Uber Announces eVTOL Partner at Elevate Summit

Jaunt Air Mobility and Uber will partner to develop an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxi, Uber announced today at the opening of its Uber Elevate Summit 2019 in Washington, D.C. According to Uber, Jaunt has expertise in reduced rotor operating speed (ROSA) aircraft.

“Jaunt Air Mobility has assembled a highly talented team of experienced engineers with a long history of designing and certifying eVTOL vehicles,” Uber Elevate director of engineering Mark Moore said. “Martin Peryea, Jaunt’s chief technology officer, has led many helicopter development programs as a chief engineer and brings invaluable insights to developing low noise, reliable, and safe aircraft.”

ROSA will enable an air vehicle design that offers quiet operations, maximum safety, and enhanced ride quality that keeps passengers in a level position from takeoff to landing, according to Uber. Jaunt’s specialized rotor and wing design provides both high hover and cruise flight efficiency, allowing it to meet Uber’s mission requirements with an all-electric propulsion system.

In a separate but related announcement today, Honeywell Aerospace and Jaunt signed a memorandum of understanding to define avionics, navigation, flight control, and connectivity for Jaunt’s eVTOL. The two companies will work to develop the technical requirements and a definitive agreement that will support Jaunt’s eVTOL demonstration program by fall 2021, according to Honeywell.

HeliFlite To Offer Initial UberCopter Flights

UberCopter is a new service that the ridesharing giant will offer as early as July through a new partnership with Part 135 operator HeliFlite as the company marches toward an urban air mobility network, Uber executives announced this morning at the Uber Elevate Summit in Washington, D.C. Existing heliports, established VFR routes, and the existing Uber network make this first step possible, Uber Elevate director of operations Stan Swaintek said. 

“This is something we can start building today,” he explained. “The aircraft infrastructure is already there.”

The service will initially be concentrated on flights between Manhattan and JFK airport in New York City, and will include Uber’s ground ridesharing service. Users can use their Uber app to arrange transportation from their location in Manhattan to the heliport and on to JFK. 

To be cost-effective, helicopter flights will include four to five passengers at a time. “It’s imperative the flight is shared so in turn we can make the flight affordable,” Uber Elevate head of product Nikhil Goel said. He estimates that just the helicopter flight will average between $200 and $225 for users. The launch of the service also will help Uber “learn how to build a truly customer-obsessed Uber air product,” Goel added.

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Pilots, OEMs Dealing with Collins GPS Issue

The GPS signal disruption that has affected certain Collins Aerospace GPS-4000S receivers has caused flight delays and groundings, in part because some of the affected aircraft do not list GPS on their minimum equipment lists (MEL) or some aircraft require two working GPS receivers to dispatch.

Business jets equipped with the affected GPS-4000S units include the Bombardier Challenger 300/350 and 604/650 and Global 5000 Vision and 6000; Embraer Legacy 450/500; Gulfstream G150 and G280; Cessna Citation CJ3; and Hawker 800XP. “Other models with the GPS-4000S P/N 822-2189-100 will also be impacted,” Collins said in a letter to customers.

Collins described the problem as follows: “The root cause is a software design error that misinterprets GPS time updates. A ‘leap second’ event occurs once every 2.5 years within the U.S. Government GPS satellite almanac update. Our GPS-4000S (P/N 822-2189-100) and GLU-2100 (P/N 822-2532-100) software's timing calculations have reacted to this leap second by not tracking satellites upon power-up and subsequently failing.” A scheduled almanac update with this leap second was distributed on Saturday, “and the failures began to occur after this event.”

Collins is recommending that operators contact their aircraft manufacturer “to obtain an MEL or MEL extension if possible. If you have not powered up your units, leave them off until after June 16, 2019, 00:15Z,” when the next almanac update is scheduled to occur.

AW109 Crashes Atop New York Skyscraper in Rain and Fog

Weather could play into the likely causes of yesterday afternoon’s fatal crash of a 2000 model year Agusta A109E, N200BK, onto the roof of a Manhattan skyscraper. Pilot Timothy J. McCormack, 58, the sole occupant, was killed when the light twin helicopter made what was characterized as a “hard landing” atop the 54-story AXA Equitable Center on West 51st Street and burst into flames.

The building’s rooftop, with an altitude estimated at 752 feet agl, did not contain a helipad. Firefighters extinguished the blaze and mitigated the resulting fuel spill within an hour and no one either inside the building or on the ground below was injured. Weather at the time of the accident, just after 1:43 p.m. local time, was reported as one-half-mile visibility with rain and fog, ceiling at 500 feet overcast, and a temperature/dewpoint split of 17/16C. 

Amateur video shot just before the crash shows the helicopter flying in and out of clouds, at times erratically. The 11-minute flight originated at New York City’s 34th Street heliport. The helicopter was based in Linden, New Jersey (KLDJ) and was used primarily to transport Manhattan real estate executive Daniele Bodini, founder of the American Continental Properties Group and the former ambassador of the Republic of San Marino to the United Nations.

Pilot McCormack was reportedly in contact with LaGuardia Tower shortly before the crash.

