Aerocor has released the second edition of its Beechcraft Premier buyer’s guide. The aircraft brokerage said that after it issued the first edition in 2020, positive response from potential buyers corresponded with an increase in demand for the light twinjet, which has a composite fuselage and aluminum wings.
According to Aerocor, the latest edition includes a new section covering aftermarket upgrades, as well as current pricing for engine programs and the Collins avionics service program. It also covers common avionics failures, routine maintenance, cost of ownership, training options, and insurance premiums.
“The guide is designed to provide potential buyers with all the information they need to make an informed decision when considering the purchase of a Beechcraft Premier I or IA,” said Aerocor client services manager Jens Personius. “Reliable information about out-of-production aircraft can be very tough to find, which puts both buyers and sellers at a disadvantage. The aim with this guide and other resources such as our fleet updates and quarterly market reports is to boost liquidity and buyer confidence by filling the information gap left by the manufacturer after production was ceased.”
Personius told AIN that there are 153 Premier IAs and 117 Premier Is in service. Fourteeen IAs are up for sale with four of those under contract, while 17 Premier Is are on the market with six under contract, he said.
Online aircraft supply company BAS Part Sales has acquired the assets of longtime competitor White Industries. The purchase will add over a million airplane parts and 1,800 fuselages to the Greely, Colorado salvage company’s rotable aircraft components and systems inventory. Along with the significant boost to the company’s stock of airplane parts, the acquisition gives BAS Part Sales immediate entry into business jet replacement parts.
“By acquiring White Industries, we gain access to jet engine aircraft parts and fuselages, and that is a huge step up for us,” said BAS president Jared Boles. “By expanding our inventory and expertise for piston engine aircraft parts for brands such as Cessna, Beechcraft, Cirrus, Mooney, and Piper, as well as expanding into jet engine aircraft parts for brands such as Learjet, Hawker, Mitsubishi, JetStar, Merlin, Beechjet, and Jetstream, we are putting even more distance between us and our competitors.”
As part of the acquisition, BAS received inventory, 170 acres of outdoor airplane storage, 90,000 sq ft of hangar storage, and a runway in Bates City, Missouri. The company will retain the four employees of White Industries, bringing its total staff to 30. “We are excited about the acquisition, and we know our customers will be thrilled with the sheer extent of the inventory we’ll have to offer,” Boles said.
Runway excursions remained a top accident type for business jets in 2022, but for the second year in a row turbulence eclipsed that category for airliners, according to the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) 2022 Safety Report released today.
In 2022, the FSF's Aviation Safety Network logged 35 business jet accidents, down from 40 in 2021. Of the 2022 accidents, 10 were involved in private operations, seven in executive operations, five in ferry/positioning operations, and five in nonscheduled passenger operations. The majority of the accidents (20) occurred during landing. Five accidents were fatal, resulting in 17 fatalities.
In looking at accident categories, FSF said, “Runway excursions were, by far, the most common accident type in corporate jet operations in 2022,” accounting for 17 of the accidents. This was followed by loss of control, gear up/landing gear collapse, and ground damage.
As for airliners, FSF found that after turbulence, runway excursion and ground damage followed as the most frequent accident types. FSF noted that this marks a recent shift from when runway excursions led this category. According to FSF’s database for airline mishaps, there were 22 turbulence-related accidents last year, followed by 16 runway excursions, and 14 ground-related events. In all, airliners were involved in 115 accidents worldwide, 16 of which were fatal and resulted in 233 fatalities.
As it issued the report, FSF also released an interactive dashboard containing accident data and information from the past six years.
ACI Jet has finished the first of three Collins Pro Line Fusion touchscreen flight deck upgrades on the Bombardier Challenger 604. The installation was completed concurrently with the aircraft’s scheduled 192-month inspection at the MRO’s facility in San Luis Obispo, California.
“As with every first, we set reasonable timeline expectations and focused on clear communication with our customer throughout,” stated Brian Ford, head of the avionics team for ACI Jet. “Our relationship with Collins Aerospace and their support network is such that we were able to rely upon them for quick and accurate guidance when we encountered nuances that every major installation faces.”
According to the company, the aircraft was delivered on time and “squawk free.” While the installation was not a first for the Challenger 604, ACI Jet, a Bombardier-authorized service facility, is now one of the few MROs outside of Bombardier’s owned service center network that have completed the Fusion upgrade on the type.
Done in the spirit of the company’s “Fly like new” promise to customers, the Pro Line Fusion upgrade features many of the same capabilities and technological improvements found on Bombardier’s current-production Challenger 650. The significant gains in both system performance and reliability over the legacy avionics suite make the upgrade a cost-effective way to modernize an aircraft rather than purchasing a new one, according to ACI Jet.
Atlanta-based private aviation provider Volato today rolled out a charter pricing tool to make booking flights more efficient. The tool saves time for both brokers and retail customers by providing instant and accurate pricing information on Volato's floating HondaJet fleet. Customers enter travel details such as departure and arrival locations, dates, and times into the web-based tool and receive instant pricing information.
