MRO provider Western Aircraft, a Greenwich AeroGroup company, has completed its first 1C inspection on a Dassault Falcon 8X—the most extensive scheduled maintenance event the French-made jets undergo. The project also covered related service bulletin compliance work, a Honeywell EASy IV cockpit upgrade, and installation of two Garmin GI 275 electronic flight instruments.

Falcons must undergo the 1C inspection at 96-month or 4,000-flight-cycle intervals, whichever comes first. The work involves stripping the airframe of its exterior panels and removing major interior components.

Brody McKenna, director of MRO operations for Western Aircraft, said the project drew on the team’s accumulated experience. “It reflects the planning and technical expertise that go into every heavy maintenance project we take on, and it adds to the 25 years Western Aircraft has spent as a Dassault Falcon service provider,” McKenna said.

Dassault Falcon Jet designated Western Aircraft an authorized heavy jet service center in 2001. Since then, the shop has logged more than 140 C-checks on Falcons, spanning the 50, 900, 2000, and 7X models. The MRO handles Falcon inspections, modifications, AOG response, avionics retrofits, and interior refurbishments at its Boise, Idaho facility.

FAA and industry officials are stressing the need for charter brokers to complete due diligence on charter operators to ensure the flight they are booking is legal. “Don’t rely on things like a third party to do your due diligence for you. You have to have that relationship with the operator to do that due diligence and get to the root of whether it’s a true [Part] 135 or not,” Al Mann, chief safety officer for aircraft management and private travel services firm FlyHouse, said during a panel session at The Air Charter Association’s U.S. Regional Forum yesterday in Dallas.

“Trust and verify,” advised Edward Cardenas, a member of the FAA’s Safe Air Charter Team. He pointed brokers to the FAA Safe Air Charter website, which contains information about illegal charter but also maintains a database of FAA-certificated air charter operators. Brokers can ask for an operator’s D085 or operations specification and compare it against the list.

Brokers are not held to a standard on this yet, Cardenas added, noting that Part 295 governing brokers is vague. “You guys have to self-regulate,” he told the audience. “There needs to be a standard in the industry.”

All of this underscores the importance of education, said Joel Fenn, regional private jet director of the Americas for the brokerage Air Charter Service.

Jack Pelton, chairman and CEO of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), has joined the board of directors for the Corporate Angel Network (CAN), which works to connect cancer patients with the care they need via no-cost flights on business aircraft.

“I eagerly anticipate collaborating with the members of the board to further enhance CAN’s vital mission,” Pelton said. “Public benefit flying stands as one of the most impactful humanitarian initiatives in aviation. It not only brings important support to the people it serves but also offers profound fulfillment to the individuals and organizations that champion this important cause.”

Pelton has served as EAA’s leader since 2012; before that, he was chairman, president, and CEO of Cessna Aircraft. His previous experience included working for Dornier Aircraft in Germany and Douglas Aircraft in California.

The announcement from CAN noted Pelton’s “incredible depth of industry experience,” as well as “a passion for aviation’s power to make a difference.”

For the past two years, EAA has highlighted public benefit flying at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, encouraging pilots to join organizations such as CAN.

Aircraft records management company Bluetail has now digitized more than 30 million aircraft records on its platform, a dataset the company describes as among the largest of its kind in the industry. According to the company, the records span a broad customer base, from individual aircraft owners to large U.S. and international fleet operators.

Bluetail said the dataset underpins its business aviation learning model, which allows its AI to generate operational insights across maintenance, compliance, and aircraft life cycle management.

Separately, the company introduced several AI-powered tools this year, including Ask Bluetail, Autonomous Logbooks, Lifecycle Timeline, and Compliance Check, designed to give maintenance teams, directors of maintenance, and compliance staff conversational access to information that has historically been buried in decades of scanned paperwork.

“Digital, though, was only the first step,” said Bluetail CEO and co-founder Roberto Guerrieri. “Those millions of records have since become real-time intelligence, forming the foundation of our business aviation learning model and the foundation our customers rely on to complete transactions, pass audits, and make maintenance decisions faster and with greater transparency. Every aircraft record we digitize strengthens that learning model…continuously extending what maintenance teams can do with our platform.”

Bluetail’s platform covers maintenance records, logbooks, regulatory paperwork, OEM publications, and compliance data—categories the company said have traditionally slowed aircraft sales, financing, and upkeep.

