The source of the Fairchild Dornier 328 turboprops acquired by Great Plains Airlines was misstated in an Intelligence item in our August issue (page 18). The aircraft were acquired from Air Finance, not Air France.
Safe Flight Instrument Corp.'s long and extensive support of the Corporate Angel Network (CAN) earned it national recognition recently in the W.D. Littleford Awards for Corporate Community Service competition. The White Plains, N.Y., instrument maker was active in CAN's creation and has been a generous benefactor ever since, offering cancer patients transport in its corporate aircraft, as well as donating maintenance, storage space, expertise and money to the organization.
OMF Aircraft is working with BRS Technologies to certify its parachute recovery system on the Symphony 160 single-engine two-place aircraft. OMF also announced that it is extending its $2,000 flight training scholarship promotion for Symphony buyers. With the Symphony 160 certificated in the United States, Canada and Germany, and the European-targeted jet-fuel-burning diesel engine Symphony 135-TDI in flight test, plus the new four-place Symphony 4 scheduled to fly later this year, the company wants to keep up interest in the marketplace.
A recent report published by the Flight Safety Foundation reveals that 58 percent of commercial helicopter accidents occur in IMC. Pilots of fixed-wing aircraft have their troubles, too. Within the ranks of general aviation, weather has always been a significant factor in accident statistics, with dire consequences: As noted in the latest Nall safety report, 58.5 percent of the accidents occurring in IMC resulted in fatalities. So, regardless of what or where we fly, our ability to avoid bad weather is a key safety factor.
A new AOPA Air Safety Foundation study of stall/spin-type accidents contradicts some commonly held beliefs. ``A common misconception is that student pilots are most likely to suffer fatal stall/spin type accidents,'' said ASF Executive Director Bruce Landsberg. ``ASF's research shows that's completely untrue. Pilots with commercial pilot certificates are far more likely to be involved in such accidents,'' he continued, stating that stall and spin-related accidents, with a fatality rate of about 28 percent, account for about 10 percent of all general aviation accidents.
A plan to compensate airline passengers in Europe for flight delays and cancellations is scheduled to go before the European Council of Ministers this month. The proposed measure has drawn a strong outcry from the Association of European Airlines (AEA), International Air Transport Association (IATA), International Air Carriers Association (IACA) and the European Regions Airline Association (ERA), whose director general, Mike Ambrose, labeled the plan, including recent amendments, ``unworkable, unenforceable and disproportionate in their impact.
Having read with some interest David Esler's ``Sticker Shock: The High Cost of Operating in Europe'' in the July issue of B/CA (page 56) and, as an employee of Eurocontrol in the Central Route Charges Office (CRCO), I would like to bring the following to your attention relative to the Eurocontrol Air Navigation Charges. Esler makes reference to Nancy Schnetz's (Jeppesen Flight Services) statement that Jeppesen and other flight service companies have reports they can produce that calculate route charges for a particular route of flight.
The Helicopter Museum (THM) at Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England, unveiled its newly restored Westland Widgeon helicopter, one of the last remaining of the15 that were built. Bristow Helicopters operated this aircraft, which was abandoned in Nigeria during the Biafran civil war in the late 1960s. It was shipped back to the United Kingdom in 1970 and acquired for the museum in 1986, where it was on outdoor display until space in the restoration hangar became available in the mid-1990s.
For almost three decades, the midsize jet has been one of the most hotly contested segments of the business aircraft market. No one has been more keenly aware of this than the folks at Cessna. They threw their hats into the ring in 1978 with the Citation III and followed up with the Citations VI, VII, X and Excel, each with its own balance of speed, comfort, runway performance, range and price.
Jet Support Services, Inc. (JSSI) has selected Rockwell Collins Aviation Services to provide Collins Avionics Services Program (CASP) support on its fleet of aircraft. Under the five-year agreement, Collins Aviation Services (CAS) will provide forward exchange support for all Rockwell Collins equipment on JSSI's customer-owned fleet of Collins-equipped aircraft.
Edward King Jr. will receive a special NBAA First Century of Flight Award for his significant contributions to the advancement of aviation since the advent of powered flight 100 years ago. He and five other First Century of Flight recipients -- Serge Dassault, David Ewald, Jerome F. Lederer, Ray H. Siegfried II and John Tucker -- will be honored on Oct. 9 at the NBAA Safety Awards Banquet during the NBAA 56th Annual Meeting & Convention in Orlando.
Ground-bound animals have been going airborne since 1783, when Frenchmen Joseph and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier launched a hot air balloon with a sheep, a duck and a rooster aboard. The cock died from a broken neck on landing, but the other animals survived, proving: (1) that it was indeed possible to breathe while traversing the skies, and (2) that the circumstances attendant to one's return to terra firma counts for a lot. Only after the animals alighted did King Louis XVI permit humans to go aloft.
