NetJets is helping to launch Bombardier’s newest aircraft, the Challenger 350, with a firm order for 75 aircraft and options for 125 that have a total value of $5.4 billion. Steve Ridolfi, president of Bombardier Business Aircraft, and Jordan Hansell, chairman and CEO of NetJets, on May 20 took the wraps off the $25.9 million Challenger 350, an enhanced version of the Challenger 300 that first flew on March 2. It’s due to enter service with NetJets, fitted with the fractional operator’s custom Signature Series interior, in May 2014.

ARINC Direct this summer is planning to begin delivery of its new Xplore device, a portable unit that is designed to bring ACARS services typically found only on large business jets and airliners to a range of aircraft. The Xplore unit combines four capabilities in a portable box – ACARS messaging services, SMS and instant messaging, voice services and BlackBerry email. The device can be attached by Velcro or thumb screws to a panel mount.

A year after Jet Aviation’s completions woes had “blemished” an otherwise strong financial performance at parent company General Dynamics, Jet Aviation President Dan Clare says the business has put new systems and processes in place and that customers have been happy with the results.

Cessna’s slowdown of light jet production is just that and not a suspension, President and CEO Scott Ernest noted at the European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva. “You don’t stop a production line,” says the executive, who spent nearly three decades overseeing supply chain matters with GE Aviation before taking the reins at the Wichita plane maker in 2011.

Fresh from January’s acquisition of the former Jet Aviation facility at London Biggin Hill, the 328 Group has developed a new dedicated business jet arm known as JETS. Under the 328 brand sits 328 Support Services GmbH, the type certificate holder for all Dornier Do 328 aircraft, plus 328 Design GmbH. The JETS brand covers a range of VIP and business aircraft support services in Germany and the U.K. The Biggin Hill buy also means that JETS now has the group’s first-ever fixed-base operation (FBO).

The Avic MA700 turboprop, now due to go into service in 2018, is the aircraft program that more than a few people in China's aircraft industry believe should have launched early last decade. At that time, Avic had built the Antonov An-24 turboprop as the Y-7 and had updated it in partnership with Western suppliers to create the MA60. The next move, so the theory goes, should have been a new turboprop, also built with Western suppliers. “But everyone was impatient,” says a Chinese industry official. “We wanted to make a jet.”

Hampered by financial woes and other limitations; may be out of time

With wildfires forecast to increase this year, the long-running saga of efforts to modernize the U.S. fleet of large firefighting aircraft has taken another turn: The latest attempt to place more modern airtankers under contract has been hit by another protest from a losing bidder. This marks the second time that a contract protest has delayed modernization of the fleet, and lawmakers are pressuring the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to override the protest and get new aircraft into service.