The Russian St. Petersburg Pulkovo International Airport is a hub of business aviation activity this week during the International Economic Forum (IEF), which is being held June 2 through 5 at the St. Petersburg ExpoForum Convention and Exhibition Centre. With one day still remaining before the four-day forum closes, the airport operator reported servicing more than 120 business jets arriving for the event at FBO Pulkovo-3, the airport’s business aviation terminal.
However, business aviation traffic for the forum is still about one-third that of pre-pandemic levels. As in previous years, some of these business jets flew in from the U.S., whose delegation, with more than 250 people, is one of the largest foreign groups at this year’s IEF.
While Pulkovo-3 has been the major business aviation hub in both St. Petersburg and the entire Russian Northwest, there is a possibility that this situation will change. Russian natural gas producer Gazprom recently announced plans to build an airport that will serve the needs of business aviation in Russia in the Lvashovo district of St. Petersburg.
AINsight: Too Complex To Go It Alone
What seems to run in waves is the group of buyers and sellers who try and avoid a commission by relying on themselves to complete a preowned business aircraft transaction. There are so many nuances riding just below the surface of a sale or acquisition that are unknown to the novice.
A good broker will do proper due diligence before ever spending your money on a purchase agreement or a pre-purchase inspection. They also can make sure aircraft specifications are accurate on the sale side to avoid renegotiations and costly mistakes.
Preowned business aircraft inventory levels are now diminished and sellers can be lulled into thinking all they have to do is answer the phone, get a bidding war going, and sell their airplane. If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it.
So as we work to come out of this pandemic and get industry back on track, let’s all remember we are in the buying and selling game together. If we fail at this juncture, we will fail to make the most of our industry right now. It is important that aircraft buyers and sellers don’t become frustrated and begin to think the problem is the industry itself. We must help those buyers and sellers who want a transparent and honest transaction to achieve it.
NAA Selects Garmin Autoland for 2020 Collier Trophy
The National Aeronautic Association is bestowing one of its highest recognitions, the 2020 Robert J. Collier Trophy, upon Garmin for Autoland. The first certified autonomous system of its kind, Autoland was selected over a competitive field of nominees that also included the Bell V-280 Valor and SpaceX Falcon 9 and Dragon 2, among others.
NAA annually presents the Collier Trophy in recognition of “the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America, with respect to improving performance, efficiency, safety in air or space vehicles, the value of which has been thoroughly demonstrated by actual use during the preceding year.”
“The Garmin Autoland system marks a significant improvement in civil aviation,” said NAA chairman Jim Albaugh. “Its ability to take over an airplane with a disabled pilot and land it safely will save many lives in the future. It’s a remarkable technical achievement.”
Autoland can either activate automatically or with a press of a dedicated button in case of an emergency, such as pilot incapacitation. The system then will calculate a flight path to the most suitable airport and, avoiding terrain and adverse weather, will initiate a stabilized approach and land the aircraft. Three aircraft were certified in 2020 with Garmin Autoland: the Piper M600 SLS, Daher TBM 940, and Cirrus Vision Jet.
Data Analysis Key to Effective Flight Department SMS
“Data is our friend,” said Fred Calvert, director of safety assurance for Executive Jet Management. "It is the thing that will keep us from getting in trouble someday.” That was the overarching message during a session on data analytics and their use in safety management systems (SMS) yesterday at the virtual Flight Safety Foundation/NBAA Business Aviation Safety Summit. Moderated by Calvert, session panelists Chad Brewer of the FAA, Steve Bruneau of Polaris Aero, and Jared Taylor of Johnson & Johnson Aviation discussed ways in which data analysis is useful in proactively improving safety.
Brewer, an operational safety analyst in the FAA’s office of accident investigation and prevention, discussed the agency’s Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS) program, a government and industry initiative to discover where accidents could occur and prevent them through voluntary, unidentifiable, and non-punitive reporting that’s aggregated from operators. He noted that in some cases operators are flying the same type of aircraft and through the same airspace as others and from ASIAS they can “leverage the information provided by others to look deeper into [their] own operation and have the necessary discussions with [their] flight crews to aid in awareness” of avoiding a potential safety issue.
Bruneau noted that an effective SMS that includes data analysis shouldn't "be an albatross around the neck of your people."
The FAA issued an emergency order revoking Universal Flight Services' (UFS) certificate to conduct passenger flights, alleging that the Sarasota, Florida-based company conducted illegal charter operations over a span of nearly five years, the agency announced today. UFS received its certificate for passenger operations in March 2019, but the FAA alleged it had operated 26 such flights between October 2015 and February 2019 at airports including Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport, Key West International Airport, Florida Keys/Marathon International Airport, and Witham Field.
After obtaining certification, the company conducted flights between September 2019 and September 2020 using unauthorized pilots and/or aircraft, the agency additionally alleged. On two of those flights, the pilot did not have the requisite medical certificate, did not pass a flight check for flight in instrument conditions, and was not current in instrument conditions, according to the FAA. On two other flights, the company used aircraft that had not undergone the requisite inspection.
