Atlas-equipped CitationJet Wins in Head-to-head Fly-off
A fly-off on Tuesday afternoon between a 2002 Cessna Citation CJ1 (N44VS) equipped with Tamarack Aerospace’s Atlas active winglets and a stock 1997 CJ1 (N741CC) resulted in the retrofitted model outpacing its older competitor. The event, sponsored by Tamarack and monitored by AOPA and the National Aeronautic Association, had the two aircraft fly a nearly 1,200-nm course from Portland, Maine, to West Palm Beach, Florida. According to Textron Aviation, a stock CJ1 has an NBAA IFR range (four passengers) of 1,127 nm.
N741CC spent 5 hours and 37 minutes in the air, not including a 45-minute fuel stop in Columbia, South Carolina. Meanwhile, N44VS, the Atlas-modified CJ1, was able to make the trip nonstop in 4 hours and 36 minutes.
According to Tamarack, N741CC could climb only to FL360 and was forced to stop to refuel after needing to change course due to weather. N44VS, on the other hand, was able to climb directly to FL410 in less than 30 minutes thanks to improved performance from the winglets and was thus able to use a more direct route, landing with more than 700 pounds of fuel remaining.
Overall, the unmodified CJ1 burned more than 1,000 pounds of fuel than its competitor. “Comparing these two flights, we saw about a 30 percent more efficient flight profile in terms of fuel consumption,” said Tamarack CEO Nick Guida.
New Company To Help Bizav Reach Environment Goals
With sustainability and decarbonization a major topic in business aviation, 4AIR launched today to help aircraft operators and customers offset or directly reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other environmental pollutants. “Aviation directly represents 2 percent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, but the true impact on climate is closer to 5 percent when considering all emissions and non-CO2 impacts,” said 4AIR COO Nancy Bsales.
The company has established a four-tier rating system, claimed to be the first and only such measure on sustainability in private aviation that is aligned with industrywide goals and is consistent with international standards. It ranges from Bronze, for users that commit to carbon-neutrality by offsetting their CO2 emissions through verified offset credits, through Silver for emissions neutrality, Gold for emissions reduction, and finally Platinum, which involves direct contributions to the non-profit Aviation Climate Fund based on the participant's carbon footprint.
At the end of the year, 4AIR will evaluate and verify those accomplishments, with those who achieve or exceed their commitments eligible to renew their rating or increase it for the following year. While backed by Directional Aviation and its family of companies, 4AIR will operate as a stand-alone company to ensure that all organizations participating in the program have complete confidentiality, exclusive access to their information, and equal competitive standing.
Bombardier is beginning to accept reservations for installation of its Smart Link Plus health monitoring units (HMUs) on Challenger 300s and 350s as it moves forward on its expansive connected aircraft plans. The Canadian manufacturer revealed plans in late 2019 to offer the Smart Link Plus HMUs for free for more than 2,500 in-service Challengers and Globals. Global 7500s already come equipped with health-monitoring capabilities.
“This is an important step in our connected aircraft program,” said Elza Brunelle-Yeung, senior director of aftermarket products and services, in announcing the launch of the program for the Challenger models.
Once equipped, operators will have the option of subscribing to Smart Link Plus services that will provide access to a range of real-time data and trends involving the aircraft. Bombardier is rolling out an app next month with a data visualization tool, helping operators to better track aircraft service needs and troubleshoot any emerging concerns. This data also will provide Bombardier with aggregated fleetwide trends.
Bombardier's service centers are taking reservations for installation work that will begin midyear. While initially focused on the Challenger 300/350, Bombardier plans to move to the in-service Challenger 600 and Global families shortly afterward.
By offering the boxes for free (installation costs are not included), Bombardier is hoping it will encourage fleet operators to participate in the Smart Link Plus programs.
Fewer commercial helicopter deliveries contributed to lower revenue and profit at Bell in the fourth quarter, parent company Textron reported yesterday. Commercial deliveries during the three-month period totaled 57, compared with 76 in the same period a year ago.
Revenue of $871 million was down from $961 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, while profit declined by $8 million to $110 million. Lower military revenue contributed to the decline, Textron said. Backlog was $5.3 billion, compared with $6.9 billion a year ago.
On an earnings call yesterday with analysts, Textron CEO Scott Donnelly said he expects “solid margin performance” at Bell of about 12.5 percent in 2021 even with lower military and commercial revenue and increased investment in research and development related to the U.S. Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) and Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) programs.
