Attendees and exhibitors at the annual NBAA-BACE show may not notice or think about the small army of employees, contractors, and local professionals who bring the event together—and that’s how Margie Morgan and Lowen Baumgarten know they’re doing their jobs well.

Morgan works to bring the exhibitor floor together every year and ensure each participant has the resources it needs to get the most out of the show. And Baumgarten is—often literally—the man behind the curtain for experiential moments, like this year’s guest speaker, Neil deGrasse Tyson. 

About 86% of buyers and sellers of preowned business aircraft work with brokers, according to industry market research firm Amstat. The question is, why don’t the other 14%?

Without professional representation, you’ll likely get less than you could have when selling and pay more than you should have when buying. Not using a broker could cost you many times whatever you’d save by not paying their commission.

Cessna’s Citation CJ4 isn’t just another derivative of the CitationJet family—it is a clean-sheet design that incorporates some of the best features found in other Citations. “It has the best of the Encore-plus’s cockpit and cabin, the Mustang’s wide cabin door, Sovereign-style wing performance, and the CJ3’s external baggage capacity,” said Citation 500-series product marketing manager Brett Palmiero.

First flight of the 11-seat model is planned for spring 2008, with FAA certification to follow in late 2009. Service entry of the $7.995 million (2006 $) CJ4 is expected in spring 2010. While some believe the CJ4 could be an “Encore killer,” Cessna insists the two models can coexist. However, “the market will ultimately decide the fate of the Encore,” Palmiero said. Cessna has orders for 70 CJ4s.

South Carolina’s Columbia Metropolitan Airport (KCAE) started out in 1940, just one year before the U.S. entry into World War II. During the war, it was requisitioned by the U.S. Army and was home to a B-25 medium bomber training base, where the famed Doolittle Raiders gathered ahead of their historic mission to bomb Tokyo in 1942.

For more than half of its existence, KCAE has been served by Eagle Aviation. One of two service providers on the field, the company started in 1967 and has grown into a full-service FBO with 100 employees, offering everything from maintenance and completions to flight training and aircraft sales.

Companies such as Joby, Delta Air Lines, and Uber want to change the way people move in and around crowded megacities—including New York City, Los Angeles, and Dubai. Central to this is advanced air mobility with eVTOL air taxis.

BJT's video news team went to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan to find out how realistic AAM air taxis will be and when and how they will materialize.

Lilium is about to file self-administration proceedings in a German court, implementing a form of insolvency protection as it scrambles to line up further investment to complete the development of its eVTOL aircraft. The company announced the move Wednesday, a week after the German parliament’s budgetary committee rejected its application for a €50 million ($54 million) loan guarantee. That also blocked a matching €50 million loan from the state of Bavaria contingent on parliament's passage of the application.

“Our plan was to obtain shareholder investment in a new funding round anchored by the German government backed loan of €100 million,” said Lilium CEO Klaus Roewe. “We had conditionally secured additional private capital to complement our [government] loan. However, the budget committee was unable to agree on the loan and Bavaria couldn’t do it alone.”

AIN overall average reader ratings for turbofan engine product support during the past year climbed for three engine manufacturers, with GE Aerospace topping the chart at a 9.1 rating, up the most—by 0.4—from last year. Rolls-Royce’s 8.6 rating remained the same as last year, putting it in second place, while Williams International, with a rating of 8.5, climbed 0.1 and came in third. Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) declined by 0.1 to 8.3, while Honeywell saw the second-largest gain of 0.3 to a 7.9 rating.

In the turboprop category, Honeywell topped the chart with a 9.1 overall average, followed by P&WC, which climbed 0.3 points to an also very strong 8.9. Pratt & Whitney’s overall average dropped to 8.6 from 9.1 for turboshaft engines. Rolls-Royce and Safran weren’t included because they received insufficient ratings.

The digital flip-through issues of AIN’s award-winning NBAA Convention News are now available online. It’s a great way to quickly scan the news from NBAA-BACE 2024.

Bombardier Starts Construction on First Production Global 8000

Lilium Faces Political Block to Government eVTOL Aircraft Loan Guarantees

German Parliament Blocks Loan Guarantee For Lilium's eVTOL Aircraft

CJ4 Gen3 Is First for Garmin G3000 Prime Avionics Suite

Apcela To Acquire SmartSky Air-to-ground Connectivity Network

Honeywell Forecast Sees Continued Growth for Business Jet Industry