En route to Las Vegas, a Cessna 421B collided with terrain near Big Bear Lake, Calif. It was VFR and there was no flight plan filed. This was the first flight for the aircraft owner and his new pilot. A witness stated the airplane departed Runway 26 and rotated about 3,000 feet from the departure end with the flaps up. Just after liftoff, one engine "didn't sound right," but it didn't backfire. The aircraft yawed left then veered to the left, which is a standard maneuver to avoid overflying a school. The landing gear was still down.
The Canadian government is investing in two Pratt & Whitney Canada-funded projects to design, develop, test and optimize new fuel-efficient, reduced emission gas turbine engines. Two separate repayable investments totaling $350 million (Canadian) will complement P&WC's $1.5- billion R&D program and the involvement of universities and co-op students in the projects.
Embraer recently announced that Sirte Oil Co. has placed an order for an Embraer 170 jet configured in a single-class, 76-seat layout to transport company personnel from their main base in Marsa El Brega, Libya, to Tripoli and other station points within Libya. Delivery is scheduled for March. Embraer noted that this order was already accounted for in Embraer's order book as "undisclosed," and that the current order backlog is not affected by this announcement.
-Jan. 21-24: NBAA Schedulers and Dispatchers Conference, Phoenix. www.nbaa.org -Jan. 25: NBAA Business Aviation Regional Forum, Scottsdale, Ariz. www.nbaa.org -Jan. 31-Feb. 1: Middle East Business Aviation (MEBA) Conference and Expo, Airport Expo Dubai, United Arab Emirates. www.dubaiairshow.org -Feb. 6-7: Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition (ABACE2007), Hong Kong. NBAA, 1200 18th St. N.W., Ste. 400, Washington, DC 20036. (202) 783-9000. www.nbaa.org -Feb. 7: ABACE Japan Regional Forum, Nagoya. www.nbaa.org
San Antonio-based M7 Aerospace has introduced a new potable water system for Gulfstream IIIs. The STCed unit replaces earlier potable water systems, which the company says are prone to leakage and other service problems. The M7 system replaces a bleed-air pressurized water tank with a new, non-pressurized, 20-gallon tank to provide hot and cold running potable water in the aircraft's galley and lavatory. The new system also provides water flow from an on-demand electric pump and includes a new water quantity indicating system.
In Madrid, Bombardier Aerospace received the Batefuegos de Oro Award presented by the Asociación para la Promoción de Actividades Socioculturales (APAS) for "Greatest Technological Advancement in Firefighting." The following text was read as part of the presentation (translated from the Spanish): "In the 1960s the company designed the amphibious aircraft Canadair CL-215, which has evolved in the '90s into the CL-215T and later into the Bombardier 415.
Flight Explorer released version 7.0 of FE Professional Edition, which also provides an Earth-from-space global view of a flight. FE's system can now plug in ACARS position reports from anywhere in the world and from virtually any source, including ARINC, SITA, Iridium and Inmarsat, making the new viewer doubly useful.
A National Business Travel Association forecast reports that, "About 56 percent of respondent companies [will] use alternatives to commercial air travel, such as corporate jets, charter flights, fractional jet ownership or VLJs. That compares to 33 percent who reported using corporate jets or charters in 2004, and 27 percent in 2002." The association surveyed 189 travel managers for its forecast and almost 70 percent of those surveyed said they expect their companies' travelers to take more trips in 2007 vs. 2006.
Zurich-based charter company Comlux has taken delivery of the first Airbus A318 Elite - the newest and smallest member of the Airbus Corporate Jet (ACJ) family, which also includes the Airbus ACJ and A320 Prestige. Lufthansa Technik's Hamburg operation will outfit the aircraft with an 18-passenger VIP cabin. Comlux plans to place the aircraft in service by this spring, thus becoming the first to operate the new model. Comlux has two additional A318 Elites on order.
At 1441 EST, a Robinson R44 II was substantially damaged, and its pilot seriously injured, when it impacted a parking lot following an attempted landing on a shipping trailer at the Port of Baltimore in Maryland. The aircraft was to be delivered overseas to its new owner; the pilot was a last-minute substitution doing a favor for the previous owner. The shipping agent explained that he witnessed the accident as he attempted to direct and assist the pilot with his landing.
Viacom/Paramount Pictures Corporate Aviation, Morristown, N.J., announced that Ray Angwin has been promoted to director of flight crews and chief pilot.
I found Robert Searles' October 2006 Reflections about Major League baseball teams utilizing aircraft interesting ("Take Me Out to the Ball Game," page 70). Fred Zollner, one of the founders of the National Basketball Association after World War II, was the first to use aircraft for flying his basketball team, the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons. They moved to Detroit and became the Detroit Pistons. In the late 1940s, Fred had a DC-3, which he kept at Baer Field (FWA), the Fort Wayne Municipal Airport.
