USAirways Express is expected to introduce Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) to about 100 aircraft by mid-summer. The regional network will be installing Orbital Sciences' CNS-12 digital communications system, which recently was approved after trials by ARINC. Orbital says the new system offers regional and corporate aircraft the same precise tracking of aircraft component usage, takeoff and landing times, and crew duty time that ACARS offered major airlines. CNS-12 lists for $25,000 to $40,000 per aircraft.
Italian manufacturer Piaggio has delivered the first P.180 pusher turboprop to be equipped with an aluminum alloy vertical fin and canard to an unnamed, Palm Springs, Calif.-based buyer. All prior P.180s used carbon fiber for these portions of the airframe; Piaggio says the change not only allows reduced production costs, but an increase in maximum operating speed from 0.67 to 0.7 Mach.
The runway at Jackson Hole Airport (JAC) in Jackson Hole, Wyo., is closing temporarily for construction. Taxiway A will operate as the airport's temporary runway from April 17 to May 27 during daylight hours only. The airport will be closed during the evening and its ILS system will be unavailable at all times during the closure. Non-precision approaches will be limited to Category A and B circling minimums only.
The FAA plans to award Cessna Aircraft a contract to develop ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE) as an alternative to 100LL aviation fuel. The Cessna program would augment the FAA's long-term unleaded avgas development program, which aims to have a ``new specification'' for high-octane unleaded aviation gasoline by 2003.
Providence is being in the right place at the right time. Walt Coleman, who is retiring this month as president of the Regional Airline Association, has been fortunate to helm the organization at a time when the introduction of new avionics, airframes and engines have propelled regional aviation to the forefront of commercial aerospace.
Creating what it calls the nation's ``largest aviation technology training establishment,'' Colorado Aero Tech, Northrop Rice-Houston and Northop Rice-Los Angeles have merged to create the Westwood College of Aviation Technology (WCAT). Westwood is owned by Denver-based Alta Colleges and offers A&P and avionics technician training. The school says it has approximately 1,400 students enrolled at its three locations and expects that 20 percent of the country's new aviation maintenance professionals will graduate from one of its campuses this year.
New initiatives could remedy Europe's growing air traffic delay problems, according to officials who attended recent talks in Brussels, Belgium. Transport Ministers from 38 European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) agreed on the need to unify the continent's air traffic management (ATM) system under central control, creating what they call a `Single European Sky.' The group also endorsed plans to reduce delays down to ``Summer 1997 levels,'' despite an anticipated 5.3 percent increase in traffic this year.
Jet, the famed bird-chasing dog, is apparently doing his job. A study of bird strikes at Southwest Florida International Airport shows only four reported bird strikes in 1999, compared with nine in 1997 and 16 in 1998, before Jet's arrival. The three-year-old border collie herds birds away from aircraft without hurting them, according to airport authorities. Further evidence of Jet's effectiveness is an increase in bird strikes in April 1999, when he was away for training and recovering from an off-duty injury.
Steve Jobs, Apple Computer's founder and $1-a-year CEO received a new Gulfstream V as a bonus from the computer-maker's board of directors. Apple rewarded Jobs for the company's increase in earnings and stock price since returning. The company will take a $90 million charge against earnings to cover the cost of the aircraft as well as any income tax liability Jobs would have incurred had the aircraft been treated as income.
In conjunction with U.K.-based Cabair, Orlando Flight Training (OFT) will offer pilot training that conforms to European Joint Aviation Authority (JAA) regulations. The Kissimmee, Fla., flight school is licensed by the British Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the FAA to conduct training. Candidates for the U.K. private pilot license must receive a checkride from the British Chief Flying Instructor (CFI) who is based at OFT. The school offers basic flight training as well as night qualification, a U.K. instrument rating and multiengine rating.
Atlantic Aviation added a Teterboro-based Dassault Falcon 900B, a Wilmington, Del.-based Dassault Falcon 900EX and a Naples, Fla.-based Learjet 35 to its charter fleet.
