A multitude of options are available to helicopter operators wanting to upgrade obsolete or near-obsolete aircraft instruments and avionics. These options, however, require careful consideration and each comes with tradeoffs.
Andrew Barker, v-p of integrated avionics at Honeywell Aerospace, cited as examples of tradeoffs the expense of upgrading the equipment, required database services, and aircraft installation downtime—all of which add to the overall upgrading cost.
A lack of hangar space for business jets is a major issue at many airports. As Mark Huber pointed out in a Business Jet Travelerarticle last year, “We have more and bigger airplanes at fewer airports,” which means “scarcity and higher prices” for hangars. Scarcity means that buyers often have trouble basing their aircraft at the airport that’s most convenient and closest.
If hangar space is not available at your preferred airport, you could get on a waiting list, though as Huber points out, you might end up waiting more than a decade. Meanwhile, you won’t want to leave your multimillion-dollar business jet sitting on the tarmac. You could build your own hangar, but that is a complicated, time-consuming, and expensive undertaking.
In what was hailed as a “giant first step” in reopening Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) to general aviation, a Hawker 1000 operated by New World Jet for Jet Aviation landed at dawn on Oct. 18, 2005, after flying to the nation’s capital from Teterboro Airport (TEB) in New Jersey.
After the Hawker taxied to Signature Flight Support, the first passenger to debark was National Air Transportation Association (NATA) president Jim Coyne, whose association, with NBAA, spearheaded the drive to return general aviation to DCA after a four-year-long absence in the wake of 9/11.
Boeing will have to suspend deliveries of certain 737 Max narrowbodies after discovering a problem involving two fittings in the aircraft’s aft fuselage sections, the company confirmed Friday. Spirit Aerosystems—the supplier of the Max’s aft fuselage—notified Boeing of a “non-standard manufacturing process” used during the installation of the fittings, creating the potential of non-compliance with required specifications. Boeing said the problem does not compromise safety-of-flight and that airplanes already in service can continue to fly.
While not specifying the batch of airplanes involved, Boeing said the problem will likely affect “a significant number” of undelivered Max jets and P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft, both in production and in storage.
The business aviation industry is “between a rock and a hard place” in Europe because environmental pressures are increasing and yet regulatory roadblocks are preventing progress, according to General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) president and CEO Pete Bunce.
“A lot of the news has not been good as far as the approach of business aviation over there [in Europe],” Bunce said during his association’s annual State of the Industry press conference, referring to environmental activism activities such as the recent interruption of the start of the European Business Aviation Association’s AIROPS23 Conference in Brussels. Activists blocked the entrance to the ExecuJet FBO terminal at Brussels airport and also barged into the AIROPS23 event.
Dutch startup Maeve Aerospace has unveiled plans for an electric regional airliner that it says will carry up to 44 passengers on sectors of up to 460 km (250 nm) by 2029. The company claims its design will be readily scalable in size and that, as battery technology advances, could be enlarged to 52 seats in 2032, and have a range of 710 km by 2040.
During an April 13 ceremony in The Hague, co-founder and chief commercial officer Joost Dieben said that four airlines have so far signed letters of support covering provisional orders for 20 of the Maeve 01 aircraft, which will feature eight wing-mounted propellers. The launch customers include European startup Fly With Lucy and New Zealand’s Air Napier. Fly With Lucy has set a goal of creating a network of 3,000 small airports across Europe, while Air Napier expects to operate the aircraft on city pairs currently only connected by long drives.
Bell is onboarding strategic partners as it continues research into development of a high-speed vertical takeoff and landing (HSVTOL) aircraft as part of research funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and the U.S. Air Force’s (USAF's) Afwerx HSVTOL Concept Challenge program. A company spokesman recently told AIN, “Bell and its industry partners continue to reduce risk related to HSVTOL technologies to accelerate the potential fielding timeline for an operational aircraft. We will continue to showcase new progress to customers in exciting ways this year.”
The Afwerx HSVTOL Concept Challenge is a crowdsourcing effort for the USAF and United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). Bell is one of 11 companies from more than 200 challenge entrants selected to receive market research investments aimed at advancing HSVTOL technology. Afwerx is designed to produce lower-cost weapons with increased lethality.
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