Airline sock puppet, and long-time user fee advocate, the Reason Foundation issued its latest report in Washington on May 4 proclaiming that trust fund depletion will create an FAA funding crisis, and that the scheduled carriers bear an unfair share of the Air Traffic Organization cost not proportional to their share of the benefits. Consequently, the report recommends that future ATO costs be covered through fees paid proportionately by users -- notably, charter and fractional operators and turbine-powered business aircraft.
Although the use of RNP 2 X 0.3 occurred throughout this article, the new SAAAR criteria will permit use of lower values in decreasing increments as small as RNP 2 X 0.10, which is only 1,215 feet each side of centerline. The ability to demonstrate aircraft and flight crew compliance with smaller RNP values becomes more difficult and expensive; thus, these values should be avoided except where a significant operational advantage over RNP 2 X 0.3 would result.
The Challenger 870's glass cockpit features six CRTs that provide PFD, MFD and full EICAS functionality, including system synoptics and smart color cuing for advisories, abnormalities and emergencies. The package includes dual FMS with optional ACARs data link, dual GPS receivers, WXR 840 solid-state weather radar, dual 8.33 kHz spacing comm transceivers, dual nav receivers, Mode S transponder, TCAS, E GPWS, solid-state voice and flight data recorders, and enhanced maintenance diagnostics with quick access recorder.
Dassault's Falcon 7X made its first flight May 5. The new, top-of-the-line trijet took off from Bordeaux's International Airport, climbed to 10,000 feet for systems checks, and then climbed to 25,000 feet for acceleration/deceleration tests and autopilot and autothrottle checks. The flight lasted 96 minutes. Flight testing continued at the company's test center in Istres, France, where a second test aircraft is scheduled to arrive there as you read this; the third will follow this summer. The No.
Banyan Air Service, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., hired Jerry Proenza as the company's avionics service manager. He will be responsible for the bench, troubleshooting and repair divisions in the avionics department. Previously, Proenza was the owner and chief pilot of World Continental, Deland, Fla. Barnes Aerospace, Windsor, Conn., appointed Richard R. Barnhart to the position of general manager of maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO). Most recently, Barnhart was with Kaman Corp. as president of the firm's Aerostructures Division.
Bombardier Aerospace, Quebec, appointed Peter Likoray to the position of sales director for new and pre-owned aircraft in Canada. Likoray commands complete sales responsibility for Bombardier Learjet, Challenger and Global business jets in Canada.
NBAA President Ed Bolen is bullish about prospects for the EBACE European business aviation conference and trade show. This year's event drew 7,667 registrants, compared with 6,500 a year ago; exhibit space sold rose 21 percent and the number of airplanes on display rose from 36 last year to 50 last week.
Arnoni Aviation moved its Landing Gear and Accessory shops into a 25,000-square-foot facility next to the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. The facility includes more than 10,000 square feet of environmentally controlled shop space. The larger facilities will allow the company to grow its HS125 landing gear overhaul business.
CSSI, a Washington, D.C. transportation and engineering services firm, won a contract valued at up to $35 million over five years from the FAA to provide research, engineering, analysis and policy support. The contract calls for CSSI to support the FAA's Office of Operations Planning System Engineering, Office of Environment and Energy and Airports Community and Environmental Needs Division. CSSI will develop and investigate technologies for implementation of advanced communications, navigation, surveillance and air traffic management concepts.
Today, airline travelers often feel they're treated like air freight. About 90 percent of all routes use the hub-and-spoke route system, the bane of the business traveler. Hub-and-spoke is great for stuffing cabins and thus boosting air carriers' bottom lines. But the store-and-forward air cargo processing model subjects road warriors to two- and three-leg business trips during which ground time often exceeds flight time. Hub congestion, security check hassles, weather delays and cancellations just compound the misery.
THIS MONTH'S DIATRIBE is directed at the Environmental Protection Agency, which apparently can't distinguish between necessary regulations and government busywork. Specifically, the EPA is imposing some very expensive requirements on airports and fuel suppliers to guard against the catastrophic potential of massive fuel spills from parked fuel trucks!
General Dynamics Aviation Services was named an approved service provider for the General Electric CF34 engine. The approval covers all six GDAS service centers and includes engine inspections, overhauls, recurring maintenance, nonscheduled repairs and warranty work.
NEARING 2:00AM ON Oct. 31, 1999, an EgyptAir Boeing 767 carrying 203 passengers and 14 crewmembers from New York to Cairo unexpectedly, and without warning, began descending from FL330. Within minutes, Flight 990 crashed into the frigid, pitch-black Atlantic, 60 miles south of Nantucket. All aboard perished.
