Lancair has announced the all-electric Columbia 350 with a full-authority digital engine control system (FADEC) and a dual bus, dual battery electrical system, eliminating the vacuum pumps found in its similar Columbia 300. Teledyne Continental Motors developed the Powerlink FADEC on the Columbia 350. Sensors and microprocessors monitor and adjust the fuel/air parameters for each cylinder several times per second in every flight regime.
Under Secretary of Transportation for Security John Magaw met briefly with the NBAA's board of directors. In an informal series of presentations over lunch, each board member briefed Magaw on their operations, concerns and the interests of NBAA members. Magaw told the NBAA board that he would hire an individual within the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to be the point of contact for ``your community,'' and that restoring access for qualified operators to Reagan Washington National Airport would be among his priorities.
The NBAA has set up an online Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) submission service to allow FAR Part 135 operators to comply with new requirements to electronically transmit passenger and crew manifests to U.S. Customs before arriving in the United States. On February 18, the U.S. Customs Service began issuing fines of up to $10,000 to Part 135 operators that failed to electronically transmit manifests, despite the fact that no system was in place to deal with non-airline information.
PrivatAir and Switzerland's Geneva International Airport (GVA) have opened the new C3 Terminal, which will house PrivatAir's European headquarters. The $7.5 million facility -- a joint venture by PrivatAir and the airport -- has over 49,500 square feet of space and includes three VIP lounges, and Swiss and French Customs and Immigration facilities on three floors. Other tenants of the new facility include TAG Aviation and Jet Aviation.
Edited by David RimmerMike Vines, in Birmingham, England
Within two weeks, the United Kingdom's National Air Traffic Services (NATS) experienced two major failures of its flight data processing computer (FDPC) at the old National Air Traffic Control Center at West Drayton near Heathrow. They occurred on March 27 and April 10, causing flight delays and cancellations around the United Kingdom and affecting traffic heading from mainland Europe.
Worries about new regulations being considered by the nascent Transportation Security Administration and the impact those rules will have on general aviation and corporate operators and the businesses that cater to them dominated conversation at the National Air Transportation Asso-ciation convention in Indianapolis in March. Those fears were not allayed by TSA representatives, who acknowledged they don't know how far-reaching the new security rules might be.
The so-far fruitless effort to recruit a chief operating officer (COO) to head the FAA's new air traffic control organization may be put on hold until Jane Garvey's successor as FAA administrator is in place.
Pilots/Associations -- Aerospace Industries Association, Washington, D.C., has named Jonathan Etherton as its vice president of legislative affairs. Etherton will replace Thomas Tate, who has retired from that position. -- Airports Council International, Geneva, Switzerland, has appointed Robert Aaronson as its director general. -- Condor Express, White Plains, N.Y., has added James Petrone and Stephen Davison to its 14-member team of pilots.
The board of directors of the Allied Pilots Association, representing American Airlines' 11,000 pilots, stated on March 29 that there was insufficient evidence to recommend that the company ground its Airbus A-300 aircraft. A number of American Airlines' A-300 pilots have gone public, in uniform, advocating just that.
Medaire, Inc. has opened a European headquarters office in Farnborough, England. The Phoenix-based company provides remote emergency medical assistance, medical and defibrillation kits and training to airlines and corporate flight operations as well as government and maritime operators. Medaire has maintained its European presence through a partnership with Norway's Norse Luftambulanse since 1998. Medaire's Farnborough phone number is +44 1252-517-951, and its Web site is www.medaire.com.
In March, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on the closure of Richards-Gebaur Memorial Airport in Kansas City, Mo. This almost certainly spells the end of the road for the former U.S. Air Force Base.
On April the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee voted 19-4 to approve the bill endorsing the expansion of Chicago's O'Hare International and protection of Meigs Field. The bill which lays out an agreement between Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and Illinois Governor George Ryan that provides for eight runways - six of them parallel - at ORD, plus improved ground infrastructure and the continued operation at CGX. There is organized and vocal opposition to the measure, which now goes to the full Senate for consideration.
