Few industries have done or been pilloried more in the name of sustainability than business aviation. In this environment, the data on bizav’s comparative carbon footprint is a Rorschach test suggesting either an oversize pair of Dr. Martens or baby booties, even as sustainable aviation fuel, aerodynamics advances, and coming propulsion technologies help power the sector toward its net-zero 2050 goal line.
The aircraft cabin, though drawing less attention than tech-driven advances, plays a key role in business aviation’s sustainability push for reasons extending beyond bottom-line economic benefits, and it’s a part that OEMs and MROs, their vendors, interior designers, and customers are increasingly embracing.
California-based urban air mobility startup Archer Aviation has announced its first commercial air taxi route. Using its Midnight eVTOL air taxi, Archer plans to transport passengers between Newark Liberty Airport’s United Airlines hub and a helipad in New York City.
The new air taxi route will allow passengers to travel from the Downtown Manhattan Heliport, located on the East River near Wall Street, to Newark Liberty Airport in under 10 minutes. By car, the trip normally takes close to an hour during rush hour traffic.
Serving coffee on a Learjet 35 is a very bad idea.
When Bill Lear created the Learjet in the early 1960s, he envisioned a small, fast, and simple airplane—a concept the marketplace embraced. His 20-series and the slightly elongated 30-series aircraft that followed sold briskly for more than 20 years, until long after he had left the company. Riding in the back of a Learjet once meant trips to the chiropractor and exercising bladder control, but it also meant the ultimate in aviation cool: speed.
It is hard to believe that despite the passage of more than nine years since that hot July night, the discussion continues about TWA Flight 800, which crashed off the coast of Long Island in July 1996. While we expect that regulatory authorities would continue their activities based on their findings and recommendations, no one expected that so many people and organizations would devote their own time and resources to revisiting what is probably the most expensive aircraft accident investigation in U.S. (and maybe world) history.
Without the financial resources and the time and talent of many subject experts, we probably would not have uncovered the safety concerns detailed in the investigation report. In the past eight weeks I have received calls from newspaper and magazine reporters who have had individuals provide them with another version of what happened to Flight 800.
Embraer’s Praetor 600, the Brazilian company’s flagship business jet, evolved from its Legacy 500. The name Praetor is derived from the Latin for a Roman magistrate, and Embraer Executive Jets v-p of design operations Jay Beever explains how this moniker relates to what the aircraft does for its owner.
With a range of 4,018 nm, passengers will appreciate the new interior design, which the company calls “Bossa Nova” and takes inspiration from the boardwalk at Rio de Janeiro’s famed Ipanema Beach.
A malfunctioning automated engine throttle system that pilots failed to adequately monitor was highlighted as a primary cause of the January 2021 crash of Sriwijaya Air’s Flight SJ-182, according to a final report published on Thursday by Indonesia’s KNKT air accident investigation agency. All 62 people on board the Boeing 737-500 were killed when the airliner crashed into the Java Sea within five minutes of taking off from Jakarta.
According to the final accident report, maintenance logs showed 65 instances since 2013 of unresolved technical problems with the autothrottle that controlled the narrowbody’s CFM56 turbofans. KNKT officials indicated that pilots could have done more to monitor errors in the engine parameters, thrust lever settings, and the roll angle of the aircraft, which rolled more than 45 degrees to the left after the autopilot disengaged at around 10,700 feet.
Bell has delivered the 189th AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter to the U.S. Marine Corps, completing the program of record for the latest version of its H-1 platform and likely bringing production of its 63-year-old “Huey” family to an end for the U.S. forces. Bell delivered its last of 160 UH-1Y aircraft to the Marines in 2018.
However, H-1 production will remain open to support foreign military sales. Bell continues to produce AH-1Z Vipers for the Kingdom of Bahrain and will manufacture eight UH-1Ys and four AH-1Zs for the Czech Republic in 2023.
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