By John Wiley Competition for U.S. flying jobs is only going to get tougher with airlines announcing furloughs or filing for bankruptcy. Louis Smith, a retired Northwest Airlines captain, founder of the Future Airline Pilots Association and now president of FLTops.com, an aviation career information organization, says more than 2,200 airline pilots have recently lost their jobs, and more will likely follow.
?228-137?Sept. 10: NBAA Business Aviation Regional Forum, Hanscom Field, Bedford, Mass. www.nbaa.org ?228-137?Sept. 10-11: Chevron Product Integrity Training, Pittsburgh. Contact: Chevron Customer Service at (866) 557-3456 or e-mail to [email protected] ?228-137?Sept. 15-18: Flight Simulator Engineering and Maintenance Conference, Hilton Salt Lake Center, Salt Lake City, Utah. (410) 266-2008. www.aviation-ia.com ?228-137?Sept. 23: Green Aviation, the Novotel Hotel, Madrid, Spain. www.aviationweek.com/conferences
Journalists at this year's Farnborough International Airshow reported that the red-hot business aviation market seemed to have cooled some, at least in North America. And as charter activity waned a bit, more red flags went up.
The FAA Flight Plan also included performance results for fiscal 2008. The agency said it achieved its goal of maintaining 99.8 percent operational availability for the top 35 airports, and met its target of an average capacity of 101,868 operations per day for these airports collectively. The goal of maintaining average daily airport capacity of 33,676 operations in the seven major metropolitan areas was also met, it said. The agency plans to increase these target rates slightly by fiscal 2011, and maintain that rate through fiscal 2013.
Matthew Huff, chief operating officer of O'Gara Aviation, the Atlanta-based aircraft acquisition and sales company, began noticing a drop in the pace of aircraft inquiries this spring. The decline occurred at about the same time that jet fuel prices climbed above $5 per gallon. Now, he sees softening in virtually all market segments, a situation he expects will continue through first quarter 2009.
The NBAA has made several presentations from the June Annual Flight Attendants Conference available to everyone as podcasts. Especially valuable is "Smoke, Fire and Fumes," presented by Capt. H.G. Bombardi. The recorded session, attended by 276 people, discusses how flight attendants play a crucial part in helping the cockpit crew determine the proper solution to a smoke, fire or fume event. To download this podcast and others, visit http://web.nbaa.org/public/cs/fltatt/2008. Price: No charge NBAA www.nbaa.org
The National Air Transportation Association believes that varying interpretation of FARs by FAA Regional Offices, Aircraft Certification Offices (ACOs) and Flight Standards District Offices (FSDOs) cost general aviation businesses hundreds of millions of dollars annually when previously approved actions are subject to re-interpretation.
Hawker Beechcraft, Wichita, appointed Lance Crawford as HBC vice president and chief information officer. Bob Blouin, vice president, Flight Operations, now has full responsibility for global flight operations for HBC, including production test, demonstration, transportation and experimental flight. Drew McEwen is vice president, Domestic Executive Beechcraft Sales, responsible for the King Air C90GTi, Baron G58 and Bonanza G36. Brad Stancil is vice president, Domestic Corporate Beechcraft Sales handling the Premier II, and IA, King Air 350 and King Air B200GT.
Landmark Aviation acquired Jimsair Aviation Services at San Diego International Airport on July 18, expanding its FBO network to 42 locations in the United States, Canada and Western Europe. Headquartered in Houston, Landmark Aviation (www.landmarkaviation.com) is a portfolio company of GTCR Golder Rauner, a private equity firm based in Chicago, and Platform Partners, LLC, a private holding company based in Houston.
Epic Aircraft, Bend, Ore., named Fred Breidenbach to its board of advisors. Breidenbach formerly was president and chief operating officer at Gulfstream Aerospace Corp.
