With used prices that start as low as $176,000, the eight-to-nine passenger (executive) Dassault Falcon 20 twinjet was the first civil aircraft to fly on 100 percent biofuel (2012); the first and only business jet to fly with an afterburner, albeit experimentally (1988); pioneered flight testing of a business jet equipped with a composite wing (1985); and it formed the initial fleet for Federal Express in 1973 (now FedEx).
Designed in 1961 to military specifications with an unlimited-life airframe and components, the Mystère 20 has reached its 60th anniversary since its first fight on May 4, 1963. It was test-flown to Mach 1.
Once a horse jockey, New Jersey–based charter broker Jacquie Dalton started Sparrow Executive Jets less than three years ago. But she’s no newcomer to business aviation. She talks about her experiences in the industry, beginning in a marketing role at a Washington, D.C. aviation services business, and the challenges she has faced to get to where she is today, including dropping out of high school to care for a younger brother who was severely injured. She also explains why she accepts clients only by referral—and why she named her company after a bird: “The sparrow is a tiny bird but very hard-working and diligent, and it gets the job done.”
After an extended gestation period and months of uncertainty about first delivery, Eclipse Aviation delivered its first production very light jet (VLJ). When the FAA awarded an airworthiness certificate for the first production Eclipse 500 in the closing hours of 2006, the Albuquerque, New Mexico-based aircraft manufacturer immediately initiated a virtual “delivery” in which the co-owners completed the documents via fax.
The aircraft registration was transferred to David Crowe (the first to place a deposit for an Eclipse 500 in 2000) and a California-based fractional ownership operation, Jet-Alliance. Crowe and Jet-Alliance CEO Randall Sanada arrived at the Eclipse plant for a formal delivery ceremony on January 4. As the first customer, the Crowe/Jet-Alliance partnership paid $995,000 for this Eclipse 500 plus $82,000 worth of optional equipment.
Airbus is preparing to shoot for a world record with another flight of the Perlan 2 pressurized, high-altitude glider. After setting a subsonic altitude record at over 76,000 feet (23 kilometers) in 2018, the Perlan 2 mission team will attempt to reach 90,000 feet (27 kilometers) during a flight-test campaign that will kick off in Argentina on July 22, the team announced on Tuesday.
According to the Perlan Project, the nonprofit organization behind the record-breaking mission, the Perlan 2 glider set sail from the U.S. on May 1 to begin its journey to El Calafate, Argentina, where the flight-test campaign will take place. During the flight tests, a tow airplane will carry the piloted Perlan glider to an altitude of 40,000 to 45,000 feet. The Perlan glider, which has no engines, will then soar to double that altitude by taking advantage of a rare atmospheric phenomenon known as “stratospheric mountain waves,” which form when mountain winds are boosted by the polar vortex.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the subsequent, ongoing sanctions on the country—designed to weaken President Vladimir Putin’s war economy and his cabal of influential oligarchs—has almost completely sealed off Russian aviation, both business and commercial.
This previously steady market has been devastated, with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) stopping the sale and supply of aircraft and components. The sanctions have made it impossible to trade, service, and support an aircraft with links to a Russian entity anywhere in the world.
Revolution may have been in the air in October 2018 when a cabal of disruptors armed with plans for distributed electric propulsion and automated flight controls first gathered in San Francisco to plot how to turn the aviation world upside down. Almost five years and a global pandemic later, the Revolution.Aero event convened in Dublin last week, with the upstarts beginning to sound more like their boring legacy aviation industry parents, tempering bold promises that eVTOL aircraft would fill urban skies by 2024 with a more cautious and patient approach.
Perhaps humbled by regulatory complexities and a tightening of the investment pipeline, more and more players seem now to be targeting the end of this decade for their inventive technology and business models to gain momentum.
The FAA has activated 169 new routes along the east coast of the U.S. described by the agency as more direct than the legacy routes they replace, saving fuel, enhancing safety, and reducing flight times. Announced on Monday, the new routes take effect just in time for a busy summer season that airlines expect will tax the nation’s air transportation system to its limit.
Working with the industry for more than seven years to develop and implement more direct high-altitude routings, the FAA said the shorter routes—operating primarily above 18,000 feet along the East Coast, as well as offshore over the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico—will shave off 40,000 miles and 6,000 minutes of travel time annually.
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