Advanced air mobility infrastructure group Skyports has acquired Falcon Heliport, one of only two public heliports in London, and will develop it as a potential vertiport for eVTOL aircraft. The facility, now operating under the name Skyports London Heliport, sits close to the UK capital’s Canary Wharf financial district and will continue to be available to helicopter operators.
Skyports said it will start using the facility to evaluate vertiport operations and equipment as part of its plans to provide infrastructure for eVTOL air taxi services in the UK and other countries. Last year, the UK-based company announced plans to develop a vertiport in the north London suburb of Brent Cross. It is also working on prospective sites in the U.S., France, South Korea, and Singapore.
“The acquisition demonstrates our ambition to deliver a network of operational landing sites for eVTOLs and our commitment to making the UK a leader in the decarbonization of domestic aviation,” said Skyports head of Europe and the Middle East Damian Kysely. “The heliport will also provide us with a live operating environment in which we can safely develop and test our vertiport systems, collect operational data, and mature our vertiport technologies.”
The city’s other heliport is in Battersea on the west side of central London. It is owned by David and Simon Reuben, who also own London Oxford Airport.
Want more? You can find a longer version of this article at FutureFlight.aero, a news and information resource developed by AIN to provide objective coverage and analysis of cutting-edge aviation technology.
AINsight: Who Should Succeed the Aviation Director?
The role of a Part 91 aviation director has changed significantly over the last 10 to 15 years. Due to a variety of factors, successors to the role require an even more diverse set of skills.
Yet one skill that isn’t required to successfully lead the aviation department is the ability to fly. Despite this fact, I often hear from hiring managers who insist that they must hire a pilot to run the flight department. I don't believe this is the case.
While the aviation team is tasked with operating and managing aircraft, the main role of an aviation director is to lead people, communicate, and provide resources. That’s why I feel safe in saying that there’s no single protocol or prerequisite for hiring a director.
For those hiring managers who are recruiting for their next aviation director, I’ve come up with a list of skills one must have to effectively lead a flight department: have a desire to lead people; be a solutions-based creative thinker; know how to delegate to others; understand the vision and mission of the aviation department; be a good communicator; work well with others; have a good handle on the “big picture” and know how to be strategic; know how to work with corporate/family office; make everyone feel included; provide the necessary resources; have industry connections; and possess broad aviation knowledge.
In another effort to raise awareness about illegal charters, the Air Charter Association (ACA) has declared today to be Fly Legal Day. The date was chosen to honor Argentinian professional soccer player Emiliano Sala, who on Jan. 21, 2019, was killed in the crash of an illegally chartered aircraft.
“Illegal charter, although not common, remains an ongoing issue in our industry, and Sala’s anniversary highlights the tragic consequences of this illicit activity, which we are determined to minimize,” said ACA chief executive Glenn Hogben. “In memory of Sala, we are launching our Fly Legal Day and ask all our members and industry colleagues around the world to unite in spreading the word and to shine a light on this illegal practice, with the hope of preventing any future tragedy.”
Illegal charters involve operators that don’t have an air operator certificate or air carrier certificate and are not legally allowed to accept payment for a flight. “Ensuring that travelers always fly legally is a crucial part of our mission,” Hogben added. “Using one of our trusted member companies ensures those involved in organizing air charter will avoid illegal charter flights and avoid putting anyone at significant risk.”
General aviation is at a “watershed moment” as airports begin to ban 100LL fuel and the Environmental Protection Agency places a 2023 timeline for an endangerment finding on leaded fuel, AOPA president and CEO Mark Baker warned. Facing a need to remain in front of the efforts, industry leaders hope to nail down a new timeframe for finding a drop-in replacement in the upcoming weeks, he added.
Speaking yesterday during an NBAA webinar, Baker and NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen agreed that the recent efforts to ban leaded fuel have ratcheted up the urgency for finding a drop-in replacement for 100LL. At the same time, those efforts underscore the importance of the FAA remaining engaged to ensure the safety of the fleet, they added.
“We all agree we need to move away from low-lead,” Baker said, but he added that banning access, such as what Santa Clara County in California has done, is a safety issue. Bolen added that a move to ban avgas “falls under multiple titles: this is an airport issue, it's an economic issue, it’s a sustainability issue, but first and foremost it's a safety issue.”
Baker noted that a cross-section of the industry has been working to address this on multiple fronts and “hopefully in the next month here, we'll have some concrete dates and a definitive timeline."
LunaJets topped $100 million in annual revenue in 2021, marking the first time in the private jet charter broker’s 15-year history that it reached this milestone. The Geneva-based company said it saw a 65 percent increase in flight volume compared with 2020 and a 40 percent gain from 2019.
“We beat our record of new clients, with over 1,100 in 2021, with an unprecedented level of clients switching suppliers and newcomers into the industry,” said LunaJets director of sales Guillaume Launay. “Most of these are leisure clients, which this year represent nearly 70 percent of our activity, compared to around 50 percent in 2019, whereas our business clients have dramatically reduced their flight hours.”
