
This short adventure began with an e-mail from a friend who flew with me at Piedmont Airlines. Vince was a 727 flight engineer but was now in Iraq with a company that has thousands of employees in Iraq. It uses Iraqi airliners with two Boeing 737-200s to shuttle its employees in country. The job was for a check airman to work on safety and compliance and to occasionally ride jump seat. A walk in the park, so to speak.
Robinson Helicopter Company has a backlog of 169 new orders. The company delivered 162 aircraft in 2010: 40 R22s, 112 R44s, and 10 R66 turbine helicopters.
I savor reading Cause & Circumstance. It’s usually the first read for me when I get the publication. “A Failed Culture of Safety” (February 2011) was quite fascinating, but it left me feeling as if I’d watched an episode of “Hawaii Five-O” that ends with a “To be continued next week.”
Again profitable, NetJets ordered 50 Global business jets with options for an additional 70 aircraft. Bombardier said it was the largest business aircraft sale in the company’s history. The firm order transaction is valued at approximately $2.8 billion based on list prices. If all the options are exercised, the total value of the order will surpass $6.7 billion, also based on list prices. The firm order comprises 30 Global 5000 Vision and Global Express XRS Vision aircraft, with deliveries scheduled to begin in fourth quarter 2012.
Since 1993, the FAA has prohibited executives from reimbursing their companies for personal use of company aircraft. The genesis of this policy was a legal interpretation requested on behalf of Charles Schwab. The FAA took a very narrow view of FAR Part 91.501(b)(5), concluding that the rule was designed to allow reimbursement for business flights, and therefore personal flights were not covered. Simply stated, the man named Charles Schwab could not write a check to Charles Schwab & Co. Inc. for a personal flight in the company airplane.
Eight furloughed pilots have been recalled in the company’s move to address growth as business recovers. FlightOptions is expanding its fleet of Phenom 300, 400XT and Citation X aircraft, along with its capacity for fractional and jet card programs. FlightOptions now employs 311 pilots.
I read “A Failed Culture of Safety” (Cause & Circumstance, February 2011, page 53) with great interest. Good article. I am sure you know the NTSB report on the Quest Diagnostics fatal crash was pulled from the Internet. Not good. I believe that our industry has a shared responsibility to operate safely for the benefit of all parties. Your observations regarding Quest Diagnostics are quite disappointing as it appears that Quest lacks a commitment to safe operations
The European Commission approved the satellite-based European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) system for aviation operations. Like WAAS in the United States, EGNOS complements and improves the accuracy of GPS, allowing reduced-separation RNP operations and LPV approaches to any runway independent of ground installations. With the approval, EU member states can design and certify approaches.
At GAMA’s “State of the Industry” press conference in late February, GAMA Chairman John Rosanvallon, president and CEO of Dassault Falcon, reported that the global economic downturn continued to negatively impact general aviation manufacturers in 2010, but that signs of a recovery have started to emerge. “Our industry experienced another challenging year that required many manufacturers to continue to make careful decisions about production schedules, employment and product development,” said Rosanvallon.
Kaman Corp. Composites Division has been awarded a contract to manufacture composite passenger entry and over-wing exit doors for the Bombardier Learjet 85 midsize business jet.
CitationAir’s fleet of 81 aircraft just got faster as the company added six of the fastest production business jet to its lineup. The Mach 0.92 Citation X can take customers from Los Angeles to New York in just over 4 hr., lopping a half hour off the typical time.
An attempt by the FAA to adopt a substantive change in the operations of FAR Part 135 certificate holders by means of a “rules interpretation” is under attack by a broad cross section of the air charter community.
The used aircraft market, while improving, remains a major concern, declared GAMA chairman John Rosanvallon during the association’s annual “State of the Industry” presentation.
The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) released a report that warns that society may be dangerously over-reliant on satellite navigation systems like GPS. According to the RAE, the range of applications using the technology is now so broad that, without adequate independent backup, signal failure or interference could potentially affect not just land, sea and air navigation, but broad swaths of the global economy. LORAN advocates would likely concur.
T his past Feb. 1, some aerospace heavy hitters came to Wichita, and they were on the prowl. Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, even upstart Nextant Aerospace — all were shopping for experienced workers at an informal job fair held at the local Marriott. They know that many of the assembly lines in this town are quiet and that the people who work on them may be sitting at home, waiting for an upturn, which is way overdue.
The FAA is again operating under temporary funding, until May 31. The U.S. House of Representatives Transportation & Infrastructure Committee passed a bill (H.R.1079) to give the House time to work on the four-year bill the panel passed in February (H.R.658). That bill cuts $4 billion from FAA programs and facilities and sets the spending at fiscal 2008 levels. Under the cloud of uncertainty, the FAA has stopped most travel and placed a freeze on most hiring, according to FAA Flight Standards Director John Allen.
Sabreliner Corp. recently completed a Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) on a Learjet 35 air ambulance owned and operated by Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Aero Jet International. The SLEP was performed in Sabreliner’s Perryville, Mo., facility and involved an extensive inspection of all of the aircraft’s flight controls using state-of-the-art, non-destructive inspection techniques.
As mentioned in the main text, U.S. Customs and Border Protection no longer confers “permission to proceed” authority to aircraft entering U.S. territory at Adak Island in the Aleutian Chain. Previously, aircraft using Adak as a tech stop on the way back from Asia could arrange to take on fuel at Adak, then with prior arrangement, proceed to Anchorage to clear Customs. Here, courtesy of Universal Weather & Aviation, is the two-part message received last year from CBP:
Eurocopter booked 68 new orders and agreements comprising eight of its helicopter models from operators in the United States, Canada, Europe and Russia during Heli-Expo 2011. New business concluded during the March industry event in Orlando, Fla., included the EC145 T2 unveiled at the show, which won a total of 17 launch commitments. The upgraded version of Eurocopter’s EC145 incorporates a Fenestron tail rotor, more-powerful Arriel 2E turboshaft engines, a new avionics suite and a four-axis autopilot.
Canada’s National Research Council Institute for Aerospace Research is looking for licensees for a fly by wire control system it developed that automatically switches between two control response rates. In instrument or low-visibility conditions where visual cues are poor to nonexistent, pilots tend to make slower and more deliberate control inputs. In visual conditions, pilots tend to make more rapid control inputs.