The FAA issued on Aug. 14 an STC for Gulfstream's G550 with the PlaneView cockpit based on Honeywell's Primus Epic integrated avionics system. ``Certification of the G550's integrated cockpit is the culmination of one of the largest design efforts ever undertaken in the field of avionics, and it marks the beginning of a new period in which pilots will use electronic displays and cursor control devices in place of traditional dials, knobs and switches,'' said John Todd, director of Gulfstream Programs, Honeywell Business, Regional and General Aviation Avionics.
Many moons ago during my employment at Douglas Aircraft Co., later to become McDonnell Douglas Corp., I managed the Piaggio-Douglas PD-808 small corporate jet program, which was to be a production/marketing joint venture with Rinaldo Piaggio S.p.A. and Douglas Aircraft Co. Torch Lewis was with Bill Lear at this time and was aware of the PD-808's presence at Long Beach. He flew a Learjet to LGB to meet and chat with our DAC and Piaggio crew.
-- Howard Corey of Flightcraft, Inc., Portland, Ore., has received the FAA's Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award, which recognizes aviation maintenance personnel who have more than 50 years of experience in the industry and who are a certified mechanic or repairman. The award is named after Charles Taylor, the engine builder and mechanic for the Wright brothers' historic airplane.
Pet relocation expenses are tax-deductible. IRS Publication #521, ``Moving Expenses,'' states that pet moving is a tax-deductible relocation expense when the relocation and moving is for purposes of change of employment. Consult your tax preparer for further information.
Oxford Airport's owner, BBA Group, has a go-ahead to use an extra 10 percent of its 5,092-foot runway for public transport category business aircraft, extending the usable length in this category from 3,937 feet to 4,327 feet, according to BBA Managing Director for Oxford Steve Jones. He said the runway ``extension'' will open up the airport to at least 15 more business jet models when they are operated in the public transport category. Private operators have routinely been able to legally take advantage of the full physical length of the runway.
Having recently flown UPS Aviation Technologies' CNX80 GPS moving map navigator, we can report that this panel-mount unit is a technological wonder. With a screen size about that of Garmin's GNS 430, it beats hands down both Garmin 400 and 500 series legacy products in terms of functionality and features. The highly touted WAAS receiver, with its five-times-per-second update rate, provides navigation guidance that's precise enough to drive down the center of a taxiway, never more than a stride away from the paint stripe.
L-3 Avionics Systems announced that version 5.0 of its I-line multifunction display software will allow the equipment to display weather text and graphics data from WSI. L-3's Web site is www.L-3com.com.
The Irish government will replace its 23-year-old Beech King Air 200 with a Learjet 45 to be operated by the Irish Air Corps in a Ministerial Air Transport role. The Irish government has decided not to proceed in replacing its Gulfstream IV with a long-range 40-seat aircraft. The Learjet 45 fuselage is built at Bombardier's plant in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and with content from suppliers south of the border, some 50 percent of the total aircraft is of Irish origin, says Bombardier.
EADS broke ground Aug. 7 for a new American Eurocopter Corp. (AEC) production site at the Golden Triangle Regional Airport in Columbus, Miss. The $11 million facility will employ an initial work force of 100 for final assembly and flight-testing of A-Star series helicopters. American Eurocopter LLC is a subsidiary of Eurocopter, itself a subsidiary of EADS. American Eurocopter sells about 40 AS350 AStars per year in the United States. There are currently about 500 AStars in service in the United States. AEC's Web site is www.eurocopterusa.com.
The Sovereign, similar to several new business aircraft, is equipped with Honeywell's Primus Epic avionics suite that features large-format flat-panel displays, modular avionics units (MAUs) that host several functions, and modular Primus Epic radios that are smaller and lighter than the last generation of Primus II radios. All the units are tied together by the latest version of Honeywell's Avionics Standard Communications Bus local area network.
A number of factors determine how well a radar system performs, and just because a unit works well in one aircraft doesn't mean the same unit will work well in another. Where and how the unit is installed in the aircraft can have a significant bearing on its performance, and airframe manufacturers are not always cognizant of the subtle effects that even minor physical changes and hardware modifications may cause.
Savannah Air Center's expansion projects continue. This month's scheduled completion of a 12,500-square-foot cabinetry shop will be followed by construction of a new 12,500-square-foot upholstery shop. In spring 2004 Savannah plans to start work on a new 70,000-square-foot maintenance hangar, which will increase its capacity for large corporate aircraft modification and completion work. Additionally, Savannah Air Center has gained two STC approvals.
