Flexjet Europe has achieved IS-BAO accreditation from the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) and continues in IBAC’s Progressive Stage 3 program, the Directional Aviation company announced today. The accreditation was earned in December following an independent audit of Flexjet Europe’s UK aviation operations, structures, and processes, including its safety management system, the foundation of IS-BAO accreditation.
Flexjet Europe watched its flight activity increase by more than 400 percent in 2021 and is preparing for further growth this year. “Our ambitious plans for 2022 include significant expansion of our fleet, crew, and support infrastructure,” said Flexjet European managing director Marine Eugène.
Also last year, Flexjet Europe was granted EASA Approved Training Organization status from Transport Malta, allowing the company to offer in-house conversion courses and training. That gives the company more control over the development timeline for its European pilots.
In addition, the fractional operator received EASA Category II approval with the advanced pilot training qualification to operate to more airports in challenging weather conditions. “We have worked relentlessly to structure ourselves around the highest operational standards, and it is rewarding to have begun 2022 with some key milestones reached,” added Flexjet executive v-p of flight operations for Europe Clive Richardson.
Boeing is investing a further $450 million in its Wisk Aero eVTOL joint venture with Kitty Hawk, the companies announced this morning. The additional investment in Wisk signals Boeing's intention to hold a significant stake in the advanced air mobility sector.
Wisk said the funding will support efforts to certify what it described as its sixth-generation fully autonomous eVTOL design, which is set to replace the fifth-generation Cora two-seater prototype that has now logged almost 1,500 flight tests. However, Wisk and Boeing declined to provide any performance details or specifications for the new eVTOL, indicating that further announcements will be made later this year. They have also refused to publish a projected timeline for type certification, insisting they don’t want to prejudge how long regulators will take to declare the aircraft and its proposed autonomous flight operating model to be safe.
Nevertheless, Wisk itself intends to operate 14 million eVTOL air taxi flights each year across a network of 20 cities within five years of the FAA clearing the aircraft for production. Wisk CEO Gary Gysin expects to launch operations with around 2,000 eVTOL vehicles, implying that each would make an average of 19 flights each day with flight durations between 10 and 25 minutes. Its initial air taxi services will be in the U.S. but Wisk later intends to seek certification in other jurisdictions, most notably Europe.
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.
While the used business aircraft market in 2021 may have been a boon for dealers accredited by the International Association of Aircraft Dealers (IADA), it wasn’t a necessarily favorable one for buyers. “We enjoyed a solid year, maybe our best,” said Ogarajets president and CEO Johnny Foster. "However, the market created an environment that was not nearly as positive for our buying clients. Values and prices are completely disconnected, supply is almost nil, and due diligence is limited by shop capacity and demand.”
According to IADA’s Fourth Quarter 2021 Market Report released today, accredited dealers such as Ogarajets closed 20 percent more aircraft deals in 2021 than in 2020: 1,372 aircraft transactions compared with 1,135 a year earlier. IADA noted that many of those airplanes never made it to the market “before being snatched up by buyers willing to pay top dollar.”
Dealers also reported that they expect a continued increase in demand for used business turboprops and jets across all size categories through at least the first half of this year. Prices also will keep rising, they added. “Values have increased an average of 10 percent a month for the past three months,” said IADA chairman emeritus Paul Kirby, executive v-p of IADA dealer QS Partners. “Absent an increase in supply or a dramatic drop in demand, appreciation will likely continue into 2022.”
NBAA has released guidance for its recently-launched Sustainable Flight Department Accreditation Program. Intended to encourage the development of an environmentally-responsible culture in the business aviation industry and recognize those operations that meet environmental sustainability standards, the new documents contain the requirements in each of the four audited program accreditations: flight, operations, ground support, and infrastructure.
“The Sustainable Flight Department Accreditation program creates a mechanism for members to align with their overall corporate strategy,” said Stewart D’Leon, NBAA’s director of environmental and technical operations. “It gives them an avenue to work towards sustainability and be acknowledged for the work they are doing by having a third party, NBAA, audit and verify the information they are presenting. The program also provides a path for members who are just getting started in the sustainability effort.”
To ensure that the process runs smoothly, the initial application period for the program is set to open early next month and close on March 31. Over the coming weeks, NBAA will be scheduling webinars to provide a program overview and answer applicant questions regarding the accreditation. D'Leon told AIN that the application window will reopen early next year.
The latest five-year EASA Safety Plan not only addresses safety issues emerging from Covid-19 but introduces a rulemaking task to revive work on creating a European digital pilot license system. It also supports further modernization of the aviation system in the areas of safety, efficiency, a level playing field, and environmental protection.
