What's it like to pilot the world's first fly-by-wire (FBW) business jet? Dassault provided B&CA with an exclusive opportunity to find out firsthand when we belted into the left seat of the Falcon 7X at its Istres Air Base Flight Test Center for a two-hour demo flight in mid-July.
Vice President - Analysis, The Teal Group, Fairfax, Va. Raised in metropolitan New York, Aboulafia earned a master's degree in War Studies at Kings College in London. Trained in the details of armed conflict, he became an expert on the technology employed in war, particularly aircraft and engines. Hired by Teal in 1989, his field of interest has expanded to include all of aerospace. A fine writer, unemotional observer and pithy commentator, he is a favorite source of news editors and producers, trade conference speaker and lecturer.
Out in Oklahoma -- the birthplace of business aviation, according to state aviation director Vic Bird -- they practice what they call "airvangelism." "Airvangelism is an awareness campaign, letting average citizens know just how important the aerospace industry is in our state," Bird told B&CA. "The second part of it involves telling them how important their GA airports are. I simply make people aware of something they take for granted."
Every year we eagerly anticipate the posting of the finalists in the Aerospace Journalist of the Year competition. While numerous articles by B&CA editors and contributors have been singled out for honor over the years, the field of entries keeps growing larger and more formidable. So, there's no telling which might receive strong marks from the judges. Now, I'm delighted to tell that seven articles published by B&CA made it to the shortlist of finalists in the 2006 round. The articles and their authors are:
With your Gulfstream vectored to the localizer and cleared for the approach at FL 330, you drop the main gear, call for positive flaps, deploy the Spey's thrust reversers, and push the nose over to a 22-degree negative angle of attack. Egads! With the flaps extended above the wing-like spoilers, airspeed pegs at 250 knots, and you set up a 10,000-fpm rate of descent. As the altimeter unwinds dizzyingly, you allow approach speed to build to 300 knots, then with the runway threshold looming in the windshield, call for down-flaps to begin breaking the descent.
-July 2-7: Citation Special Olympics Airlift, Ames, Iowa. To volunteer your Citation for the 2006 Citation Special Olympics Airlift call (877) 376-5438. -July 8-11: ASA 2006, Four Seasons, Las Vegas. Aviation Suppliers Association, (202) 347-6899. info@aviationsuppliers.org -July 12-16: Lawyer-Pilots Bar Association Summer Meeting, Mohegan Sun Resort, Uncasville, CT. www.lpba.org
Beaumont, Kan. An attorney by training, hotel man by career and airplane addict by choosing, Craig in 2001 suspended the rules of business that have moved him to accumulate and shed large properties over the years and purchased a tiny, shuttered century-and-a-half-old establishment adjacent to a 2,600-foot grass strip in the barely-there-burg of Beaumont. 1 A dilapidated, 11-room hotel in the middle of nowhere. Why did you do it?
LOCATED AT SASKATCHEWAN'S lateral midpoint, some 50 miles west of Regina and about 115 due north of Scobey, Mont., Moose Jaw is home not only to the Canadian Forces Snowbirds, the country's precision aerobatic team, but also to the NATO Flying Training in Canada (NFTC), drawing contractors and student fighter pilots from the United States, Europe and Canada. The base has grown to become the largest employer in the region.
Mission impossible? Nope, mission accomplished, thanks to business aircraft. That's because the same qualities of flexibility, autonomy and performance that have traditionally endeared turbine-powered corporate aircraft to the business community are making them increasingly popular among governments, their agencies, research organizations and the military for "special missions."
More than 85 Boeing Business Jets (BBJ) have entered service, since initial green deliveries began in November 1998. BBJs are flown by operators based in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Middle East. The fleet has accumulated in excess of 175,000 flight hours with a dispatch reliability of better than 99.9 percent.
I AM WRITING THIS in a 12th floor room of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in the fair city of Montreal (five floors below John and Yoko's "Bed-in for Peace" suite, for you Summer of Lovers). I drove here a few days ago (DayJet doesn't serve Danbury, Conn. yet) to attend the annual Canadian Business Aviation Association gathering and visit Bombardier.
