Moscow Vnukovo Airport and Lufthansa Flight Training agreed to form a joint venture to provide flight crew training. Flight Training Vnukovo will start operations by mid-2010 and will be equipped with four full-flight simulators. The facility is planned to be expanded to accommodate up to 20 simulators for various aircraft types. The $200 million facility would be the first independent simulator center in the Russian territory.
Gulfstream Aerospace recently received FAA certification for the second-generation Gulfstream Enhanced Vision System (EVS II) on the wide-cabin, high-speed Gulfstream G150. The system is available for both new and in-service G150 aircraft.
The AOPA has expressed concern over the FAA’s push to extinguish all existing “through-the-fence” access at public-use airports involving homes and businesses on private property that have access to airport taxiways or runways. The AOPA says the problem is of particular concern in the Northwest where the FAA is conducting an inventory of airports that have existing through-the-fence operations and is pressuring airport sponsors to eventually eliminate that access.
That night the two rock performers — one a drummer, the other a DJ — had wowed a crowd of 10,000 people at a free concert near the University of South Carolina. Now, even though it was approaching midnight, they wanted to get home to California. They, along with two support staffers, boarded the chartered Learjet Model 60 that had landed at Columbia Metropolitan Airport 40 minutes earlier. The passengers took their seats, the cabin door was closed and locked, and the two pilots began to taxi to the active runway. It was Sept. 19, 2008.
Hawker Beechcraft has begun offering a Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) Localizer Performance with Vertical Guidance (LPV) option for Hawker 800XP aircraft. The upgrade enables operators to fly more precision approaches, reduce decision altitudes to as low as 200 feet agl and visibility minimums to as low as one-half mile, and use GPS as a primary means of navigation from takeoff through approach.
What drew Nancy Kemmer to belly dancing was that it’s “interesting and different . . . exotic, more thoughtful and joyful than most other dancing.” Kemmer has worked in accounts receivable at Pentastar Aviation in Michigan for about a year and on one evening a week she joins three other students in a class run by Cynthia Shainkin, a dancing teacher in Lake Orion, Mich.
Looking for help with your foggy or scratched windows? Check out the NBAA’s Products and Services Directory to locate outfits that specialize in aircraft window repair and replacement. First, access the Web site at http://data.nbaa.org/prodsvcs/directory/search.cfm, and then from the pull-down Categories menu select Window/Windscreen Repair.
Jet-A and AvgasPer Gallon Fuel PricesJuly 2009 Jet-A and AvgasPer Gallon Fuel PricesJuly 2009 Jet-A Region High Low Average Eastern $7.06 $3.10 $4.98 New England $5.25 $3.44
New Zealand-based aircraft tracking company spidertracks has launched spiderwatch, a flight following component that actively watches over every flight. The company is positioning the system as an alternative to ELTs. Spiderwatch is automatically turned on when the aircraft accelerates through 40 knots. This tells the system to “actively monitor the flight. If the spider tracking device loses power, the system loses contact with the spider, triggering text and e-mail alerts to be automatically sent to recipients designated by the user.
There’s not another current production business aircraft that can beat the Learjet 60 in a time-to-climb contest. With a weight-to-thrust ratio of 2.55:1, you can soar from sea level to FL 410 in less than 18 minutes. It’s also fuel efficient. After level off, its Pratt & Whitney Canada PW305A engines enable the Learjet 60 to cruise at 440 KTAS with an average fuel burn of 1,300 pph.
Rockwell Collins’ Corporate Aircraft Service Program (CASP) offers corporate aircraft operators maintenance for their avionics and cabin entertainment equipment. Rentals, exchanges, component repairs, comprehensive reliability upgrades, equipment removal and refit coverage are included. CASP also offers one consolidated annual invoice based on a forecast of annual operating hours received at the start of the annual program and covers each aircraft for an entire year.
The AOPA’s Aviation eBrief says both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate are backing an FAA reauthorization bill introduced in mid-July that would accelerate NextGen implementation. The bill would require satellite-based ATC at the 35 busiest U.S. airports by 2014, with the rest of the country coming online by 2018 with $40 billion in funding through 2011 but with out-year system funding unspecified, postponing the tough decisions until 2011, AOPA states as we go to press.
Especially in today’s volatile market, Rick Engles believes it is critical that aircraft brokers clearly communicate to prospective airplane sellers what the true value of their aircraft is.
Rolls-Royce has received European certification for the BR700-725A1-12 turbofan that will power the Gulfstream G650 business jet. The European Aviation Safety Agency granted approval on June 23. First flight of the G650 is planned for later this year. The 16,100-pound-thrust engine features a 50-inch fan and 24 titanium blades.
You awake in the hotel room, turn on The Weather Channel and see red- and orange-colored warning areas promising thunderstorms on your return flight. A last check of the WSI weather screen when leaving the FBO shows the line of CBs growing in size and intensity, directly on your route home. Throughout the flight you keep adjusting the weather radar to pick your way around the cells.
There has been a great deal of talk about the damage that has been done to business aviation by politicians, the news media and ignorant senior executives. I don’t see it that way. Much of the “damage” was the predictable result of companies that leaned too strongly into unsustainable economic winds. When those economic winds stopped, they fell on their faces. Their companies, and their travel resources, have gone through the normal Darwinian process of the survival of the fittest.
Sherwin-Williams Aerospace has expanded its global presence to meet increasing demand in Asia and the Pacific Rim by adding new authorized distributors in China and Australia. The new distributors include Shen Zhen Lubair Aerospace Co., Ltd., with two locations in Shen Zhen, China, and Pacific Dynamics in Artarmon, New South Wales, Australia. They will offer Sherwin-Williams’ entire range of aerospace products including Jet Glo, Acry Glo, Jet Glo Express and Jet Flex. The company’s new product, Fill Bond aerospace putty, also will be offered. Price: Varies
I enjoyed your recent article about night visual traps (Cause & Circumstance, June, page 68). A convincing case could be made that, unless you’re over a built-up area with lots of lighting, there really is no such thing as night VFR.
The following abbreviations are used throughout the tables: “NA” means not available; “—”indicates the performance is not applicable; “NP” signifies that the specific performance is not possible.
The University of Dayton Research Institute’s Patrick Haines and James Luers have been vocal advocates for exploring the effects of heavy rain on aircraft performance and have applied forensic engineering methods to several accidents. Their methodology, which was published in the Journal of Aircraft, suggests that the previously calculated effects of wind shear were in error, and that heavy rain likely contributed to the loss of performance in many mishaps.
Aviation Research Group/U.S., Inc. (ARG/US) was founded in 1995. Today it has headquarters located in Cincinnati and additional offices in Doylestown, Pa. The ARG/US PROS division is located in Denver.
In Hawaii, when your alarm clock rings, you hop out of bed, and before you get ready for work, you grab your board and head to the beach. Thousands of Hawaiians surf, in part because they are surrounded by an ocean that provides them with some of the best conditions for the sport to be found anywhere in the world. Pete Hughes is a clinical manager for AirMed’s Hawaiian service, which operates air transportation for the state’s health system, transporting sick patients to clinics and between hospitals in a fleet of King Airs.
