“Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine,”Elvis Presley once said. But it also could have been a jet engine.
As the best-selling solo recording artist of all time, Elvis Presley is the undisputed “King of Rock and Roll.” But few people appreciate that between his music, movies, television appearances, and other business ventures, “ol’ swivel hips” was also one of the entertainment industry’s most ambitious entrepreneurs.
When Gulfstream announced its $34.5 million G400 in late 2021, it occurred to me that I had seen this movie before—and it was not a huge box office hit. Sure enough, between 2003 and 2007, Gulfstream manufactured 24 G300/G350 large-cabin jets—shorter-range and less-capable versions of its wildly successful GIV/GIV-SP/G450 series that saw the production of more than 900 units between 1985 and 2018.
Like the new G400, the G300/G350 was aimed at the “entry level” large-cabin bizjet sector: customers desiring the Gulfstream imprimatur but not the price that typically goes with it. These were folks who’d ordinarily decide on a competing aircraft such as a Bombardier Challenger 604 or Dassault Falcon 2000 because they weren’t thrilled with the prospect of ponying up $5 million more for a G450.
The final safety investigation report into the March 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 released by the Malaysian Ministry of Transport reaches no conclusions about the ultimate cause, but authorities determined that the changes to the flight path probably did not result from “anomalous systems issues” alone, suggesting at least some human intervention in the resulting diversion. “It should be recognized that there is a significant lack of evidence available to the team to determine with any certainty the reasons that the aircraft diverted from its filed flight plan route,” said the report. “However, the change in flight path likely resulted from manual inputs.”
The Boeing 777-200ER, carrying 12 crewmembers and 227 passengers, diverted from the filed flight plan some 40 minutes after takeoff. Soon after a routine handover from Malaysian air traffic control to Vietnamese ATC, the aircraft’s transponder stopped signaling for still unknown reasons, resulting in its disappearance from ATC radar displays.
United Airlines and Archer Aviation plan to launch an aerial ridesharing service in Chicago using Archer’s Midnight eVTOL air taxi, the companies announced on Thursday.
The commercial air taxi route, scheduled to launch in 2025, will transport passengers between O’Hare International Airport and Vertiport Chicago, the city’s only downtown heliport facility. Vertiport Chicago lies about 12 miles (19 kilometers) southeast of the airport, in Chicago’s Illinois Medical District.
On Sept. 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria, one of the most devastating and costly storms to hit the Caribbean, passed near the U.S. Virgin Islands and destroyed much in its path, including the Bohlke International Airways FBO, the lone service provider at Henry E. Rohlsen Airport (TISX) on St. Croix.
While its facility was decimated, the company swiftly pivoted and received permission to occupy a vacant, less damaged facility to the east of its existing leasehold, where it set up shop. Bohlke remained there for the next five-plus years while it wrangled with insurance providers and architects on a replacement facility.
Lyte Aviation this week unveiled plans for a pair of high-capacity, long-range hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft aimed at both cargo- and passenger-carrying applications. The European startup seeks to produce a full-scale prototype of the LA-44 SkyBus, intended to carry up to 40 passengers, within the next 24 months.
Unveiling plans at the Helicopter Investor conference in London on Thursday, Lyte Aviation founder and CEO Freshta Farzam said the SkyBus will have a range of 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) and a maximum speed of 300 km/h (187 mph). She said it could take until 2030 to bring the tandem tilt-wing design to market.
GPS/GNSS signal interference has become a creeping normality faced by the global aviation industry, further complicated by military activity and buildup. Some of the reported cases of late have involved Qantas Group, which issued a flight standing order to address interference on VHF channel 121.5 “from stations purporting to represent the Chinese military” during flights over the western Pacific Ocean and South China Sea. Qantas added group aircraft had also experienced GPS jamming suspected to originate from warships operating off the northwest shelf of Australia.
Qantas has advised flight crews that experience unwarranted interference to continue to track their assigned clearance and report the interference to the controlling air traffic control (ATC) authority. “An Intelex report must be submitted providing details of the event or any unusual activity after landing,” the order said.
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