When Bombardier announced the new Global 7000 in 2010, the Canadian manufacturer’s clear intention was to take away the mantle of building the largest purpose-built business jet from Gulfstream Aerospace’s 7,500-nm G650ER. Originally, the airplane was to fly 7,400 nm. Since then, Bombardier engineers carved out 300 nm more range—for a Mach 0.85 NBAA IFR range of 7,700 nm—and the fly-by-wire jet’s moniker was changed to Global 7500.
Bombardier’s first-delivered Global 7500, which is busy fulfilling the many requests for demo flights around the world, touched down at Stewart International in Newburgh, New York, in late March for a test flight by AIN editor in chief Matt Thurber. Engineering test pilot Andrew Sibenaler and demo pilot Kerry Swanson were on hand for the flight.
Gusty winds reaching more than 30 knots precluded Thurber from flying the takeoff and landing. For this flight, he sat in the jump seat during and takeoff and landing and switched into the left seat with Sibenaler after climbing above 10,000 feet.
Having flown a variety of FBW business jets, this flight in the Global 7500 more than piqued Thurber's interest. For a large airplane, he said it is easy to fly and will be a relatively simple transition for experienced Bombardier Global pilots. The 7500 ups the ante in performance and range, Thurber concludes.
The Dec. 31, 2019, deadline for ADS-B Out in the U.S. likely means the grounding of a wide array of aircraft representing most manufacturers and aircraft size categories. A sizeable proportion of aircraft that will be coming out of service are truly timed-out, whether from maintenance status perspective, poor storage and pickling procedures, or economic obsolescence. What surprises me is the size of the non-compliant fleet of aircraft that most observers would consider among today’s business and general aviation workhorses.
According to the FAA’s Equip 2020 draft report to Congress, just 54 percent of the U.S. turbine-powered general aviation fleet was ADS-B Out compliant as of the beginning of March, with a monthly rate of change that doesn’t come close to bridging the gap before the deadline. FlightAware reported that only 67 percent of N-numbered turbine business and general aviation aircraft they tracked in February were compliant. These represented just half of the active worldwide U.S.-registered fleet, according to JetNet records.
While MRO capacity still exists across the industry for late-hour shoppers, there is a looming gap between supply and demand that does not look to work in favor of the shopper when it comes to who has the pricing and scheduling power in the negotiation.
Silverhawk Aids Its Fellow Nebraskans During Floods
The Air Charter Safety Foundation this week highlighted the good deeds of one of its members, Silverhawk Aviation of Lincoln, Nebraska, for marshalling its fleet of King Air turboprops and Citation jets and crews to aid Nebraskans from the devastating flooding in March. In one instance, the 28-year-old charter operator employed five of its airplanes and 11 pilots and crewmembers to operate dozens of free flights to the eastern Nebraska community of Fremont, which had been cut off by rising floodwaters.
Silverhawk was joined by a dozen or so pilots who rented airplanes or used their own to also provide transportation to Fremont residents, director of operations John Geary added. “Other people from the Fremont area came to the airport to donate food to the pilots and people who were there helping.”
And in the flooding’s aftermath, Silverhawk flew a total of 30 legs transporting 170 people and supplies to and from affected Nebraska communities. “Our employees were proud to be part of a company that would do this, and willingly offered any help they could,” Geary explained. “The perspective both inside and outside the company was, ‘This is what a Nebraska company does in times of hardship.’”
CHC Plays Pivotal Role In Massive Cruise Ship Rescue
The largest passenger ship rescue in modern times took place off the coast of Norway at the end of March. Heavy helicopters, including CHC Sikorsky S-92s and Airbus AS332s, hoisted 479 people to safety over the course of 18 hours from the crippled cruise ship Viking Sky in harrowing conditions that included winds up to 45 knots and waves that approached 50 feet.
The ship was in imminent danger of foundering into a rocky coastline after its engines shut down on March 23 near Hustadvika. The ship was en route from Tromso to Stavanger on a 12-day cruise that began in Bergen and was scheduled to end at Tilbury, UK. Its engines failed due to low oil pressure exacerbated by heavy seas, according to the Norwegian Maritime Authority.
CHC received a call for assistance from Norway’s National Rescue Service (HRS) at 2 p.m. local time Saturday, March 23. It responded with six crews from its bases at Floro, Heidrum, Statfjord, and Sola and support from its Stavanger operations center. The crews flew four CHC aircraft to the ship—two all-weather, SAR-configured S-92s and two AS332s.
By 2:30 p.m. local time, the first CHC helicopter, an AS332L1 on contract with the Norwegian Ministry of Justice, began hoisting the injured off the deck. A second AS322L from Heidrun arrived on scene shortly thereafter. Some 15-20 passengers were lifted off the ship at a time. It soon became apparent that more helicopters could be needed and CHC’s operations center put out the call for two more SAR helicopters to be dispatched from Kristiansund.
