Duncan Aviation’s full-service MRO facility in Battle Creek, Michigan, recently delivered a “dramatically modified” legacy Hawker 800XP. According to the company, the list of upgrades included fresh engine inspections and airframe maintenance, the addition of Aviation Partners winglets, installation of a Gogo Avance L5 connectivity system, and a new interior and paint scheme.
Jack Bauder, one of Duncan Aviation’s lead designers who assisted with the completion, said, “If I hadn’t been a part of the project, I wouldn’t have believed it’s the same aircraft. The transformation from what the aircraft looked like coming in to what it [was] transformed into was stunning.”
Duncan Aviation project manager Carie Bruss explained that the Hawker’s owner wanted a clean, sleek, and modern interior, so the company created a “showroom” look by including white upholstery, dark woodwork paired with white-gold accents, and LED lighting. The aft lavatory countertops received Duncan’s hydrographic finish treatment in a complementary white marble pattern.
To create an exterior look that would enhance the interior, Duncan’s design team crafted a dynamic scheme that features a white fuselage with a dark gray tail and horizontal stabilizer highlighted by sweeping grey stripes along the fuselage and tail. “This Hawker has by far one of the most stunning interior and exterior color palettes,” remarked Bruss.
The House version of comprehensive FAA reauthorization legislation, H.R.3935, took a step forward today with the Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee passing it with a vote of 67-0. The bill, the Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act, received unanimous approval after the committee spent a day and a half wading through nearly 170 amendments.
Republican and Democratic leadership on both the full T&I committee and aviation subcommittee stood in lockstep on the bill to ensure it remained a bipartisan effort. This included voting against some provisions that they would have otherwise supported. T&I Ranking Member Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Washington), for example, voted against a measure to lift the cap on passenger facilities charges, citing a desire to preserve the compromise reached on the bill.
House T&I Chairman Sam Graves called the vote “step four of a 10-step process” and said there is still a long way to go. The Senate Commerce Committee, meanwhile, is set to consider its version of the bill tomorrow.
NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen is “enthusiastic” about FAA reauthorization legislation even though the Senate and House bills are different, he noted this morning at the association’s regional forum at Westchester County Airport in White Plains, New York. “They’re both strong. Most importantly, they’re bipartisan and include provisions for workforce. We’re excited about what we see going on here.”
The Curve, STG Aerospace’s debut product in its Universal Lighting Family, is being targeted at the business jet cabin market. According to the UK-based company, the LED flex system provides seamless lighting that is well suited to rounded cabin forms that demand compact, versatile solutions.
Features include the only available four-inch section of controllable dynamic lighting and a tight bend radius at 30 millimeters convex and 50 millimeters concave. At just six by 15 millimeters, it can be installed on a range of monuments and locations within a business jet cabin.
The Curve can be used throughout an aircraft, including in wet areas, to provide varying results. Light output can be split into individually addressable segments whose transition and intensity can be controlled independently with the choice of 16 million colors. This allows for vibrant, animated lighting within a slimline, flexible structure that can shape around the bends found in all forms of cabin geometry, STG said. In addition, the product can build layers of ambiance in cabins where fixed, linear lights no longer meet the geometric requirement or aesthetic standard, the company noted.
STG Aerospace director of sales Pierre Michard said The Curve has already been selected for an OEM application on a widebody platform. Certification of the lighting system is expected in first-quarter 2024.
Toronto's Arcadea Group is merging its Australia-based Air Maestro software-as-a-service aviation safety management unit with Spidertracks, its New Zealand company that provides software and hardware for real-time aircraft tracking, flight data management, and flight operations quality assurance solutions.
Arcadea said the combined companies “will deliver a unified software platform that leverages the strengths of each company’s offerings and expands the suite of services available to customers, while allowing for a rapidly accelerated, shared product roadmap that will deliver unparalleled value to the market.”
The Group took majority equity positions in both companies last year. Under terms of the merger, Air Maestro CEO Aleks Banos will assume the role of CEO of the combined companies, while Steve Whitaker, Spidertracks’ CPO and COO, will serve as COO.
Banos said, “The aviation industry is poorly served by a fragmented collection of subscale, legacy businesses. Most, at some degree of scale, are owned by short-term-oriented, financially focused private equity or venture capital firms that have no long-term vision for or staying power in this market. By combining Air Maestro and Spidertracks, we will immediately be one of the largest global players in the space, offering the most comprehensive and capable suite of solutions to the commercial aviation market."