Report Details Harrowing Bizjet/Glider Close Encounter

French aviation safety investigation agency BAE has issued a serious incident report on the May 23 near midair collision between a Swiss-registered Bombardier Challenger 300 and a German-registered glider near Switzerland’s Basel Mulhouse Freiburg Airport. The twinjet had departed from Zurich and was on approach when the incident occurred.

While descending from 5,000 feet to 4,000 feet on radar vectors for an ILS approach, the Challenger 300 crew saw a glider at the same altitude at a “short distance” on a converging flight path at about 11 a.m. local. Weather was VMC.

The pilot flying the jet told BAE investigators that he “disconnected the autopilot and carried out an evasive maneuver, requiring him to bank up to 45 degrees and pitch the nose down.” The crew estimated the glider flew past their right side at a “distance of 30 meters” (less than 100 feet) and they saw the glider pilot in the cockpit, along with the glider's German registration number.

Switzerland-based charter and management company Premium Air was operating the Challenger 300 on a positioning flight at the time of the incident. No damage or injuries were reported for either aircraft. However, the BAE said its probe into the incident will be a “full ICAO Annex 13 investigation.” Annex 13 spells out the recommended standards for conducting uniform incident/accident investigations by EU member states.

Trustee Files Motion to Dismiss One Aviation BK Plan

The acting U.S. trustee in the ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy case of Albuquerque-based One Aviation yesterday motioned to dismiss the company's prepackaged reorganization plan, a course of action that could potentially force the manufacturer of the Eclipse 500/550 into Chapter 7 liquidation.

A hearing on that motion is scheduled for July 1, and One Aviation CEO Alan Klapmeier told AIN the company intends to proceed under Chapter 11 reorganization and continues to examine its best options for moving forward. “I’m disappointed with how long the Chapter 11 process has taken,” he said. “However, we do believe we will still successfully emerge from bankruptcy.”

One Aviation filed for Chapter 11 protection in October 2018, aiming for an expedited journey through the process ending with court approval of a prepackaged bankruptcy plan that would leave Citiking International, a U.S.-based entity backed by Chinese investors, as its new owner.

That approval hearing, initially set for late November 2018, has been rescheduled multiple times since then. In the meantime, Citiking has funded One Aviation’s maintenance and support operations as debtor-in-possession and in January proposed a tentative settlement agreement with the unsecured creditors committee (UCC).

However, both the trustee and UCC recently filed objections to Citiking’s request for a second motion to extend its timetable for exclusivity in considering options to exit bankruptcy.

SEBA Council Adds FBO Services, Grows Internationally

Less than a year since its founding, Dallas-based SEBA Council has expanded its international reach with a second safety management system (SMS) audit in Asia and the addition of audit services for ground handling agencies and FBOs. A group of former high-ranking military officers and auditors launched SEBA Council last summer to provide business aviation with an alternative audit approach that reflects NATA best practices and works to bring business aircraft operators worldwide—whether a flight department or charter operation—into compliance with ICAO Annex 19 SMS standards.

Since then, SEBA Council has conducted audits in North America and Europe, along with the initial two audits for Asia operations. The organization said it has served more than 50 flight departments.

SEBA Council, meanwhile, is adding to its core group of auditors as it expands into the realm of ground services. “Just as KPMG and Ernst & Young have expanded their accounting practice audit capabilities, so has SEBA Council, with its foray into the ground handling/FBO audit arena, with its core group of very seasoned auditors,” said SEBA Council managing director Michael Petridis.

This includes lead auditor Ken Qualls, who has a background in the formation of an audit firm and ground handling audit serves.

EmbraerX Unveils New Concept eVTOL

Melbourne, Florida-based EmbraerX unveiled its revised concept urban air mobility vehicle at this morning’s Uber Elevate Summit in Washington, D.C. The vehicle features a pair of aft ducted fans and eight lift rotors. The disruptive technology arm of Brazilian airframer Embraer said the new concept vehicle resulted from a “broad range of tests and simulations, aiming at operational optimization for the urban environment” with high reliability, low operating costs, and low noise signature. The vehicle is fully electric and “progressively autonomous.” 

“Embraer’s team focused on the customer experience with its latest vehicle concept, using built-in redundant systems to achieve optimal safety,” said Uber Aviation engineering director Mark Moore. Besides working on concept eVTOL designs, EmbraerX said it is working on other aspects of the eVTOL ecosystem, including airspace design and air traffic control.

EmbraerX is part of the Uber Elevate Network that is fashioning an integrated, on-demand urban air mobility system. Embraer calls EmbraerX a “market accelerator.” In addition to its Melbourne facility, EmbraerX has “outposts” in California’s Silicon Valley and in Boston and also coordinates its activities with Embraer’s engineering resources in Brazil.

Spotlight on the Forthcoming Dassault Falcon 6X

Dassault’s new Falcon 6X business jet is on track for entry into service in 2022, the company says. With a cabin width of 8 feet 6 inches, and a height of 6 feet 6 inches, the 6X has the largest cross section of any purpose built business jet. Manufacture of major parts has commenced, with assembly of the first aircraft expected early next year and first flight in 2021.