What used midsize jet delivers the most bang-for-the-buck? Arguably, it's the Learjet 55. For less than $3 million, you get a 2,000-nm max range jet capable of carrying six to seven passengers. And with fuel prices nudging $5-plus per gallon at some FBOs, the Learjet 55's fuel miserliness -- it was conceived during the Arab oil embargo of the mid-1970s -- is a welcome bonus.
An aircraft's fuel system has a more profound effect on aircraft performance than any other airframe system. Without fuel, the mission inevitably comes to an abrupt stop and, unless the flight crew is very, very lucky, the ensuing forced landing will cause severe or catastrophic aircraft damage. That reality has been a great motivator for turbine aircraft designers, builders, maintainers and pilots for the past 60 years. Most fuel system designs, as a result, are very robust and very reliable in service, assuming they're properly maintained and operated.
By the mid-1970s, the light jet revolution was in full swing, with Cessna's Citation 1, Learjet 24 and the Dassault Falcon 10 taking center stage in the business aircraft market. These upstarts were problematic for Beech Aircraft because its existing King Airs lacked the ramp appeal and sporty performance offered by the new generation of light jets. King Airs were viewed by some as practical, utilitarian, efficient, responsible and, quite frankly, rather matronly.
Forty-eight hours before EBACE 2006 officially opened its doors to visitors, we made our final full-stop landing in Embraer's ERJ 190 flight-test aircraft at Geneva-Cointrin International Airport after a two-plus-hour demo flight. We taxied to a nondescript parking spot on the ramp, well away from the static display line adjacent to Palexpo, but well within eyesight of arriving conventioneers. Heads turned and people nattered about the unexpected presence of the big company-owned flight-test regional jet in Geneva.
OUR DEAR FRIEND, the late, great Greenhouser, Torch Lewis, took considerable pride in the fact that he'd attended all but the first four NBAA conventions -- up until 2002, when his doctors forbade it. (Of course, that's the one in which he was celebrated with the association's Platinum Wing award for lifetime achievement. And then he was gone.) Frankly, I never understood why he placed so much import on that record.
After graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1964, Ritchie finished first in his pilot class and was assigned to fighters, first flying F-104s as a test pilot, then F-4s in Vietnam. It was during his second combat tour that he downed five MiG-21s in a four-month period in 1972, becoming one of two aces in that conflict. After an unsuccessful run for Congress in his native North Carolina, Ritchie moved to Colorado to work for Joe Coors. He later served in the Reagan Administration and formed his own speaking/consulting business.
For more than a year, a great confrontation expected to be decided a year from now has been escalating between long-term antagonists over the classic prize of turf and how it will be governed and administered.
IT WAS SUPER BOWL Sunday 2006, with the Pittsburgh Steelers taking on the Seattle Seahawks in the 40th star-studded showdown, this time in Detroit. Fans by the tens of thousands were descending upon Ford Field, and as Jerome "The Bus" Bettis and his football battle-tested colleagues were suiting up, 250 miles to the west other teams of professionals were getting ready for a different kind of contest.
What a difference 12 years has made in the evolution of the Pilatus PC-12. The newest Series 10, FAA type certified in December 2005 as the PC-12/47, has a 10,450-pound (4,700 kilogram) MTOW that enables operators to fill the tanks and fly seven passengers 1,450 nm, arriving with NBAA IFR reserves. That's a considerable upgrade in capability. When we first flew the Pilatus PC-12 several years ago, we were impressed with its roominess, cabin comfort and short-field characteristics.
After majoring in Elizabethan literature at the University of North Carolina and graduating from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law in 1966, Weisman, by then a private pilot, opted for a career in aviation. In 1967, he founded Executive Air Fleet (EAF) introducing the concept of full-service aircraft management, timeshared aircraft, then managed aircraft that EAF made available for charter.
In the early 1980s, Dassault needed a large-cabin business jet to compete with Canadair's Challenger and the Gulfstream III. The solution was as easy as one, two, three. First, the company dusted off the widebody fuselage from its aborted Falcon 30/40 passenger jet design of the mid-1970s. Second, Dassault designers adapted the Falcon 50's new technology wing to the larger airplane. Third, Garrett Corp. had been developing more powerful, but fuel-miserly TFE731-5 engines for use aboard larger aircraft. Voila! The Falcon 900.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association has already gone on record vociferously opposing user fees as a funding mechanism for the FAA and, especially, for ATC.