At the end of April, Bell Helicopter was expecting to receive FAA certification of the Bell 210 within a matter of days. The rotorcraft, which is a civil-certified, improved version of the U.S. Army's UH-1H, is designed to provide ``a significant increase capability over comparative models at greatly reduced direct operating costs.''
For at least two decades, business aircraft pilots have been promised that someday they would be able to download weather graphics directly onto cockpit displays. The availability of uplinked weather from ground stations would be a watershed breakthrough because pilots would be able to look hundreds, if not thousands, of miles along their intended flight plan routes to check for weather hazards.
PC-12 distributor Atlas Pilatus Center appointed Aerodynamics, Inc. as an authorized Pilatus PC-12 satellite service center. The Pontiac, Mich.-based company will distribute parts and provide services for PC-12s based in the Michigan area. Established in 1998 in Manchester, N.H., Atlas maintains more than 30 PC-12s owned by individuals and corporations and supports the PlaneSense PC-12 fractional ownership program.
Avfuel Corp. and Signature Flight Support, respectively the nation's largest independent aviation fuel supplier and largest FBO chain, have signed a new agreement expanding their long-time relationship and entering into a major fuel support program. Avfuel has become one of Signature's largest fuel suppliers in recent years, and the new agreement will mean that Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Avfuel will be delivering fuel to even more Signature bases. In addition, Avfuel's AVTRIP incentive plan will now be offered at domestic Signature locations.
Specifically, the MAC report highlights major cuts to the agency's facility and equipment (F&E) budget in fiscal 2005 and fiscal 2006 that will result in a funding track, where the FAA ``will not achieve nearly the ATC capacity'' proposed in its 10-year plan. The White House and Congress need to support the F&E budget at the levels recommended in authorization bills, the MAC report said. The MAC also believes the FAA must further cut its costs.
Since the Baltic States joined the European Union, passenger growth in three of their airlines, Air Lithuania, Lithuanian Airlines and airBaltic, has jumped more than 22 percent. ERA (European Regions Airline Association) Irish and Finnish members, based in these states also saw significant growth in passenger numbers during 2004. ERA reports average regional airline results showed a passenger growth up by 4.1 percent and revenue passenger kilometers up 7.1 percent over 2003 figures.
Quest Aircraft received seven orders for its 10-place, single-engine Kodiak in the first week after it began accepting deposits. ``These orders represent three of the five primary market segments that Quest feels have appropriate applications for the Kodiak,'' said Paul Schaller, president and CEO. Buyers ranged from personal-use operators to Part 135 charter operators to humanitarian/mission organizations. Schaller said the company is also targeting governmental and special use markets as well as international markets.
The FAA and Transport Canada approved four upgrades to Bombardier CRJ-series aircraft, Bombardier said, and European regulatory approval is expected to follow soon. The agencies approved the Bombardier CRJ 900 Enhanced Performance Package (EPP) to improve takeoff and landing distances, the CRJ 900 long range variant, the CRJ 700 Series 705 and the CRJ 700 engine upgrade to a variant of the CRJ 900 engine. Bombardier also said Transport Canada would extend the Bombardier CRJ 700 Series 705 the same type rating as the CRJ 900 with the EPP.
House members recently encouraged the TSA to move forward on the Transportation Security Administration's Access Certificate (TSAAC) program and directed the agency to report back to Congress early next year on the program's progress. The House homeland security appropriations subcommittee included that directive in the report language to the fiscal 2006 homeland security appropriations bill. TSAAC, developed in concert with NBAA, has been tested at three New York area airports with 24 participating operators.
Stage III Technologies announced that it has received final FAA approval for its Gulfstream GII and GIII stage 3 hushkit that reduces noise to the 70-73 dBA level (depending on model), permitting operations at all airports serving the Gulfstream fleet at any time at maximum weight regardless of noise curfews. Stage III demonstrated its hushkit over two weeks in May with stops at Van Nuys, Teterboro, Dallas and West Palm Beach.
BAE Systems Analytical Solutions, working through the Aerospace Innovation Center, has developed simulation software to train aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul workers in lean techniques to improve efficiency, product flow and quality. BAE Systems teamed with Macon State College and Georgia Tech School of Industrial Engineering on the project. The Aerospace Innovation Center is a coalition among government, academia and private institutions in Georgia.
PrivatAir, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, added Steve Courtiss and Tracy Cassalia as charter sales representatives to its U.S. headquarters in Stratford, Conn.
