Flight data monitoring (FDM) is an integral part of any modern aviation safety system. For the airlines, long track records of effectively using FDM information have provided clear evidence that flight data, when used appropriately, can greatly improve flight safety. Today, every major airline employs an integrated safety management system (SMS) powered by tools, such as FDM. It is no accident that scheduled airlines in the U.S. have evolved into the world’s safest mode of transportation.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has taken notice and is following this playbook, with the goal to reduce fatal accidents in other passenger-carrying commercial aircraft—such as charter operations. The agency’s only two aviation-related recommendations on its 2021/2022 Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements is to (1) require and verify the effectiveness of an SMS and (2) install crash-resistant flight recorders and establish FDM programs.
Forty-seven-year-old Gil Dezer, president of Dezer Development, is one of America’s youngest developers of luxury high-rise residential and hotel properties. He has also been a pioneer in partnering with brands such as Porsche, Bentley, and Armani, and was the first developer to license Donald Trump’s name.
His company has holdings in New York, Las Vegas, and South Florida, where he is the largest landowner of oceanfront property, with more than 1,000 hotel rooms. To keep track of his properties and close deals in person, he relies on a 22-year-old Gulfstream IV. And he has plans to upgrade to a G550.
Boeing CEO David Calhoun explicitly erased any notion that the company will launch the development of a new commercial airplane this decade during the company’s 2022 Investor Conference Wednesday, explaining that it needs to see the availability of technology capable of generating a 20 to 30 percent operating cost improvement over existing platforms before committing financial resources to any clean-sheet program.
Calhoun stressed the need instead to concentrate on achieving “strict compliance” with quality standards and “normalizing” cash flow to about $10 billion by 2025 or 2026, a target he characterized as eminently achievable now that the company has mitigated what he called the existential risks it has faced since the grounding of the 737 Max in March 2019.
The Royal Air Force’s No. 12 Squadron has flown to Qatar to begin a six-month deployment under Project Thariya. The Typhoon fighter unit, which is jointly staffed by UK and Qatari personnel, is based at the new Tamim Airbase at Dukhan, where it is supporting the Qatar Emiri Air Force (QEAF) as it forms its first Typhoon squadron: No. 7 (Al Thariyat) Squadron within the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing.
The two squadrons will operate together to fly the full range of air policing operations in support of the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, helping to ensure a safe event for fans from across the world. The tournament begins on November 20, and the final is scheduled for December 18, which is also Qatar’s National Day.
Today’s burgeoning advanced air mobility (AAM) market has spawned dozens of companies around the world racing to develop eVTOL air taxis, with plans calling for fleets of the novel aircraft to transport passengers as early as 2024. But to make this dream possible, those fleets of eVTOLs will need dedicated places to take off and land, and most communities lack the needed infrastructure.
Industry forecasters predict that cities will need to spend tens of billions of dollars on infrastructure alone before they can adopt AAM services. But one company, Volatus Infrastructure, aims to significantly reduce that cost by offering more affordable vertiports it can build quickly and easily—in under four weeks for as little as $500,000.
In what would be the largest acquisition in the history of the general aviation service industry, not to mention a substantial wager on the continuing resurgence of business aviation, Signature Flight Support parent company BBA Aviation announced on September 23, 2015 that it will purchase Landmark Aviation from investment fund manager The Carlyle Group for $2.065 billion. Included in the deal are Landmark’s 68 FBOs in North America and Europe and its MRO business, as well as its aircraft charter and management division, which would give BBA its first involvement in that segment.
The transaction, subject to approval by regulators and company shareholders, would dwarf Landmark’s purchase last year of Ross Aviation and its 19 FBO locations for approximately $375 million. The acquisition would enable customers to benefit from an extension of Signature’s service across a much larger network of locations, according to BBA CEO Simon Pryce, who added that “combining Signature and Landmark Aviation also would realize significant cost synergies as well as substantial tax benefits.”
This wasn’t your typical company Christmas party on that December day in 2012. In the Hansen Helicopters hangar in Harmon, Guam, a female “dancer” mounted a tool bench and began suggestively gyrating to the beat of the band AC/DC’s “Highway To Hell” from a nearby boom box.
Hell arrived for Hansen nearly a decade later. And some would argue it was too long in coming.
Sherwin Williams Demos Aircraft Color Visualizer Tool
Sherwin Williams Aerospace Coatings offers a free online tool where users can experiment with different color combinations on a variety of aircraft. The company built the Aircraft Color Visualizer so that customers can start the process of choosing colors for their aircraft, making it easier to work with a designer or paint shop.
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