Atlantic Aero, Greensboro, N.C., has appointed Jim Spinder president and chief operating officer for the company and its sister companies Aero Modifications&Consulting, LLC and Mid Atlantic Freight. Dan Morris has been hired as Atlantic's vice president of avionics engineering.
Anyone who visited the static display at this year's NBAA Convention had to be impressed that approximately 150 aircraft could be exhibited on the ramp while regular operations continued at Showalter Flying Service. But perhaps that is not too surprising, considering that the FBO has been involved in planning NBAA static displays for a decade.
The New York City Economic Development Corp. (EDC) issued an RFP for operation of the East 34th Street Heliport in Manhattan. In its announcement, the EDC noted that due to its location in a ``dense urban environment'' there are special restrictions on its operation. However, evidently to make the operation more palatable to neighbors, the EDC encourages respondents to suggest public amenities such as ``bike paths and pedestrian walkways'' on the 40,400-square-foot concrete wharf. At the very least, it should help New York City get its fair share of mammal strikes.
Dassault Aviation reported a profit of 145 million euros ($142 million) for the first half of the year ended June 30, but Chairman Charles Edelstenne warned that the lack of growth in the economy is forcing the company to consider cutting 2003 production from six business jets per month to five. Sales in the first half of the year for the French airplane maker slid from 1.61 billion euros ($1.58 billion) to 1.47 billion euros ($1.44 billion), with the Falcon business jet line accounting for 72 percent of sales.
A group of Gulfstream Aerospace pilots was wandering through the displays at the 1993 Paris Air Show when they stopped in their tracks. Before them was the future, a head-up display, the perfect accessory for the coming Gulfstream V. They brought their executives to see and in short order a project was born.
Mooney Aerospace boosted its limited warranty on proprietary Mooney-produced parts to three years or 600 hours, whichever comes first. The warranty applies to parts produced for all three Mooney airplane lines --the Bravo (M20M), Ovation2 (M20R) and Eagle2 (M20S). Warranty service can be provided by any of the independent Mooney service centers or by Mooney's Factory Service Center in Kerrville, Texas Excluded from the warranty are consumables and typical wear and tear.
At the Airports Council International-North America conference in Salt Lake City, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey said runway incursions will be one of her highest priorities, continuing a trend that emerged from her stint as NTSB chair. She called on airports to complete efforts to develop site-specific procedures to reduce vehicle crossings of runways. Highlighting the importance of the airport movement area safety systems (AMASS) program, Blakey added the program is aimed at preventing runway collisions rather than runway incursions.
Garrett-Long Island has received its first order for heavy maintenance work on a Honeywell GTCP36-150F2M APU. The facility recently acquired tooling and test equipment to enable its technicians to perform hot section as well as heavy maintenance work on the Falcon 2000 APU. ``We have a great deal of experience working on APUs for other aircraft,'' said Bill McIlwraith, APU customer service. ``With our new tooling, we're able to go beyond simple line service for the Falcon 2000 and meet the operator's full-service needs.''
Security training is another sticking point. The ``Twelve-Five Rule'' calls for security training programs, but the agency has not given operators guidance on how to meet the requirements. The TSA said that ``Due to the high number of operators, their lack of prior exposure to security training programs, and the decentralized nature of this sector of the industry, an organized training regime has not been established.'' The TSA said it would develop a template curriculum that would provide appropriate training procedures.
The problem with most audits, some critics believe, is that they provide only a ``snapshot'' of an operation taken on a specific day. What fractional ownership shareholders need to ensure their program managers are running safe operations and not exposing them to potential liability situations is a moving window. Aviation Resource Group/US (ARG/US) claims to have invented one.
Aviation Learning, Inc. has introduced a line of off-the-shelf Standard Practices training products for the aviation maintenance market. The self-paced, CD-ROM-based courses, each of less than an hour's duration, are designed to train a specific skill.
LoneStar Propjets has received an STC to replace the Pratt&Whitney 20/21 engines on Beech King Air 90 series aircraft with Czechoslovakian-made Walter M601E-11s turning new Avia-Hamilton five-blade propellers. LoneStar said the modification, called the Power 90, increases engine performance by more than 200 shp and enables the aircraft to make routine flights between FL 200 and FL 250. The new engines do not require hot section inspections (HSI) and have an overhaul interval of 3,000 hours. Price: $575,000 new (with engine exchange)
By Torch Lewis Don't be an ass about aspirin. I was. I made it to the Twilight Zone and back.
