A radical conversion of an Avro RJ85 regional jet by firefighting company Conair Aviation has made its first flight. Canada-based Conair Aviation is one of four North American firefighting operators that have selected the British Aerospace BAe 146 and Avro RJ series of aircraft for the mission, but unlike the other three, the company has gone for a highly complex configuration attaching the water tank outside the pressure hull.

In-flight broadband provider Gogo has launched a hybrid network solution for the North American market capable of delivering more than 60 Mbps to an aircraft, 20 times the speed of Gogo’s initial air-to-ground (ATG) product, which was launched five years ago. Launch customer Virgin America expects to begin flying with the new technology in the second half of 2014. The new service, Gogo Ground to Orbit (GTO), is expected to increase speeds by more than six times the company’s current enhanced ATG product, says Gogo.

JetBlue Airways Chief Operating Officer Rob Maruster says the FAA has a “credibility” problem implementing the satellite-based NextGen air traffic control (ATC) system, leading many U.S. airlines to worry that expensive investments in equipment deemed critical to NextGen’s success will not “pay off.”

Installation of JetBlue Airways’ long-awaited Wi-Fi service is set to begin in the coming weeks following the FAA’s approval of the system for Airbus A320s. The airline has selected Aviation Technical Services (ATS) to retrofit up to 130 Airbus A320s with the Internet system, which JetBlue calls Fly-Fi. The first aircraft is set to be modified in November or “possibly sooner,” ATS CEO Matt Yerbic tells Aviation Week. JetBlue says the fleet will be completed by 2015, with some work being handled by its LiveTV subsidiary in Orlando, Fla.

Three important merger activities should be completed this week at Kellstrom Materials, the company formed through Kellstrom Commercial Aerospace’s May 17 purchase of AirLiance Materials from Lufthansa Technic. The combined company will start using Kellstrom’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system Phoenix, which will go live at the legacy AirLiance facility near Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

The Pentagon has added $12 million to its 2014 spending plans to equip its Boeing 737-based C-40s with a fuel-tank inerting system, the same upgrade mandated for U.S. operators of Boeing commercial aircraft. The 2013 spending plan anticipated about $1 million more than fiscal 2014-17 for various required modifications. In the fiscal 2014 request, the figure jumped $6.1 million for 2014 and another $6 million for the outyear estimates through fiscal 2017.

AAR has received FAA approval to start operating the 520,000 sq. ft. facility in Lake Charles, La., previously occupied by Aeroframe. The FAA granted the operational approval three weeks after AAR signed an agreement to acquire the facility. The company started seeking FAA approval for the site—its sixth—immediately after signing the agreement, and had hoped to receive the agency’s sign off “within weeks,” according to Dany Kleiman, AAR’s aviation services group vice president-repair and engineering.

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) late last week ordered inspections of wing leading-edge lift device components on 46 early-build Airbus A380s to correct an issue introduced on the production line. EASA says “a deficient assembly process” could cause small gaps to form between bolt heads and bushings installed on droop nose hinge arm forks. Gaps can transfer stress to the affected fork, causing fatigue damage and possibly breaking them, EASA explains. The directive is based on a July 9 Airbus service bulletin.