Piaggio Avanti Fleet Tops One Million Flight Hours
Piaggio Aerospace’s P.180 Avanti turboprop fleet has amassed one million flight hours since first flight in 1986. Of the 246 produced, 213 are currently in service—95 are operating in the Americas, 96 in Europe, 18 in the Asia-Pacific, and four in Africa and the Middle East.
The P.180 with most years of service is S/N 1004, still flying today in the U.S., while the one with the most flight hours is S/N 1007 (operating in Canada), with more than 11,000 flight hours. Piaggio currently reports orders for an additional 13 Avantis—its EVO third-generation P.180—and is currently assembling the first one for the Italian Air Force.
“Reaching one million flight hours carries a symbolic value,” said Vincenzo Nicastro, the extraordinary commissioner for Piaggio Aerospace appointed by the Italian government. “Two years ago, the company seemed to be close to collapsing. We have instead succeeded in bringing Piaggio Aerospace back to being fully operational, saving thousands of jobs and a more than 100-year-old brand. We now look forward to [finding] soon a new owner.”
The twin pusher P.180 Avanti features a unique design that incorporates three lifting surfaces and was designed in the early 1980s. The goal was to create a twin-turboprop faster than a similarly sized business jet with lower operating costs.
AINsight: A Stickler for Details
The sophistication and complexity of the business aviation field, as well as the expensive factors involved, are well known. The cost to buy, operate, charter, and use these amazing business aircraft. There is one more cost that could be the biggest: the cost of missing critical steps in the aircraft buying, inspecting, or operating processes. These are the details.
Lately, I have had a few aircraft brokers on the other side of a transaction say, “Wow, I wish we had found a buyer that was not as focused on the details as you all have been.” I can only scratch my head at that comment and wonder what that must look like for everyone involved.
None of these details create transactions that are awkward or overly one-sided. They just create a demand for certainty. In fact, this demand for certainty should be a part of both sides of the transaction.
Paying attention to details in aircraft transactions is so logical for many to consider, but believe it or not they are completely ignored by some. These omissions could drive a terrible and costly outcome. After all, the devil is in the details—but so are the diamonds!
UK Lifts Quarantine for Approved Senior Executive Trips
Some business travelers, including people working in the entertainment, news, and sports industries, will be exempt from the UK’s 14-day Covid quarantine requirements from 4 a.m. local time on December 5. The relaxation of rules, which was announced by transport secretary Grant Shapps late Thursday, is potentially good news for business aircraft operators.
The exemption applies for senior executives who are determined to be “bringing significant economic benefit” to the UK through work that “has a greater than 50 percent chance” of creating or preserving at least 50 UK-based jobs to an existing UK business with at least 50 employees or to a new UK business within one year of their arrival. Alternatively, they should be traveling to purchase goods and services from a UK-based business with at least 50 employees, either through a contract worth at least £100 million ($130 million) or that would create or preserve 50 or more jobs.
The traveler will need to carry a letter signed by a director from the business they are visiting in the UK. Where a new business is being created, the letter should be signed by a director from the firm proposing to create and own the new venture. The letter will need to explain the necessity for the senior executive to visit specific locations and the extent to which their presence is likely to result in economic benefit to the country.
Industry data provider JetNet has revised its 10-year forecast downward, predicting a market for 6,362 business jets delivered by 2029 with a value of $204.4 billion.
A year ago at NBAA’s 2019 BACE, the company issued a 10-year forecast calling for deliveries of 7,050 business jets (excluding personal jets and bizliners) worth an approximate $241 billion. The rise of the Covid pandemic, and its far-reaching effects on aircraft travel as well as manufacturing, has changed those calculations.
As part of its annual “State of the Market” press conference, presented virtually this week during NBAA-VBACE, the Utica, N.Y.-based company estimated 511 business jets will be handed over this year, in contrast with the 720 (not including personal jets and bizliners) delivered in 2019, and in tandem scaled back the 10-year projections.
While OEMs have adjusted their production rates to accommodate the post-Covid environment, that will have longer-term effects on deliveries going forward, according to JetNet IQ managing director Rolland Vincent. “When OEMs and supply chains slow down, to ramp back up it’s a challenge,” he said, “you’ve got to get not just your immediate and large suppliers, you’ve got to get the whole supply chain back up.” He added that the current decrease in commercial aircraft production will have an even more pronounced effect on the aviation industry supply chain.
Tamarack Aerospace CEO Nick Guida said the manufacturer of the Atlas active winglet system is expanding into new business, military, and commercial aviation markets. Atlas winglets are currently installed on 115 Cessna CitationJets, and Tamarack plans on having installed 20 this year and projects 40 in 2021. But Guida revealed on Wednesday at NBAA-VBACE that the company also is working on two unspecified military airframe projects that he hoped to be able to reveal within the next six months.
