Twin Commander Aircraft has introduced a High Intensity Discharge (HID) light system to replace the standard wing-mounted landing lights and, on aircraft so equipped, the nose-mounted recognition lights. The new HID lights will be mounted in the recessed, covered ports used in the nose recognition light kit, and will serve as both landing light and recognition lights. Installation of the HID light and the removal of the standard landing light will remove the airspeed limitation for extension of the standard lights.
CAE , Montreal, has appointed Sebastien Caire as vice president, Asia and Australasia and Suzanne Roy was named vice president, India. Bill Dolny has been named vice president and general manager of CAE’s Dallas training center; Michael Fedele is the new vice president and general manager of the Morristown, N.J. center. Dolny and Fedele will report to Tom Stelter, who was named vice president, CAE Training, Service and Innovation, North America.
Airbus has selected Honeywell’s IntuVue 3-D Weather Radar for A320s, A330s and A340s. Honeywell values the contract at $300 million over the life of the program, if forecast aftermarket sales are included. IntuVue offers flight crews the ability to detect turbulence, wind shear and dangerous storm activity so they can make more informed route decisions. “Weather-related delays and damage cost the industry over $4 billion each year,” said Garrett Mikita, president of Honeywell’s Air Transport and Regional division.
Mike Yodice, one of the partners of Capital Jet Group, the McLean, Va.-based business aircraft brokerage firm, says activity “is slower than it has been.” Established in 1994, Capital Jet Group has sold all types of turbine-powered business airplanes, from King Airs to BBJs, to a roughly equal number of U.S. and international clients, ranging from Fortune 100 companies to privately held concerns.
Business Aviation entered the jet age last September and B/CA went along for the ride. A couple of weeks after industrialist-pilot Henry Timken Jr. checked out in his Beech MS 760 in six hours, I rode in this first business-designed jet with Tom Gillespie, Beech MS 760 project sales engineer. At $210,000 (including handling equipment, tools, small spares, crew training), the 760 is the only business jet delivered in the United States.
Ross Detwiler’s “Think Before Speaking, Please” (July, page 102) covered the field well, and left me only a few personal favorites to add to his list: (1) Pilot responding to traffic calls with, “We have him on the fish finder” or to a call to ident with, “HHHHere’s the flash” . . . totally superfluous comments.
M7 Aerospace has teamed with San Antonio Aircraft Support (SAAS) to create a modification center in San Antonio that will specialize in designing and installing custom corporate interiors and avionics upgrades for regional airliners, business aircraft and helicopters. The new modification center combines the strength of M7’s maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) operation with its engineering department and SAAS’s nearly 30 years of experience in fabricating interior furnishings for head-of-state and VIP aircraft.
Picture a wooded hillside so steep and craggy with giant boulders that it would be an effort to climb on foot. Got it? Now picture Paul Beattie (pronounced BATE-ey) heading toward it in a four-wheel drive buggy that looks like Bigfoot the monster truck had its way with a moon rover. And he’s going fast. Racing, in fact. Welcome to the fast-growing sport of extreme rock racing, the most competitive form of off-road motor sports there is.
Brigitte Vola says she’s just following in her family’s footsteps. Her grandfather and her father were firefighters — her dad was even the chief of his department back when Brigitte was growing up in Florida. When Vola, a registered nurse and certified EMT who works as a medical communications center representative for air ambulance operator AirMed, moved to Alabama to attend nursing school, she found that something was lacking: She missed being an EMT, a role she’d performed in Florida.
spidertracks, a satellite tracking solutions company, announced that it has reached an agreement with Cessna Aircraft Co. to have its new product distributed through Cessna’s global aircraft support network. The system is made up of a spider-tracking device that combines satellite communication and GPS technology in one small portable device that does not require an external antenna.