A Boeing Business Jet owned by BBJ One set a new distance record for the model, flying the 6,854 nm between Seattle and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on April 7 in 14 hours, 12 minutes.
Robert E. Breiling will receive the Flight Safety Foundation Business Aviation Meritorious Award at the FSF's Corporate Aviation Safety Seminar May 7 to 9 in Phoenix. Breiling, a former naval aviator and Pan Am pilot, heads Robert E. Breiling Associates, which tracks business and corporate aircraft accident and safety trends and data. His organization provides safety statistics used by B/CA. It started by providing information to the insurance industry in 1962. Breiling has served on the NBAA board of directors and was one of the founders of the original SimuFlite.
Hoping to strengthen customer relationships for whatever future awaits, Raytheon Aircraft is conducting maintenance and operations conferences around the United States in addition to its annual M&O conference at NBAA conventions. ``We're trying to make it easier to do business with Raytheon Aircraft,'' said Ed Dolanski, vice president for customer support.
Sun Country Airlines sort of has a new owner -- MN Airlines, LLC, which gained bankruptcy court approval to purchase certain assets and assume the operating leases for the airline's four aircraft. There are now actually two Sun Country Airlines: The ``old Sun Country Airlines'' continues in bankruptcy, while the ``new Sun Country Airlines,'' operated by MN Airlines, gets the use of the Sun Country name and has DOT approval to operate under the old airline's certificate. This was all on April 15.
GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) canceled its order for 50 Fairchild Dornier 728s plus its option for 100 more. A GECAS spokesman confirmed to Aerospace Daily (April 18), ``We have notified Fairchild Dornier that we have canceled our order according to the terms of our agreement.'' The order had a total list value of $1.5 billion. It could be a fatal blow to the company, since GECAS was the biggest customer for the aircraft when counting firm orders and options.
Europe's JAA has certified FlightSafety International's Learjet 35/36, and Learjet 55 training programs at the company's Tucson, Wichita, Atlanta And West Palm Beach learning centers. The Tucson and Atlanta centers also received certification of their Learjet Model 31A, 45 and 60 training programs.
Pratt&Whitney Canada's vice president for service centers, Gilbert Gaudett, has been awarded Aviation Week's Overhaul&Maintenance magazine's Overhaul&Maintenance Award for outstanding achievement in aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul. Nominees for the award come from the magazine's readers and the MRO industry. O&M's editors selected Guadette for his significant role in expanding P&WC's Engine Services Network.
US Airways pilots have agreed to a management proposal that will double the carrier's permitted regional jet fleet from 70 to 140 aircraft. Under the terms of the agreement, the airline will suspend additional pilot furloughs until September and guarantee that half of the new jets will be staffed by furloughed US Airways pilots. There are presently 1,037 US Airways pilots furloughed, and additional furloughs had been planned for early April.
T-Bird Aviation, a Chicago-area charter/management firm, has hired four furloughed airline pilots -- without requiring them to resign their airline seniority. According to T-Bird Chief Pilot Orin Acker, the four have voluntarily signed training contracts, although he says, ``if their hearts are really in being airline pilots, I wouldn't want to stand in their way.'' Part of his job, he says, is to convince the airline refugees that they can flourish in business aviation. And, he boasts, ``I have changed some minds.''
The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association is challenging the FAA's forecasted decline in the number of student pilots, criticizing the agency's ``faulty'' analysis. The FAA anticipates the number of new student pilots will drop until 2005 before a slow turnaround.
Avidyne continues to enhance the flexibility of its Flight Situation displays, announcing new weather data link, engine monitoring and fuel totalizer display capabilities for its FlightMax displays at the Experimental Aircraft Association Sun 'n Fun 2002 in Lakeland, Fla. The FlightMax Datalink Weather Service uses the FlightMax DX50 data-link transceiver to retrieve NEXRAD and graphical or text METAR information from the Orbcomm LEO satellite constellation and present it on discrete pages on a FlightMax FSD or overlaid on navigation situation displays.