By way of example, he said Atlas on Dash-8 and King Air turboprop surveillance aircraft could provide more time on station and also improve hot-and-high performance. As another example, Guida claimed Atlas on the C-130 could improve performance, reduce structural fatigue, and lengthen maintenance intervals.
Guida said the company is also investigating Atlas for other business jets, specifically the Bombardier Challenger 600 series, and commercial airliners such as the Airbus A320. He estimated that the winglets could provide 12 to 18 percent fuel savings on this Airbus airframe versus 4 to 5 percent from passive winglets.
With regard to the Challenger, Guida said the addition of Atlas would likely eliminate or raise its ceiling for a step climb, enable an improved useful load, and boost range by up to 15 percent. He would neither confirm nor deny that the company is working with eVTOL developers.
The Thanksgiving holidays provided a bump to business aviation traffic, WingX reported, noting that business jet and turboprop activity experienced a “big dip” in the first two weeks of November followed by a recovery in the latter part of the month.
In all, 60,000 fewer business aircraft sectors were flown year-over-year in November, representing a 17 percent decline. This is only slightly worse than the trend in October and compares with the 50 percent drop that scheduled airline traffic experienced at the same time, the analyst said.
During the four-day U.S. Thanksgiving period last week, business aviation departures numbered 33,227, just 10 percent off from a year earlier. Thanksgiving in Canada brought traffic to within 6 percent of normal.
WingX further is seeing a diverging trend with improvements in North America and weakening in Europe. Germany, which saw a year-over-year gain in August, is now off by more than 30 percent. Italy flights are down 36 percent, and France has seen a 21 percent drop.
“Just as the U.S. airlines saw the busiest traffic since March during Thanksgiving, business aviation activity also climbed close to its pandemic peak last weekend, lifting the overall trend for November,” said WingX managing director Richard Koe. “In Europe, the dynamic variations in lockdown 2.0 are clearly suppressing flight activity, especially in Western Europe.”
Netflix Book Author Meyer Highlights ‘No Rules’ Culture
Noted author on Netflix corporate culture Erin Meyer highlighted the importance of building a talent-dense organization where feedback is encouraged, rules eliminated, and innovation and flexibility fostered during the Day 2 keynote of NBAA-VBACE.
Meyer, a professor at the international business school INSEAD, discussed with NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen lessons learned as she co-authored the New York Times bestseller No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention. Bolen opened the session noting how innovation and flexibility—two of the themes in the book—have become of significant value, particularly during the pandemic. Meyer, who co-authored the book with Netflix co-founder, CEO, and chairman Reed Hastings, agreed.
She noted that many corporate cultures operate with an “industrial era hangover” guided by means to reduce error, create efficiency, and increase replicability. “But today...more organizations are looking to be more flexible and more innovative. And that's where we really need to think about a whole new set of principles.”
She outlined three approaches Netflix takes to achieve those goals: building a “talent dense” organization only involving high performers; establishing a culture of candid feedback; and eliminating rules. These approaches foster flexibility and innovation.
Meyer acknowledged that in a safety culture, “critical goals, rules, and process are our friends,” but even in industries such as aviation, dual goals can be separated to operate with process and freedom.
Kaman Enters Bizjet Aftermarket Through C&L Partnership
Kaman Composites is partnering with C&L Aerospace to provide composite repair services to the business jet aftermarket. Under the arrangement announced this week at NBAA-VBACE, Bangor, Maine-based C&L will serve as the exclusive distributor for composite structural repairs offered by Kaman Composites’ Part 145 repair station in Wichita.
“Historically, Kaman Composites has provided structural repair exclusively for military programs,” said Kaman Composites senior director of business development Malissa Nesmith. “However, this collaboration with C&L expands our repair services into the business aviation aftermarket, which we are looking forward to supporting.”
The partners will support a variety of business jet platforms, including those from Textron Aviation and Bombardier. In 2019, Kaman Composites formed the Radome Center of Excellence that offers radome manufacturing, as well as design and engineering. C&L will offer radome repair as part of the new relationship.
“This partnership will allow C&L to expand our product offerings,” said C&L director of business development Brad Vieux. “We can now offer customers structural repairs for customer-owned units, or we can offer an immediate exchange. It gives our customers more options and we look forward to growing the program with Kaman.”
Kaman Corp.’s composites business also operates in Bennington, Vermont, but the Wichita facility offers MRO composite repair services under its Part 145 certificate.
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Photo of the Week
Rainbow connection. Mike Wagner, a captain at a U.S.-based fractional provider, snapped this photo of a Dassault Falcon 2000 sitting on the ramp of Montana’s Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (BZN) and appearing to be the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. Thanks for sharing, Mike!
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