In addition, the company last year opened an office in Monaco, adding to its locations in Paris and London; doubled its information technology and digital investments; started accepting crypto payments; and offered carbon offset programs. Looking ahead, LunaJets plans to expand its offices this year to Moscow, Dubai, and Riga, Latvia. It also is projecting 20 to 30 percent growth this year.
In honor of the contributions to aerospace by Burt and Dick Rutan, the directors of California’s Mojave Air and Space Port (KMHV) have agreed to rename the facility Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field. Burt Rutan established Rutan Aircraft factory at KMHV in the mid-1970s, when it was just a small general aviation airport. They started Scaled Composites there almost a decade later, helping propel it into a noted center of aerospace innovation.
A prolific designer with no fewer than 46 aircraft to his credit, Burt Rutan has received the Collier and National Air and Space Museum trophies for his work on historic aircraft such as Voyager, which his former Air Force pilot brother Dick copiloted in the first nonstop flight around the world, and SpaceShipOne, which became the first privately funded spacecraft to enter space.
Five of his designs—the above two plus the VariEze, the Quickie, and the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which was flown by the late adventurer Steve Fossett in the first solo nonstop circumnavigation of the Earth—are enshrined in the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
According to the KMHV board, the Rutans' “aviation achievements have played a key role in the evolution of the aerospace industry and the success of the Mojave Air & Space Port organization.”
Airbus has delivered its last medium twin-turbine Dauphin helicopter. The Spanish Customs Service will use the AS365N3 to combat drug trafficking in the Strait of Gibraltar, the Alboran Sea, and in Galicia. Airbus Helicopters manufactured the helicopter in Marignane, France, and completed it at its Albacete, Spain facility with an electro-optical system, radar, tactical communications system, searchlight, and long-range fuel tanks that enable an endurance of up to three hours and 30 minutes. Its fast cruising speed is 145 knots.
In 2021, Spanish Customs’ three Dauphins, working with 45 vessels and land units, contributed to the seizure of more than 200 tons of illegal drugs in Spain. The helicopters fly up to 1,000 hours per year each. “The Spanish Customs has been a long-standing partner since 1985 and we are very proud of how, since the first Dauphin was handed over to them in 2002, these helicopters have carried out essential tasks,” said Fernando Lombo, managing director of Airbus Helicopters in Spain.
Over the past 40 years, Airbus has produced more than 1,100 Dauphin-series helicopters. The fleet, including the U.S. Coast Guard’s MH-65s, has flown seven million hours in 70 countries. In November 1991, a Dauphin achieved a world helicopter speed record, reaching 201 knots on a three-kilometer route.
While the flight training business is booming, flight schools are having a hard time finding aircraft. The glut of general aviation airframes that peaked at nearly 18,000 deliveries in the late 1970s seems to have finally been used up, as evidenced by a rapid rise in used aircraft prices. Especially difficult to find are training airplanes such as the Cessna 172 and four-seat Pipers, some new models of which sell for nearly half a million dollars.
To help flight schools obtain aircraft, a group of aviation and transportation entrepreneurs founded FlytFinance to lease new trainers to Part 61 and 141 training centers. “There’s been a huge spike in flight training, unparalleled since World War II,” according to co-founder Jay Taffet. “We need to be the supply chain when it comes to their fleets.”
With some leases already signed for, FlytFinance has placed an order for more than 75 new Cessna 172S and Piper Archer TX single-engine trainers and twin-engine Seminoles, all equipped with Garmin G1000 NXi avionics and GFC 700 autopilots. The first delivery will take place in the second quarter.
Leases are for five years, and the schools pay a flat monthly lease rate ($4,850 for a 172) with no minimum-hours requirement, so the more they fly, the lower the average hourly cost. Lessees also pay a $10-per-hour, per-engine allocation to cover engine overhaul costs.
As telecommunication companies roll out 5G C-band around U.S. airports, AIN is seeking feedback from pilots and aircraft operators about any anomalies with radar altimeters and associated systems they've seen. Let us know what you’ve experienced after the January 19 activation; be sure to also submit any reports of faults to the NASA ASRS database.
Photo of the Week
Head’s up. Chris Yoder, a Dassault Falcon 8X captain for a Colorado-based flight department, took this photo while departing Eagle County Airport (KEGE) headed to the West Coast. “The FalconEye in our new 8X is a great tool, and the sunset and EVS created what I thought to be a beautiful picture.” We couldn’t agree more, Chris. Thanks for sharing this one!
If you’d like to submit an entry for Photo of the Week, email a high-resolution horizontal image (at least 2000 x 1200 pixels), along with your name, contact information, social media names, and info about it (including brief description, location, etc.) to photos@ainonline.com. Tail numbers can be removed upon request. Those submitting photos give AIN implied consent to publish them in its publications and social media channels.
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