Timing interior upgrades with scheduled maintenance can turn required downtime into an opportunity to improve the cabin, streamline work scopes, and return the aircraft to service more efficiently.

A Sikorsky S-76D flight crew’s failure to properly identify a private heliport in dark night conditions led to an attempted landing at the wrong location and impact with trees and terrain, according to a newly released NTSB final report. The captain, first officer, and passenger all suffered serious injuries in the August 2025 helicopter crash near Round Mountain, Texas.

Investigators found that the flight crew likely misidentified the heliport altogether. The accident site, a heavily wooded area near a recreational vehicle park on private property, was about 1.54 miles north of the intended heliport, with a prominent west-to-east river separating the two locations. The captain reported landing at the heliport between 20 and 25 times in both day and night conditions and said he did not recall experiencing any visual illusions during the accident flight. The first officer had landed there 20 times previously, but only during daytime.

According to the report, the captain compared the map display against the outside visual references to confirm alignment with the heliport, cross-checking his position before continuing the approach.

Paradigm Helicopters told investigators the accident could have been prevented by implementing a night-vision-goggle program. The NTSB noted that the accident fits the pattern addressed in Safety Alert SA-033, “Landing at the Wrong Airport,” which urges flight crews to verify their position using all available resources before attempting to land.

Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority has issued Part 145 maintenance approval to Textron Aviation’s three service centers in the country. The U.S. business aircraft manufacturer operates factory-owned facilities at Melbourne Essendon Fields (YMEN), Perth Jandakot (YPJT), and Gold Coast (YBCG) airports.

According to Textron Aviation, more than 1,400 of its Cessna, Beechcraft, and Hawker aircraft are operating in Australia. The Melbourne service center at YMEN is the most recent addition, with the 35,000-sq-ft complex joining Textron Aviation’s company-owned service center network in May. That network is supplemented worldwide by more than 300 authorized service facilities.

In June 2024, the company rebranded the Premiair Aviation Maintenance MRO provider it acquired in 2020 to operate as Textron Aviation Australia. The aircraft manufacturer also has 40 mobile service units available worldwide to provide support for AOG aircraft.

Charter and jet card provider Paramount Business Jets has updated its Private Jet Rental Cost Guide with rates for more than 120 aircraft and 323 charter routes, along with hourly rate ranges across nine aircraft categories. The hourly rates run from $2,300 to $3,500 for turboprops and up to $18,000 to $23,000 for bizliners; figures exclude federal excise tax, segment fees, and other charges.

Beyond hourly rates, the guide outlines tax obligations, fee structures, aircraft positioning costs, and calendar-driven demand swings that affect a trip’s final price. Company founder and CEO Richard Zaher said his company’s advisers add the most value through the judgment they bring to each trip’s mix of operational and safety considerations, rather than just aircraft access. Route data includes estimated pricing for hundreds of city pairs, including New York–London, London–Dubai, and Macau–Hong Kong.

According to Zaher, the update reflects the company’s approach to client education. “Private aviation should be easier to understand,” he said. “Since founding Paramount Business Jets in 2005, we’ve believed our responsibility extends beyond arranging flights. Our role is to educate, advocate, and help clients navigate an increasingly complex marketplace with confidence.”

The company’s jet card pricing model, introduced in 2010 and made public in 2014, breaks out its management fee from the underlying operator rate—an approach carried into the pricing guide.

MRO provider Duncan Aviation recently installed a Gogo 5G air-to-ground (ATG) connectivity system in the company’s own Cessna Citation Excel as the North American ATG network continues to evolve. Gogo went live with its 5G ATG service late last year, and it now provides coverage throughout the contiguous U.S. and parts of Canada.

Duncan flies its Citation Excel, N1KD, to shuttle company team members between its facilities and satellites. As such, the MRO said, “The company is fully aware of how important it is to remain connected and productive during the flights.”

Noting that the ATG network now provides a significant boost in speed—up to 80 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload, per Gogo—several company executives shared their experiences with the service.

Among them was PK Duncan, fleet program manager at the company, who reported that he was able to use the system during a two-hour flight: “I used the Gogo 5G system to answer emails, update schedules, and itemize my Microsoft To Do applications through Outlook. I was even able to bounce back and forth from Outlook to our internal myDuncan system and our internal company platform, allowing me to fully use my computer during both legs of the two-hour commute.”

V-p and general counsel Kramer Lyons added that he used the system to log into Duncan’s VPN and download documents.

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