On all of the UFS flights conducted from October 2015 to September 2020, the agency further alleged, “the pilots had not passed required written and oral tests, competency checks, and flight checks in the type of aircraft they operated during this time.”
UFS surrendered its certificate as called for in the emergency order but is appealing the order to the NTSB. The company told AIN it is not commenting at this time.
Attorney Bailey, Former Enstrom Company Owner, Dies
F. Lee Bailey, 87, the high-profile defense lawyer and aviator who also owned the Enstrom Helicopter company for nearly a decade, died yesterday in Atlanta. Some of Bailey’s more notorious legal clients included Dr. Sam Sheppard, Army captain Ernest Medina, kidnapped heiress Patricia Hearst, and former NFL football player O.J. Simpson.
Bailey and a group of investors acquired Enstrom in 1971. There, he hired a talented team of young executives and engineers, including Alfred Checci, who later would serve as co-chairman of Northwest Airlines, to revive a piston helicopter design that dated back to the 1950s. Bailey also hired Medina, whom he had successfully defended during the My Lai (Vietnam) Massacre trial, to head up sales and marketing.
Under Bailey’s tenure, Enstrom launched the 280FX “Shark,” increased production to 100 helicopters per year, and began work on a four-seat piston design known as the 280L “Hawk” that was never completed and drove the company into financial distress. He also launched a series of controversial photo promotions for Enstrom that called it “the love machine.”
Bailey sold the company in 1979 and was subsequently involved in other aviation ventures, including the “Bailey Bullet” Piper Twin Comanche remanufacture program and aircraft completion center Oxford Aviation.
Duncan Completes Quick Turn XLS Refurb with Hydro Dipping
Duncan Aviation has successfully completed a Citation XLS refurbishment that included changing the color of the cabin’s veneer within 10 days. Because of the limited downtime requirements by the first-time aircraft management customer, Duncan made some changes to the layout of its Lincoln, Nebraska finish shop and added some specialized tooling, team leader Chris Nelson said.
Complicating the project was the customer’s requirement to change the finish of the aircraft's interior veneer components to a gray color, which was accomplished using a water transfer printing process called hydro dipping and applying hydrographics. Specifically, the color change was applied to the lavatory cabinet, vanity, aft dividers, pocket doors, drink rails, tables, left-hand forward galley, and right-hand forward entertainment cabinet.
Duncan project manager Steve Devitt attributed planning and developing a detailed schedule “for every shift of every day” to achieve the turnaround. It took Duncan two to three years to perfect its hydro dipping and hydrographics process, which required a continuous upgrade of equipment. Those processes are enabled by two full-size dipping tanks, two full-size rinse tanks, and an automatic dipping arm. Duncan is also working on building an automatic spray arm.
The XLS refurbishment project additionally included new table inserts, some “small” leatherwork, and an overhaul of the twinjet’s wheels and tires.
FAA’s Aeromedical Head Talks Covid Impact
Just as it had in every other aspect of life, the Covid pandemic caused many changes and alterations in the aeromedical realm, according to Dr. Susan Northrup, the FAA's federal air surgeon. Speaking this week during the Flight Safety Foundation/NBAA Business Aviation Safety Summit, she noted how the agency reacted to the initial spread of the virus and had to adapt after the first cluster of infections was reported in mid-March 2020 among air traffic controllers at Chicago Midway Airport.
As experts scrambled for solutions on how to protect the health of controllers, the situation was helped by a dramatic downturn in traffic, which allowed time to develop procedures. The office of aerospace medicine worked closely with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to develop solutions to help minimize the spread of the disease, including shifting to a fixed crew schedule among controllers, limiting exposure, and easing contract tracing, which enabled towers to remain operational.
During the worst period of the pandemic, the agency sought to protect healthy members of the aviation community, which meant deferrals on physical exams for pilots and ATC staff. When the vaccines became available late last year, the FAA amended its policy of not allowing pilots to receive any vaccine that hadn’t been FDA approved for at least a year. Instead, a 48-hour no-fly period after Covid vaccination was prescribed.
Tell us about the product support you receive from business aviation OEMs. The 2021 AIN Product Support Survey is now open, ready for selected readers to rate aircraft, engine, and avionics support. AIN readers who have been picked to participate in this year’s Product Support Survey should have received their password and link to the online survey by e-mail. The survey needs to be completed by midnight on June 11.
Photo of the Week
He’s a survivor. To mark June as the national cancer survival month, Corporate Angel Network (CAN) sent along this photo of pediatric cancer patient Caleb flying with his parents on Cigna’s Dassault Falcon 7X from their home in Indiana to treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. The flight last month was just one week before Caleb’s 9th birthday. Thanks to CAN for sharing this photo taken by Anna Meyer, as well as to Cigna and many others for their donated flights to achieve CAN’s mission in arranging no-cost transportation on business aircraft to get cancer patients to and from treatment centers.
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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