By 2027, Daher’s aviation division expects to broaden its product lineup with a hybrid-electric TBM and set up a third aircraft production facility in Stuart, Florida, Daher aviation division senior v-p Nicolas Chabbert told AIN. The French company produces four models—the Kodiak 100 Series III and 900 and TBM 910 and 960—and shipped 73 airplanes last year and estimates 85 to 90 deliveries this year.
The additional production line will be located at Daher’s aerostructures facility in Stuart. Combined with Kodiak production in Sandpoint, Idaho, and TBM manufacturing in Tarbes, France, the Florida facility will make both lines and boost total annual output to 120 to 130 airplanes.
Dave Liniger’s adventure-filled, entrepreneurial life story sounds like the tale of a man who has been auditioning for the role of America’s Richard Branson.
A college dropout, the Re/Max co-founder possessed enough self-confidence at an early age to believe he could help to revolutionize the large and well-established real estate industry. And not only did he do just that, but he also found time to start nearly two dozen other businesses in diverse fields—everything from home building and mortgage financing to oil wells, a Nascar race team, and a travel agency. Liniger has also raised over 3,000 Arabian horses, earned a pilot’s license, flown aerobatic airplanes, parachuted out of other planes, competed in Nascar events, hunted big game in Africa, and attempted to circumnavigate the world in a helium balloon.
Gogo Business Aviation is the world's largest provider of broadband connectivity services and solutions for the business aviation market. We’re connecting you to the sky’s most incredible inflight connectivity and entertainment experiences now, but also revolutionizing the breakthrough innovations coming next.
The honeymoon is over and newlyweds NBAA and EBAA are even happier about their EBACE union than they were after 2001's inaugural European Business and Aviation Convention (now Conference) and Exhibition.
Although EBACE number two—held May 28 to 30, 2002, at the same Palexpo venue in Geneva, Switzerland, as EBACE 2001—did not entice exhibitors to make the really big announcements attendees at annual NBAA conventions and biennial Paris and Farnborough airshows have come to expect, it did gain respect for what many exhibitors called the “high quality of the EBACE visitors.” Translated, that euphemism means, “people who can afford to buy a multi-million-dollar aircraft.” Boeing Business Jets president Lee Monson said he even prefers EBACE to the NBAA convention, where most visitors to BBJ’s booth are pilots. “Which is fine,” he explained, “but here in Geneva we see more principals than anywhere else, people who have the ability to write a check.”
Aura Aero has unveiled a revised configuration for its 19-passenger ERA hybrid-electric regional airliner, for which it says the design is now frozen. At a press conference on May 12, the French start-up also said it has completed ground testing of the prototype for its Integral E electric training aircraft and expects to be ready to start flight testing before the end of this year.
The two-seat Integral E model, powered by Safran’s EngineUs electric motor, is expected to have a flight endurance of 60 minutes, with batteries that can be fully recharged in less than 30 minutes. It is expected to be certified under European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) CS-23 rules and ready to enter service, mainly with flight schools and aero clubs, in 2024.
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.
Private aircraft departing EBACE 2022 will have the option to refuel with sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), thanks to a deal signed by Jet Aviation with French fuel producer TotalEnergies.
At its Geneva Airport FBO, Jet Aviation has imported a supply of 30 percent blended SAF, which will provide an approximately 24 percent decrease in lifecycle carbon emissions compared with the same volume of conventional jet-A.
BJT: Dassault Gives Inside View into Falcon 6x Testing
Dassault chief test pilot Philippe Duchateau started flying in the French air force and now his job is to ensure that new Falcon business jets are safe and deliver the performance promised to customers. He told BJT about his current mission to complete flight testing needed to certify the new Falcon 6X twinjet and how this has involved flying through icing conditions over Norway and maneuvering the 6X into high-speed dives to test its limits.
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