Despite lower commercial projections for 2021, Donnelly told analysts he does expect to see the beginnings of a recovery. “As you know, so much of our commercial helicopter market is international,” he said. “It's just been tough to get deals closed here in 2020. So, I think we'll start to see that pick back up again, but it'll leave a little bit of a decline in 2021 for commercial orders as well.”
Sentient Jet doubled its jet card sales to $450 million in 2020 due almost exclusively to new private fliers entering the market and expects other trends that emerged last year to continue into this year and beyond, CEO Andrew Collins told AIN.
Following the emergence of Covid-19 in the U.S. early last spring, “volume fell through the floor,” Collins said. But later in the spring, the company noted a rise in demand from clients who hadn’t previously purchased or used a jet card from Sentient. Traditionally, those new entrants account for a third of Sentient’s business, but the demand was such in 2020 that they accounted for two-thirds of its business.
“I think anybody in the industry that had an experience with the rise…in new entrants, the real focus they’re going to have to be in tune to is retaining this new user base in 2021 and beyond,” he noted.
Collins believes that personal travel trips are going to last longer, noting what was once a four-to-six-day average stay for Sentient leisure clients increased to eight to 12 days in 2020. The other trend that emerged is technology such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams has enabled more people to work or attend school virtually, which means they don’t have to always be tied to a place they would normally call home.
Infrastructure operations group Ferrovial is partnering with eVTOL aircraft developer Lilium to develop a network of 10 or more new vertiports across Florida, the companies said yesterday. The venture builds on Lilium’s previously announced plans to launch commercial flights across the state from 2025, starting with a base at the Lake Nona residential and business development near Orlando.
The partners said they will announce the first of several more vertiport sites this spring and that this is to be in south Florida. The five-seat Lilium Jet can operate across a radius of 185 miles, allowing it to reach many of the more populous areas of the state, including Tampa, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Jacksonville. Having new vertiport locations further south from the Orlando area in central Florida would allow the network to extend across the entire Miami metropolitan area.
“Nearly all 20 million Floridians will live within 30 minutes of our vertiports and the 140 million annual visitors to the Sunshine State will have a high-speed option available to travel to their destinations,” said Lilium COO Remo Gerber.
The FAA has approved an STC for installation of Garmin’s GFC 600 autopilot in the Beechcraft King Air C90 and E90. This upgrade is available now from select Garmin dealers and it can integrate with Garmin G600 and touchscreen G600 TXi displays, the GI 275 flight instrument, and GTN navigators.
In addition to Garmin’s Electronic Stability & Protection, the autopilot also offers the LVL button, which returns the airplane to straight-and-level flight. Brushless DC motors in the autopilot servos perform better and have lower maintenance requirements than older servo designs, according to Garmin. “In addition, these servos are optimized for turbine aircraft by offering more torque to help better command and respond to control demands required of turbine aircraft,” the company said.
Some of the GFC 600 features include altitude preselect, indicated airspeed hold, coupled approaches and go-arounds, built-in GPS roll steering, underspeed and overspeed protection, yaw damper, control wheel steering, vertical navigation, and flight director command bars displayed on the G600 and G600 TXi.
The mode controller fits in a standard 6.25-inch radio stack. Mode annunciations are displayed on the G600 flight display and G600 TXi display or on an optional annunciator panel.
Nuke-sniffing Helicopter Deployed to Tampa
In an activity that seems carved straight out of a Tom Clancy movie, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) announced that it will use one of its Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) Bell 412 helicopters to conduct low-level radiation mapping and detection flights over Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium in preparation for Super Bowl LV on February 7.
Low-level flights over downtown Tampa and the surrounding area will begin on February 1. DOE said the flights will be conducted at altitudes down to 150 feet agl at 80 knots. The flights will follow a grid pattern and be conducted only during daylight. By calculating the normal amount of radiation occurring in an area, the NEST team is able to quickly recognize unusual levels before, during, or after an event.
DOE regularly conducts NEST flights before major public events, such as presidential inaugurations and high-profile athletic competitions. NEST is part of NNSA’s Counterterrorism and Counterproliferation Program and is an element of the United States’ nuclear or radiological emergency response capability. The Bell 412 to be used in Tampa is based at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and will be crewed by personnel from the Nevada National Security Site’s Remote Sensing Laboratory. It is equipped with a variety of passive radiation sensing technology.
Sheltair at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC) in Denver took highest honors in the FBO category of the AIN Top Flight Awards. With September’s grand opening, Sheltair debuted the permanent facility for its first location west of the Mississippi River. The approximately $20 million, 11-acre facility has expansive views of downtown Denver on one side and mountains of the other. See this year's award winners.
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