It was around 8 p.m. on March 21, 2001. We had departed Anchorage en route to the New Tokyo Airport — “Narita” to most pilots — 30 minutes earlier. The weather was clear and the setting sun washed soft light over the gorgeous Alaskan wilderness 37,000 feet below. A line check airman, I was training a new first officer on the nuances of the MD-11’s flight management computer when a call came over VHF No. 2, which was tuned to 121.5. The voice asked if anyone was on the frequency. “Aircraft calling on 121.5, this is FedEx 17,” I immediately responded.
Two companies developing re-engined Citation IIs have recently achieved milestones in their efforts to retrofit early models of the Cessna light jet with William International FJ44 powerplants.
A draft NPRM recently circulated by the TSA will likely hinder many general aviation operators and burden airports for the agency’s own convenience. Page 15 of the NPRM baldly admittted that the agency briefly considered “security programs that would apply to large aircraft operators depending on the type of service they provide, [but instead] the TSA is proposing one security program that would apply to all large aircraft operators” — a program that could fundamentally change the way general aviation currently conducts its activities.
Bell Helicopter parent Textron announced that it will expand its operations in Mexico through an agreement with the state of Chihuahua to develop and build a new manufacturing facility. Textron International Mexico (TIM) is to manufacture “various minor assemblies, structural elements and wire bundles” for the Bell 429 helicopter. Once work is completed in Mexico, the parts will be shipped to Textron’s Quebec helicopter manufacturing operation at Mirabel for final assembly.
Any temporary dip in the price of jet fuel may tempt some folks to forget that a return to $7 to $10 per gallon Jet-A could follow a recovery from the record world economic slump. Should that happen, the Piaggio P180 Avanti will become even more attractive than it is today.
Universal Avionics Systems Corp. reached a settlement with Optima Technology Group, Inc. Sept. 23 in patent litigation. Universal filed the lawsuit in November 2007 against Optima, a patent holding company, after repeated threats from Optima’s CEO, Robert Adams, to sue for alleged infringements based on Universal’s sale of its Vision-1 synthetic vision product. In the lawsuit, Universal sought a declaration that the patents were invalid and not infringed.
Stevens Aviation (Greenville, SC) — Dana R. Arnold has been named president of the aviation service company’s Business Jet Sales division. Arnold joins Stevens after 17 years with Learjet, where he was vice president of U.S. sales. Infinity Aviation Named Russian Sales Rep for EADS Socata
Sitting in a comfortable chair on the screened porch of a good friend, Memorial Day Weekend Sunday, we were exchanging tales of recent golf conquests, when an odd sensation took me by surprise. An attentive listener, I willed away the queasiness to focus on the story at hand. But later I became keenly aware that an unfamiliar pain behind my left eye was intensifying. Turning to my wife to gain her attention, I noticed that my face was tingling. The look of concern on the faces of those gathered was puzzling.
Rockwell Collins recently participated in a flight demonstration to fly European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) Localizer Performance with Vertical guidance (LPV) approaches in Europe. The company’s FMS and GPS-4000S GPS receiver were on board an Air Nostrum-operated Bombardier CRJ-200 for the demo.
New owners of the former Adam A700 program believe the all-composite VLJ is back on track for certification by mid-2010. Testing has resumed, and the FAA has agreed that tests performed by Adam are still valid, reducing the work remaining, says Jack Braly, the industry veteran installed as president and CEO of Adam’s new owner, AAI Acquisitions, which is backed by Russian private equity firms Industrial Investors and Kaskol. AAI Acquisitions says it has retained more than 50 of the original team from bankrupt Adam as it works to restart the program.
Citing the breathtaking pace of business aircraft deliveries, West Star Aviation of Alton, Ill., just announced it is constructing a $6 million facility at Columbia, S.C., Metropolitan Airport to increase its capacity for maintenance, modifications and avionics upgrades. The Columbia facility along with the company’s site in Grand Junction, Colo., will report as one when it comes to finances. The company also has a repair and service facility in Dallas.