“We understand that the charter booking process can be complex and time-consuming, and we want to make it as fast and transparent as possible for our customers,” said Volato sales manager LouAnn Gray. “The tool displays pricing instantly, and if a customer likes the price they can generate and sign a quote in the tool.”
Once customers sign a quote, Volato’s charter team follows up to confirm aircraft availability. Volato added that it expects to offer instant availability information through the tool in the future. The company is making the pricing tool available to both brokers and retail customers and is offering up to 4 percent cash rewards through its Broker Rewards Program.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is again calling for Transport Canada to improve civil aviation medical examiners’ guidelines following its investigation into the latest of eight aircraft accidents since 2000 where cardiovascular disease in pilots, some with commercial certificates, was identified as a risk or cause.
After a Cavalier SA102.5 entered an aerodynamic stall and crashed in October 2021, killing the pilot, the Transport Canada office of the chief medical examiner in Alberta attributed the cause of death to blunt force trauma, “with cardiovascular disease as a significant contributing factor.” The report also noted that the pilot had evidence of a heart attack, although it was not possible to determine the exact time of this event.
The TSB issued its first recommendation concerning what it sees as deficiencies in the medical examiner guidelines for screening cardiovascular risks following its investigation of a loss of control and fatal crash of a TBM-3E firefighting airplane in April 2010.
“If Transport Canada guidance material and the civil aviation medical examination report do not include up-to-date cardiovascular screening methods to perform a global cardiovascular assessment when appropriate, there is an increased risk that cardiovascular disease will remain unidentified and pilots may become incapacitated while operating an aircraft,” the TSB said.
FreeFlight Systems has appointed AvPanels as a preferred reseller of its Terrain series of radar altimeters designed to avoid disruption by spurious 5G C-band network interference. The manufacturer said the equipment, which uses digital signal technology, is the first major upgrade to radio frequency circuits in decades and weighs 60 percent less than current devices. Texas-based AvPanels is a specialist in avionics solutions for Part 27 helicopters.
Operators of rotorcraft—including the Robinson R44, Bell 206/407, Airbus AS350, and MD Helicopters MD 500/530—can now order the Terrain RA-5500 units for single installations, the RA-6500 for dual installations, or opt for the RA-4500 Mark II unit as a drop-in replacement for existing RA-4000 or RA-4500 equipment. FreeFlight said it intends to have supplemental type certificates in place for other models by mid-May.
“We are seeing increased demand for 5G-tolerant radar altimeter solutions across rotorcraft, business aviation, and advanced air mobility markets,” said FreeFlight sales and marketing v-p Shane LaPlante. “We understand the criticality of safe continued operations in the face of airworthiness directives and are excited to extend these solutions to law enforcement, air medical, search and rescue, and other operators that navigate dense urban centers.”
Flight data monitoring is slated to be a key topic at the Air Charter Safety Foundation (ACSF) annual Safety Symposium this month as the organization hopes to build momentum for its recently launched program and encourage others to adopt such practices. The ACSF Safety Symposium will be held March 20-22 at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.
ACSF has scheduled a session that will include top executives from Mayo Aviation, GrandView Aviation, and Jet It who will discuss the challenges they've faced regarding the perception of FDM, how they overcame those challenges, the hardware involved, data analysis that comes with the program, and the safety and operational benefits.
Frank Raymond, the director of safety for a Part 91 operation who is moderating the panel and formerly held the same title for ACSF, explained that the program is designed to help organizations improve their flight operations by using more data. “We’re really trying to get folks that haven’t touched FDM and who are afraid of the cost and are afraid of the complexity,” he said. “That’s where [ACSF’s FDM initiative] started.”
Supersedes CF-2022-36 and requires conducting a test for affected bleed air overheat detection sensing elements for insufficient salt fill and requires the replacement of discrepant sensing elements with serviceable parts to restore bleed air leak detection capabilities. Prompted by a supplier report of a manufacturing quality escape in which some sensing elements were manufactured with insufficient salt fill.
Requires installing, on the right- and left-hand side divan, a protective fairing covering on the divan shroud and sideledge panel. Prompted by the possibility of the shoulder belt getting stuck due to a step between the divan shroud chamfer and the sideledge panel.
Requires replacement of the aileron autopilot servo mount clutch retaining bolt and washer. Prompted by an occurrence of corrosion in the clutch retaining bolt, failure of which can disengage the clutch from the drive pin and jam the aileron control and thus affect airplane controllability.
Requires revising the existing maintenance or inspection program, as applicable, to incorporate new or more restrictive airworthiness limitations.
AINalerts News Tips/Feedback: News tips may be sent anonymously, but feedback must include name and contact info (we will withhold name on request). We reserve the right to edit correspondence for length, clarity and grammar. Send feedback or news tips to AINalerts editor Chad Trautvetter.
AINalerts is a publication of AIN Media Group, 214 Franklin Avenue, Midland Park, New Jersey. Copyright 2023. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is strictly prohibited.
