At last month's Asian Aerospace event in Hong Kong, Hawker Beechcraft announced orders for 16 new aircraft for the Asia-Pacific region. Macau-based Jet Asia Ltd. ordered four Hawker 900XPs and four Hawker 750s to be used in support of Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, a casino company. Avion Pacific Ltd., a Hawker Beechcraft authorized sales representative (which includes special missions aircraft) with bases in China, Hong Kong and Macau, has ordered two Hawker 4000s, two Hawker 900XPs and two Hawker 750s for its customers for delivery in 2009.
(Winston-Salem, N.C.) - Tom Mekis has been named vice president of aircraft sales, service and charter for this diversified aviation services company. Before being elevated to his current post, Mekis held a number of senior positions within the company. He began his aviation career with Beech Aircraft.
Epps Aviation, Atlanta, announced that Daniel M. Lane has been granted a Certificate of Designation from the FAA as a designed airworthiness representative (DAR).
What do "A008," the FAA's new operational control specification for FAR Part 135 commercial operations, and Sanskrit have in common? Tom, a friend and scholar, explained recently that Sanskrit, one of the world's most ancient languages, was also one of its most challenging because "for every rule of grammar there are 14 exceptions, and the exceptions are more important than the base rule!" The regulatory scribes at the FAA would be impressed since within the new A008, the details seem to be more important than the basic regulation!
Aon Corp., New York, N.Y., announced that Peter Schmitz, Robert Beyers and Tracy Toro have joined Aon Risk Services to lead its U.S. national aviation practice. They will be based in New York.
The AOPA reports that its Pilot Information Center has been fielding an increasing number of phone calls regarding the buying and selling of aircraft. Consequently, the AOPA recently reminded members that if they are interested in acquiring or disposing of an aircraft, they should review the considerable resources available online at the association's Web site (aopa.org).
DayJet plans to begin offering air taxi flights within Florida as we go to press on three-passenger Eclipse 500 jets. The unscheduled service will initially be available to a handful of the 250 corporate accounts the venture has signed up, with other customers being phased in over the coming weeks. The launch of service was cleared two weeks ago when DayJet received a final FAA approval to use the two-pilot Eclipse 500 VLJ for air taxi service following proving flights with an FAA inspector.
How do you make sure pilots, many of them non-professionals, are ready to take command of an all-new, relatively high performance twinjet, and do so all alone? With the development of the Citation Mustang, Cessna needed to be sure of the answers, but it first posed -- and largely answered -- the question years earlier.
* Aerospatiale Corvette airplanes - Repetitively inspect the left-hand and right-hand hinge fitting for cracks and replace them, if necessary. * Embraer EMB-135BJ airplanes - Two directives: (1) Replace the valance panel lighting system wiring; (2) Replace the water and waste system drain masts with newly designed ones. * General Electric CF34 engines - Inspect certain fan disks for electrical arc-out indications, and replace those that are found to have such arc-out indications. Also, reduce the life limit of certain fan disks.
Intelligence | 11 * Blakey Departs at Full Throttle * TAG Selling Its U.S. Interests? * GE Gets Czech Engine Maker * Sensis and Honeywell Demo Runway Safety Tools * Russia Cuts Import Duty on Large Business Jets * Northrop Grumman Acquires Scaled Composites Edited by James E. Swickard Commentary 7 | Viewpoint By William Garvey At Work on WOW 80 | Cause & Circumstance By William Garvey Black Night Over the Black Sea
GAMA, Washington, D.C., has promoted Jens Henning to vice president, operations. His primary responsibility will be flight operations, safety and training issues, including policy related to the modernization of the ATC system.
Seven aircraft accidents over the three-day Labor Day weekend claimed 17 lives, according to preliminary FAA reports. The accidents included the crash of a Lancair near Kernville, Calif., that claimed six lives, and one involving a B36 Bonanza that claimed all five aboard when it crashed in mountainous terrain.
Era Corp. has received a patent on ADS-B and multilateration techniques in which redundant transponder signals are filtered and time-stamped before aircraft tracking information is forwarded to air traffic control centers and other users. This will allow users to manage massive amounts of real-time aircraft transponder data using a variety of data links and networks with a variety of bandwidths. The technology has both military and civil applications.
EADS Socata has taken orders for six of its TBM 850s since gaining Brazilian ANAC certification this year. Socata's new Brazilian distributor, ABC Taxi Aereo, was only appointed in April and still sold $17 million worth of aircraft. Two of the TBMs are due for delivery this year while the remainder are slated for 2008. Taxi Aereo President Rogerio Montalvao Elian said, "We are benefiting from the 10-percent growth in Brazil's business aviation market, boosted by a dynamic economy - especially in the agricultural sector.
Lufthansa Aviation Group, Frankfurt, Germany, named Aage Dunhaup as the new press spokesman for Lufthansa. He will be based in London and will direct and coordinate communications and press activities for the Lufthansa Group in Europe.
Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) has delivered the 400th PW150A turboprop engine to Bombardier Aerospace for the Q400 regional airliner. The 5,000-shp PW150A went into service on the 70- to 80-seat airliner in 2000. Equipped with a dual-channel FADEC and advanced diagnostic capabilities, the PW150A is the latest member of P&WC's PW100 family, which has over 100 million operating hours to its credit.
Federal agencies involved with aviation, volcanoes and weather have created a new system of working together to track volcanic ash plumes and report the risks to the aviation community and keep air travelers out of harm's way. Standardizing and coordinating, detecting, tracking and forecasting hazardous ash clouds, and adequately warning the aviation community on the present and future location of the cloud should significantly reduce danger, a NOAA announcement said.