Nineteen new research projects are included, with many of them addressing technologies such as remote flight instruction, risk assessment of complex systems, use of machine learning in certification, electric and hybrid propulsion, and digital transformation.
The rulemaking task to create a European digital pilot license system aims to provide a “safe and easy-to-use service and enable flight crew to carry their licenses, including medical certificates, in a fully digitized format displayed on their own personal electronic devices.” Financing was approved for the initial phase of development and planning in mid-2018, but this work was put on hold during the pandemic.
According to EASA, the platform should enable flight and aeromedical examiners to update, validate, and/or authenticate licenses in real-time. Also, it must ensure the prevention of fraudulent or forged licenses, as well as incorporate robust security measures. Once the framework is developed, EASA intends to seek nominations from its member states to establish a steering committee that will monitor the development and rollout of the digital license.
German drone maker Wingcopter will provide a fleet of its tiltrotor Wingcopter 198s to the Spright unit of Air Methods. Spright was launched in July 2020 to offer a drone-based, healthcare-specific delivery network in the U.S., leveraging Air Methods’ 300 air ambulance bases. Under the deal, Wingcopter will become Spright’s exclusive provider of fixed-wing eVTOL cargo drones in the U.S., while Spright becomes the exclusive provider of MRO services for the Wingcopter 198 to third parties in the U.S. Air Methods has a long history of MRO activity through its United Rotorcraft unit. Wingcopter values the contract at more than $16 million.
Spright is supporting Wingcopter in its FAA UAS type certification and collaborating with Hutchinson Regional Health System in Kansas for initial tests and plans to expand service beyond the state with additional medical projects later this year. Drone missions include on-demand delivery between medical facilities of medical supplies, medications, vaccines, blood, and lab samples. Wingcopter estimates the drone delivery market will grow to $40 billion by 2030.
“This multimillion-dollar commercial agreement with Spright is clear proof that the Wingcopter 198 has a perfect product-market fit. We are proud to enable large-scale drone delivery across the United States with this strong partnership,” said Tom Plümmer, the co-founder and CEO of Wingcopter.
Aviation Safety Question of the Week
Provided by
What is “press-on-itis”?
A. A type of pressure-sensitive sensor used to detect the presence of unauthorized persons in the flight deck.
B. The decision to continue to the planned destination or toward the planned goal even when significantly less risky alternatives exist.
The industry is beginning to see the fruits of a major effort across multiple groups to attract new pilots and has become “cool again,” according to NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen and AOPA president and CEO Mark Baker. Speaking at an NBAA webinar last week, Bolen and Baker underscored the need to press forward on building the workforce, saying the industry once again is “feeling a strong pinch in this area."
Baker estimated that the industry needs to get back to 40,000 or 50,000 licenses issued a year. This year, the U.S. should see around 30,000 new licenses, he noted. This is up from 17,000 just a half-dozen years ago.
He was encouraged by the response to AOPA’s High School Aviation STEM Curriculum program. “It is going really well,” he said, noting that more than 10,000 students in 450 classrooms in 44 states are participating. Many involve underrepresented groups, including young women (25 percent of the participants) and underprivileged students (40 percent).
“I think we're onto something good,” Bolen agreed. Emerging technologies are generating excitement and capturing the imagination of a lot of youths, he said. This underscores the need to focus on less traditional areas of aviation, as well and push for diversity and inclusivity, Bolen added. “This focus is being embraced and we're finding tremendous results there.”
Nav Canada, the country’s private ATC operating company, will restrict land and hold-short operations (LAHSO) to dry runways. LAHSO is an ATC procedure that allows for simultaneous operations on intersecting runways. The intent is to increase airport traffic capacity by using two runways simultaneously and instructing one aircraft to land and hold short of a runway where a departure or arrival is occurring.
This procedure has historically been conducted on both wet and dry runways in Canada. Transport Canada requested that Nav Canada align its LAHSO procedures with those of the U.S. Under FAA regulations, the procedure can be used only on dry runways. The revised requirement takes effect later this month.
In addition to the requirement that the entire runway surface be dry, Nav Canada noted these other parameters associated with the new LAHSO procedures: the use of LAHSO procedures when moisture or contaminants are present is not authorized; a weather minima of 1,000-foot ceiling or more and visibility of at least three statute miles continue to be required; crosswind component cannot exceed 25 knots, including gusts; and the PAPI serving the runway used for LAHSO must be operating.
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