DFW-based SimuFlite International is offering seven Cessna Citation training scholarships this year through three organizations. Women in Aviation International is awarding one Citation type rating and an initial Citation maintenance training course at its annual convention in Memphis this month. The University Aviation Association has four type ratings available through its member institutions and Detroit-based Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum is awarding a Citation type rating.
First Aviation Services subsidiary Aerospace Products International (API) has been named a master distributor for the BFGoodrich Aerospace Ice Protection System. API also has been named a distributor for Scott Aviation, which manufactures oxygen systems, aircraft safety equipment and tailwheel as-semblies.
Socata rolled out the first TB20 Trinidad Generation Two (GT) at its plant in Tarbes, France on February 2, to coincide with French certification of the four/five-seat piston single. The GT package includes a larger one-piece canopy, flush-mounted windows, a new fin strake, upturned wingtips, a larger baggage door, rear seat headrests and a new fuel tank door.
Edited by Paul RichfieldBy Paul Richfield, in Las Vegas
Sikorsky Aircraft hopes refinements to its S-76 helicopter will keep the corporate and offshore mainstay hovering well into the 21st century. Recent improvements include graphite doors, a Honeywell dual-digital automatic flight control system, Parker flat-panel displays, and Collins navigation and communications radios.
Be-A-Pilot, the general aviation organization that promotes learning to fly, says the number of new pilot starts rose again in 1999, the third consecutive increase since the group was founded in 1996. With Russ Meyer as chairman, a full-time executive director and $1.8 million in funding, Be-A-Pilot operates a Web site (www.beapilot.com), provides marketing materials and marketing ideas to flight schools, and has created a national advertising campaign to encourage new pilot starts.
Fort Worth-based Galaxy Aerospace delivered its first Galaxy business jet to TTI, Inc., an electronics distributor also headquartered in Fort Worth. The manufacturer expects to deliver about 20 Galaxies and 10 SPXs to various customers by the end of the year. Galaxy President and CEO Brian Barents says the company will produce one Galaxy per month through the summer, when the rate will increase to two aircraft per month. Galaxy also recently delivered the first Galaxy SPX completed at the Alliance Airport plant.
A classic conflict pitting Good against Bad with huge stakes at risk is lurching toward conclusion this spring in Washington. The guys in the white hats, led by Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, include a remarkably united aviation community and three-quarters of the House of Representatives. The good guys are battling for enactment of a viable long-term funding and reauthorization program for the FAA that does not include onerous new taxes on aviation users.
Soloy is offering the engine conversion program for Eurocopter AStar AS 350-D, B and BA models it originally developed for Allison in the mid-1980s. Known as the Soloy AllStar, the conversion replaces the helicopters' original Lycoming engines with Rolls-Royce 250-C30M engines. Soloy's December 1999 purchase of the AllStar STC from Rocky Mountain Helicopters also marks the company's reentry into the helicopter retrofit business. The company says it has retrofitted more than 400 fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft with Rolls-Royce Engines.
Chicago-based Jet Support Services, Inc. (JSSI) has created an aviation management and consulting firm known as Scivation Consulting. Consulting is a ``natural extension'' of JSSI's Tip-to-Tail hourly maintenance program, says CEO Rick Haskins. Scivation will advise clients on aircraft acquisitions, maintenance, completion and refurbishing. Scivation is headed by former JSSI Vice President Karl A. Florian and has three full-time consultants on staff.
A snap-out ``Approach-and-Landing Risk Awareness Checklist,'' drilled for insertion into your approach plate binders, is bound into this issue. This article describes that checklist and the research upon which it is constructed. The Flight Safety Foundation's (FSF) Approach and Landing Accident Reduction (ALAR) Task Force determined that the highest percentage of crew errors on routine flights -- 49.4 percent -- occurred during the approach-and-landing phase. This checklist, we believe, can improve crew awareness and reduce that error rate.
Tower and ground frequencies at New York's Westchester County Airport (HPN) are being changed to reduce interference with Baltimore approach and Suffolk County ground. After the change, HPN's tower frequency will be 118.75 while HPN ground can be reached at 121.825. The change is expected to occur this spring. Operators experiencing difficulty with the change are advised to call tower manager Doug Alter at (914) 948-6520.