Honeywell launched the Bendix/King AV80R Series portable avionics system that includes a handheld multifunction display and two synthetic-vision equipped cockpit information systems. The synthetic vision systems, the AV80R Horizon 3D and AV80R Vision 3D, provide graphical renderings of the environment with a view of the aircraft position and situation outside the cockpit. The systems provide pilots with real-time satellite weather information, topographic terrain and aeronautic navigation information.
Avidyne is developing new synthetic vision system (SVS) and enhanced vision system (EVS) upgrades for its Entegra product line. The SVS depicts 3-D terrain out to the horizon, based on aircraft altitude above the ground. The system also depicts obstacles, traffic and "Highway-in-the-Sky" (HITS) on the primary flight display. The EVS uses a Max-Viz EVS-100 infrared camera, which provides a daytime view at night, allowing pilots to see up to 10 times farther in marginal VFR conditions.
Comlux, Hergiswell, Switzerland, announced establishment of Comlux Creatives, which will be led by Isabelle Bevilacqua. Alexandra Brokelmann has been named as art director.
At 1231 MST, an experimental Raytheon Cobra unmanned aircraft system (UAS), N601RN, sustained substantial damage when it collided with a light pole while maneuvering for a pre-programmed landing near Colorado Springs, Colo. The aircraft was registered to and operated by the Raytheon Co. of Tucson. There were no injuries to persons on the ground. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the 14 CFR Part 91 demonstration flight, and no flight plan was filed. The aircraft had departed from a road paralleling one of the athletic fields on the grounds of the U.S.
The Hawker 1000 is the longest range, longest fuselage legacy Hawker ever built. It also has advanced features, including a split-bus electrical system, jammed flight control protection and Honeywell SPZ-8000 integrated avionics system. It's a pilot's airplane, one that's easy to fly and one that has very docile engine-out handling characteristics, in large part because of its bleed-air powered rudder bias system. It's the only Hawker ever to have an aft baggage compartment, one with 50 cubic feet of storage and externally accessible by means of a separate door.
Intelligence | 13 ?228-137? Pratt & Whitney Launches New Engine Family ?228-137? FAA Expands Corridor Integrated Weather System ?228-137? U.S., European Aerospace Trade Groups Plot Conduct, Environmental Strategies ?228-137? NATA Surveys Impact of FAA Inconsistent Rule Interpretations ?228-137? Sentient Reorganizes Into Business Units ?228-137? PiperJet First Flight Edited by James E. Swickard Commentary 7 | Viewpoint By William Garvey
U.S. and European aerospace trade group leaders plan to hold an international forum on business conduct each year to review their progress toward mutual cooperation and also develop strategies, according to a joint statement from the Farnborough International Airshow in the U.K. They also have also decided to organize an environmental summit in Paris this fall to coincide with an annual European industry conference.
A confident Embraer has posted record second-quarter revenues of $1.6 billion, as well as a 58-percent year-on-year rise in net income to $134.3 million. The Brazilian manufacturer also recorded a significant gain in operating income, which grew to $113.2 million from the $48.7 million posted in the same period in 2007 despite increases in research and development and general administrative costs. The company's operating margin rose 3.3 percentage points to 6.9 percent.
Aviation software application developer ForeFlight LLC has selected Universal Weather and Aviation's UVTripPlanner as the worldwide airport data provider of ForeFlight Mobile v2.0 - the first flight planning application designed specifically for the iPhone and iPod touch. ForeFlight Mobile v2.0 is a fully native iPhone application that can be installed on any iPhone using v2.0 iPhone OS. Each screen has been designed around a pilot's flight planning workflow while providing quick access to UVTripPlanner's worldwide data and airport diagrams.
Just in time to greet Olympics-bound traffic, Jet Aviation opened a brand-new FBO facility at Beijing's Capital International Airport (PEK). The Aug. 5 opening coincided with the arrival of private aircraft for the Olympic Games, whose torch lighting ceremonies were Aug. 8 and officially ended Aug. 24.