ASPIRIN MAKERS TRUMPET in their TV commercials that taking one of their little white pills a day may prevent a heart attack. Having suffered lower back pains, I deduced that I could take two a day, one for my back pain and one for my heart. Wrong! Too much aspirin attacks the stomach lining (did you know that, Hersch?), causing internal bleeding. By the time I realized that everything in my internale was not tickety-boo, I was on a gurney headed for the emergency room.
John Carr President, National Air Traffic Controllers Association An air traffic controller in the U.S. Navy, Carr took a similar position with the FAA in 1982 and worked traffic at Kansas City International, Chicago TRACON, and Cleveland Hopkins before being elected to head the 20,000-member NATCA. His wife, Jill, is a controller at Washington Dulles. The Carrs have an eight-month-old daughter, Rachael. 1 What inspired you to become an air traffic controller?
Cessna Aircraft delivered its 200th Citation X to NetJets Inc., which has more than 60 Citation Xs in service and ordered 12 more at this year's NBAA Convention.
Stornoway Airport in the Western Isles of Scotland is to get its first-ever scheduled jet operation at the start of the winter season. The daily flights from Edinburgh will be operated by BMi flying Embraer ERJ 145s. The airport is also currently served by BA/Loganair flying Saab SF-340Bs from Edinburgh and by BA CitiExpress from Glasgow using BAE ATPs. M.V.
Imagine needing to hire a veteran business aircraft technician and coming across Lee Boulanger's resume. Here's a mechanic with more than 20 years working on Bombardier Challengers, a laundry list of impeccable references, and a record of success that's earned Boulanger a Challenger aircraft maintenance supervisor position at Bombardier's service center in Hartford, Conn. A thoroughly experienced maintenance pro, and quite likely the perfect man for the job. Perfectly qualified, yes. But the right man, she is not.
Manufacturer ups and downs. Raytheon Aircraft is laying off another 220 workers in Wichita and Salina, Kan., while Lancair is gearing up to recall some of the 200 people it laid off in Bend, Ore., late this summer. Raytheon's cuts include both hourly and salaried workers in jobs across the entire product line and were necessitated by the ``continued weak economy and lower estimated [aircraft] build rates for 2003,'' said spokesman Tim Travis.
Ha! Ha! Just Kidding. The FAA gave the industry a considerable fright before backpedaling and adding 75 days to the comment period on its guidance on how to comply with proposed new repair station rules. The first release of the Advisory Circular covering repair station manuals gave only 15 days for industry comments. This came barely two weeks after four industry groups had petitioned the agency to delay implementation of the rules because the industry did not have an opportunity to review and comment on the guidance.
Jazz, Air Canada's regional airline affiliate, plans to cut 391 jobs. This is in addition to the 1,300 job cuts announced by the parent airline in August. Spokesperson Debra Williams said that while the number of jobs to be eliminated has been determined, the airline will endeavor to keep the number of actual employees out the door at a minimum by using such things as special leaves of absence and job sharing. Pilot and flight attendant positions account for 29 percent of the cuts.
By David Collogan david_collogan@ mcgraw-hill.com Seeing 2002 grow smaller in the rear-view mirror will be a welcome sight. bi Washington Bureau Chief David Collogan is editor of B/CA's sister publication, The Weekly of Business Aviation.
ONE OF THE NICEST things about the upcoming holidays is that they'll mark the closing days of 2002, a period of time that most of us will be happy to consign to a cobwebbed corner of the memory bank.
The Boeing Co. has acquired all of FlightSafety International's (FSI) interests in FlightSafety Boeing Training International (FSBTI). The new organization will operate as a subsidiary of The Boeing Co. and will continue to report to Commercial Aviation Services, a unit of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Boeing and FSI announced the details of the agreement in September. FSBTI, which Boeing and FSI operated as a joint venture since 1997, has 800 employees at 21 locations worldwide, 70 full-flight simulators and numerous fixed-base and maintenance training simulators.
Ballistic Recovery Systems (BRS) of South St. Paul, Minn., will work on improving emergency parachutes for small aircraft under a $600,000 small business innovative research (SBIR) Phase II contract from NASA. The company will focus on improving parachutes for ``personal jets,'' which may play a large role in NASA's Small Aircraft Transportation Systems (SATS) program, the company said. SATS is NASA's five-year research and development program intended to combine ``smart'' airplanes and ``smart'' airports to make small aircraft safer and easier to fly.