Indonesia has launched the trial phase of its new archipelago-wide airspace surveillance system with the deployment of three Thales ADS-B ground receivers - at Denpasar in Bali, Kupang in Nusa Tenggara Timur, and Natuna Island in the South China Sea -- linked by SITA communications systems and surveillance processors to Indonesia's control centers in Jakarta and Makassar. AirServices Australia provides project and technical support and remote monitoring capability. Indonesia's director general of civil aviation, Iksan Tatang, announced the trial in Jakarta.
The smoke plume on the east side of Los Angeles on the afternoon of Aug. 31, 1986, was clearly visible from the balcony of our apartment adjacent to LAX. The local news was reporting that an airliner had crashed into the suburb of Cerritos. My roommates, all Los Angeles-based pilots from a half dozen airlines, stood on the balcony watching that sick black plume rise. No one said the obvious, that the dark column marked the place of death for many.
US Helicopter Corp. started Sikorsky S-76 shuttle service between Manhattan and Continental Airlines' Newark, N.J., hub on Dec. 18, 2006. The company also operates a shuttle between Manhattan and American Airlines' terminal at New York's JFK. US Helicopter customers can check in, receive boarding passes for US Helicopter and Continental Airlines departing Newark, or American flights departing JFK, and complete security screening at the Manhattan heliport near Wall Street. Bags checked at the heliport will be through-checked to the passenger's final destination.
The FAA recently sent a revised funding proposal to the Office of Management and Budget for review that is said to contain a host of new fees on aviation users as well as substantial increases in taxes, the Weekly of Business Aviation reported. The proposal is believed to call for more than tripling the jet fuel and aviation gasoline taxes as well as establishing new fees for operating in large hub terminal airspace. The FAA further is believed to be seeking peak-hour pricing authority for fees in the hub terminal airspace.
Weather information just keeps getting better. Air Routing International has added new content to its online Web-based weather resource -- AiRMET. This global aviation weather program now has high-resolution satellite pictures of Europe, the Middle East and other areas. And passengers can now get a week's worth of weather forecasts while onboard. AiRMET's 30,000 maps and images generated daily can be accessed via computers and wireless phones.
Mid-Continent Instruments has added a two-inch course deviation indicator (CDI) to its product line of certified instruments. The new CDI saves on panel space because it can be placed almost anywhere in the instrument panel. The MD200 offers a safety feature that moves the pointers out of view with an invalid signal. The rectilinear meter movement allows for precise and accurate reading by the pilot. NAV, GPS and VLOC annunciation are built-in and backlit by LED lighting, which provides enhanced nighttime and sunlight readability, according to Mid-Continent.
SimCom, Orlando, announced that Tracy Brannon has been appointed to the company's board of directors. He holds the position of senior vice president and managing director of SimCom Training Centers.
General aviation advocates were sifting through the changes that lie ahead in Washington following the November elections, but were hopeful that one result would be a tougher road for any potential user-fee proposal.
THE FAA HAS PUBLISHED a great deal of information for private pilots to explain what work that they can do on a small Piper. But there is very little information available to inform a professional pilot about what, if anything, he or she can fix on a Falcon or Hawker or any other type of high-performance aircraft.
NetJets Aviation and NetJets Europe have placed orders for 30 Hawker 750s and 18 Hawker 900XPs. The orders' value exceeds $500 million. Deliveries will commence in 2007 and continue through 2009. "We are excited to be the launch customer for the Hawker 750 and Hawker 900XP. This order reflects the increased demand for NetJets private aviation solutions in both the United States. and in Europe," said Richard Santulli, chairman of NetJets Inc. "The Hawker 900XP will be an integral part of our Columbus [Ohio]-based NetJets Aviation program.
Through Advisory Circular 120-76A, the FAA recognizes three classes of "electronic flight bags." Class 1 is a portable tablet-type PC that runs off its own power supply and is completely stand-alone, including the software that drives the application. Class 2 is attached to the airframe in some way like a gooseneck and can run off aircraft power but still uses its own software and data; however, it can access electronic flight information from the aircraft's nav systems.
Rolls-Royce forecasts that 51,000 engines, valued at $70 billion, will be needed over the next 20 years to meet demand for 24,000 new corporate jet aircraft; from very light jets through business jetliners. It said the demand is being fueled by the business community's increasing recognition of the value of using business jets as a productivity tool. The forecast predicts that nearly 12,000 medium and large business jets will be delivered between 2006 and 2025.