Cirrus Hopes To Deliver Vision Jet in China This Year
Cirrus Aircraft is confident it will deliver China’s first SF50 Vision Jet by year-end. Speaking to AIN this week at ABACE 2019, Cirrus Aircraft president of customer experience Todd Simmons said the company has received significant interest for the single-engine jet from Chinese buyers, especially after its debut at Airshow China in November.
“Our current SR family aircraft uses avgas, which is only found at sporadic airports in China. These airports, unfortunately, are near major urban areas, where general aviation access is very restricted,” he said. “The Vision Jet, which uses jet fuel, will make the aircraft more available to most of China.”
Simmons said at the ABACE opening-day panel session that city-pair routes of 500 km to 700 km can be served cost-effectively by small jets such as the SF50, unlike larger business jets or airliners. However, China's lack of smaller-airport infrastructure and skilled jet pilots is one of the factors that are hindering the growth of general aviation there.
He lamented that though the Vision Jet entered the market two years ago, it is still not quite perceived as a business jet. Neither Cirrus nor its parent company Avic exhibited at ABACE this year, but Simmons hopes the company will return as an ABACE exhibitor next year or in 2020.
Embraer celebrated the triple-certification of its E195-2 on April 15, having received nods from ANAC (the Brazilian aviation agency), the U.S. FAA, and Europe’s EASA. Paulo Cesar de Souza e Silva, Embraer president and CEO, praised his engineering and program teams, noting the E195-E2 joins the E190-E2 in achieving the three-tier certification hat trick. The E195-E2 tested out with fuel burn numbers 1.4 percent better than anticipated; a total of 25.4 percent better than the current-generation E195.
John Slattery, president and CEO of Embraer Commercial Aviation, told AIN, “Operational and performance specifications are something we’ve been keeping close to our chest, but with certification, we can now open up and release some comparisons.”
Compared with the Airbus A220-100, he said, the E195-E2 is 10 percent more efficient per seat; and on a per-trip basis, it is 10 percent more efficient than the A220-300. Embraer further claims its entry’s cumulative margin to ICAO Stage IV noise limit ranges from 19 to 20 EPNdB, 4.0 EPNdB better than the A220. On the maintenance side, both the E190-E2 and E195-E2 go 10,000 flight hours between basic checks with no calendar limit for typical operations. “This means an additional 15 days of aircraft utilization over a period of 10 years compared to current-generation E-Jets,” said Embraer. “Airlines are going to love this airplane’s economics,” he said.
Bye Aerospace, which rebranded its Sun Flyer electric aircraft line to eFlyer, is now nearing 300 commitments for the family with a recent agreement from Norwegian flight school OSM Aviation Academy for up to 60 two-place eFlyer 2s. The Denver-based company unveiled the eFlyer brand last week at the Aero Friedrichshafen show to better reflect the aircraft’s all-electric propulsion system, said company founder and CEO George Bye.
“We originally thought solar cells would be standard on the airplane’s wings,” Bye said. “However, with eFlyer’s primary markets being flight training and air-taxi services, it makes more sense to make the price of the airplane as reasonable as possible.”
Powered by a Siemens propulsion system, including a 57-pound SP70D motor with 90kW peak rating (120 hp) and continuous power setting of up to 70kW (94 hp), the eFlyer 2 began flight testing on February 8 at Denver Centennial Airport. Bye Aerospace is hoping to bring the first Part 23 FAA-certified all-electric aircraft to the flight training market.
Norwegian partner Elfly AS also placed 10 new eFlyer deposits, boosting its tally for eFlyers to 18. Along with the SP70D motor, Bye Aerospace is fitting the aircraft with the G3X integrated flight display. Complementing the eFlyer 2 is the four-place eFlyer 4.
Development Nearly Done On New Honeywell T55 Engine
Honeywell is in the final stages of development of an upgraded T55 turboshaft engine with more power, better fuel efficiency, and increased reliability, the company reported this week. “Our improvements come from new technology infused into the compressor section of the engine,” said John Russo, Honeywell Aerospace senior product director of military turboshaft engines.
Initial projections are that the updated engine is expected to deliver 25 percent more power, from 4,700 shp to 6,000 shp, while reducing specific fuel consumption by 8 percent. Honeywell said the improved T55 can be added as a kit to existing engines via overhaul or added as a new production, forward-fit option.
The legacy T55 engine currently powers the U.S. Army’s CH-47 Chinook-series of tandem-rotor helicopters and is flying on the Boeing-Sikorsky SB-1 Defiant Future Vertical Lift (FVL) demonstration aircraft. As currently envisioned, FVL will comprise a family of five military helicopters for the U.S. military that share common hardware, avionics, and engines.
Originally developed by Lycoming in the 1950s, the T55 core was used in that company’s ALF 502 turbofan that powered Bombardier Challenger 600s and British Aerospace BAE/Avro-146 quadjets. More than 4,200 T55s have been produced.
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