A mild winter has put construction of the 760,000-square-foot Dulles annex to the National Air and Space Museum ahead of schedule, museum officials said in mid-April, adding that they hope to begin moving the first artifacts into the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in March 2003. The December 2003opening is planned to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the first powered flight by the Wright brothers.
Flightcraft has opened a $4 million aircraft maintenance facility at Portland, Ore., International Airport (PDX). The expansion adds 72,000 square feet of hangar and shop space, and the company has added $80,000 worth of new support equipment for servicing business jets. ``We needed this facility to keep up with our demand,'' said Tim Clevenger, a Flightcraft spokesman. ``The number of business and private aircraft in our area has increased dramatically in the past five years.''
Lawrence B. Smith Attorney, Tucson, Ariz. As the son of Harold D. Smith, Franklin Roosevelt's top budget director, Smith is a beneficiary of the modern federal bureaucracy. During a brief stint as an FAA attorney, he became dismayed by the agency's heavy-handed enforcement methods and determined that the FAA had no right to take such action. He's waged a quixotic fight against the system ever since. 1 What's the key issue?
Borge Boeskov has retired from Boeing -- really. The popular executive joined Boeing in 1965 and held a succession of senior sales and marketing jobs prior to being named president of Boeing Business Jets in 1996. Lee Monson was tapped in June 2001 to succeed Boeskov whenever his retirement actually occurred.
Edited by David RimmerMike Vines, in Birmingham, England
Air Atlantique, Europe's largest operator of historical transport aircraft, is offering flights into the U.K.'s Farnborough International Airshow on its last two public days (July 27 and 28). The two aircraft that will be used for the flights are a 30-seat Douglas DC-3 (July 28 only) and a 16-seat Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer (both days).
March 15 -- The single pilot of a Cessna 208B Caravan was killed when the turboprop aircraft encountered icing and crashed at Alma, Wis., while attempting an emergency approach to Winona, Wis. The Priority Air Charter flight was en route from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) to Willow Run Airport in Detroit with about 100 pounds of cargo. When the aircraft arrived in MSP for the cargo pickup, FBO employees observed ice on the leading edges of both wings, horizontal stabilizer, propeller, wing struts and fuselage.
Raytheon Aircraft activated a new parts procurement Web site that gives immediate access to the company's entire parts inventory -- including supplier parts. The site accesses an inventory of more than 12 million parts from Raytheon Aircraft and suppliers such as Dunlop, Goodrich and Champion Aerospace. Customers can locate parts they need and order them over a secure network. Order-status checking is also available. Parts will be shipped from Raytheon's new parts distribution center near DFW.
Cincinnati Avionics, which specializes in single- and light twin-engine aircraft, has moved into a new hangar at the Clermont County Airport in Batavia, Ohio. The company says that by concentrating on under-6,000-pound aircraft, its customers get the priority they may not get at a less-specialized shop.
You hold in your hands B/CA's 2002 Purchase Planning Handbook, the much-anticipated issue that readers turn to throughout the year, and longer. This year's Handbook is one of our most comprehensive, with several sections expanded to accommodate additional products, or as a reflection of the increasing importance of the products within the category.
Productivity is the essential quality for making a profit in the regional airline industry, and as one leading airline executive put it, ``You build from profitability, not to profitability.'' Productivity is derived from speed, field performance, capacity and the versatility to operate profitably over varying sector distances. B/CA's 2002 Regional Airliner charts measure productivity over three different stage lengths to see where each aircraft best fits in the marketplace. All the aircraft are operated within the confines of a 14-hour duty day.
Pan Am International Flight Academy has a new contract to train FAA maintenance inspectors on the Saab 340. The 12-day program will cover the initial maintenance curriculum and practical examination and will include engine start/run training on Pan Am's Saab 340 simulators at its Minneapolis Regional Airline Training Center.
Honeywell has a nifty integration of its airline EGPWS and RDR-4B radar that uses terrain database and flight information to automatically tilt the radar antenna, even in climbs and descents, to optimize the display of weather returns. Manual radar antenna tilting is a time-consuming, heads-down job in bad-weather climbs and descents. Honeywell has more than 60 installations of this feature in aircraft operated by United Airlines, Singapore Airlines and US Airways.
Aerodynamics, Inc., at Oakland County (Mich.) International Airport (PTK), is now an authorized Hawker service center. It's supported various Beech/Raytheon aircraft since 1963 and offers around-the-clock service. The Web site is www.flyadi.com.
Vice Chairman Bryan Moss postponed his planned April retirement from Gulfstream, the company announced. Gulfstream Aerospace president Bill Boisture said in the announcement, ``Gulfstream has a significant number of worldwide opportunities, and Bryan will make invaluable contributions to our continuing growth and success.''
Sandel Avionics of Vista, Calif., has squeezed a Class A/B TAWS and an RMI into a 3-ATI panel-mount package that directly replaces a standard RMI in single or dual retrofit installations. The Sandel ST3400 TAWS/RMI has TSO certification, and the company has the first STC -- for its Cessna 421 demonstrator -- although the system is primarily targeted at turbine aircraft, which must comply with the mandatory TAWS requirement deadline of March 2005.
When is a Falcon 20F a Stage 2 aircraft? When it flies into noise-sensitive Naples Municipal Airport (APF) in Florida -- at least some of the time -- as Hudson, N.Y.-based Richmor Aviation discovered when it landed there on Sunday, April 7. Richmor was flying the 20F to Naples to pick up its owner for a flight to Philadelphia. Upon arriving at APF, airport authorities had other plans for the aircraft, its crew and waiting passenger.
Within weeks of merging with Raytheon Travel Air, Flight Options chairman Kenn Ricci declared the fractional ownership business a two-horse race between his Cleveland-based company and Columbus, Ohio-based NetJets. In a wide-ranging question and answer session with reporters and invited guests, Ricci announced the company's new strategy, which will focus on selling new and used aircraft side by side. Ricci acknowledged that while the new approach was a departure from its original marketing, the company is still positioned as the ``value leader.''
Photograph: MD Helicopters 520N, 600N and Explorer Paul Brou It looks like corporate helicopter manufacturers will be fighting for shares in a slow growth market over the next 10 years. Bill Dane, an analyst with Forecast International of Newtown, Conn., said the corporate sector will be essentially flat for the next decade, with production of an expected 9,261 commercial helicopters worth about $18 billion. Approximately 3,700 of those aircraft will be piston-powered and valued at about $1 billion.