For the first time ever: Streaming-level connectivity for smaller biz aircraft.
SmartSky is wowing large cabin customers across the country, and now SmartSky LITE delivers the same dependable, responsive and secure connectivity to smaller aircraft. Connecting to what’s most important is as effortless in the air as it is on the ground.
Garmin has received supplemental type certification (STC) from the FAA for its GI 275 electronic flight instrument for Bell 407 and Robinson R66 helicopters. It is available for retrofit through authorized dealers and comes with a two-year warranty.
The GI 275 is a direct replacement for legacy primary flight instruments, including the primary attitude indicator, course deviation indicator (CDI), horizontal situation indicator (HSI), and multifunction display (MFD), and is sized to accommodate a standard 3.125-inch flight instrument display. Optional Helicopter Synthetic Vision Technology (HSVT) overlays a 3D topographic view of terrain, traffic, obstacles, power lines, and airport signposts within the GI 275 attitude display.
Among additional features are the display of outside air temperature, groundspeed, true airspeed and wind information on the attitude indicator, and wireless functionality, such as sharing of GPS position to the Garmin Pilot app. Helicopter Terrain Awareness and Warning System also is available on the GI 275, and its electronic flight instrument can be paired with Garmin’s GRA 55 or GRA 5500 radar altimeters or select third-party products.
The GI 275 can double as a digital indicator with MFD-like capabilities such as a moving map, weather, traffic, obstacles, WireAware power lines, SafeTaxi airport diagrams, and five-color terrain shading. A built-in VFR GPS enables direct-to-navigation guidance, displaying aircraft position information on a moving map, and when enabled, offers forward-looking terrain and obstacle-avoidance capability.
The FAA is proposing to require individuals with foreign addresses to designate a U.S. agent for service if they are applying for certain certificates, ratings, or authorizations. U.S. agents would receive FAA services under the proposal released Monday, including the processing of safety-critical or time-sensitive documents for citizens who are abroad. This would help the agency to act more promptly and efficiently, it maintained.
Currently, only carriers and foreign air carriers must designate a U.S. agent for service. However, individuals worldwide have been able to apply for and hold FAA certificates, ratings, and authorization. The FAA estimated that as of July 2022, some 115,000 such individuals had a foreign address without a U.S. physical address on file.
“Serving certain documents on these individuals outside of the U.S. presents a challenge for the FAA,” the agency explained. “Accomplishing valid service of process abroad requires compliance with international service requirements under multilateral treaties…or by other means that comport with the receiving country and U.S.’s applicable laws regulating extraterritorial service.”
When the FAA sends documents abroad they can be subject to administrative, judicial, or other reviews that can delay service for months and increase costs. However, the costs of hiring a professional U.S. agent could run $150 to $300 annually, the agency estimated.
The proposal would apply to those seeking certificates, ratings, or authorizations under Parts 47, 61, 63, 65, 67, or 107.
Private jet company Jet Linx grounded its fleet yesterday to allow its more than 550 team members to attend the company’s seventh-annual safety summit. The assembly of its team members addressed stress management and cybersecurity and included a yearly safety performance review.
According to Jet Linx, it is the only U.S. air carrier to have halted flying its entire fleet of more than 100 aircraft in pursuit of safety. The company's focus on promoting safety allowed it to be the first to earn Argus's highest safety rating, Platinum Elite, when it was introduced in 2021.
The safety summit included presentations by Mach2 founder and CEO Anthony Bourke, a pilot with 2,700 flight hours from tactical missions, and In-Scope Solutions president Susan Sawatzky, a specialist in psychological health. Sawatzky said that “Jet Linx is ahead of many in the industry in terms of addressing safety concerns and looking at risks not often addressed, such as mental health and wellness,” while Bourke called Jet Linx “true professionals.”
Omaha, Nebraska-headquartered Jet Linx has bases across the U.S.
Requires revising the airworthiness limitations section of the airplane maintenance manual or instructions for continued airworthiness with new or more restrictive limitations.
Requires repetitive high-frequency eddy current inspections of the fitting assembly of the horizontal tail trim actuator for corrosion and/or cracks and, if necessary, replacement of the affected part. Prompted by a reported occurrence of stress corrosion-induced cracking found on the fitting assembly during a scheduled maintenance event.
Requires updating the flight control computer software. Prompted by reports of two landing incidents in which the alpha limiter engaged in the landing flare in unstable air, resulting in high-rate-of-descent landings and damage to the airplanes.
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