The Humanitarian Pilots Initiative (HPI), a Swiss foundation founded in 2015 by newly licensed general aviation pilots, made its EBACE debut as the all-volunteer organization seeks greater funding for its three projects: airborne patrolling of the Mediterranean to help migrants in distress; an airlift of vulnerable individuals from Ukraine’s borders; and development of a versatile and easily deployed airdrop system for humanitarian relief.
For its Mediterranean patrols, HPI first used ultralights while maintaining radio contact with NGO rescue operations for reporting migrant boats in distress. Thanks to donations, HPI was able to upgrade to a single-engine Cirrus SR22, and recently, a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron B58, and has now accumulated more than 3,000 hours of patrol time, having spotted and helped rescue some 25,000 migrants.
Most of the 20-some volunteers participating are professional airline pilots donating time for the worthy cause when off-duty, said HPI’s head of training and recruitment Olivier Wilmart, a retired B777 captain and former chief pilot for Air France. “Now, not only pilots are volunteering, but people like professional photographers with other competencies.”
AINsight: Is It Time for Cockpit Video Recorders?
Cockpit image recording systems (CIRS) are a highly charged topic—the NTSB and ALPA have diametrically opposed views, with the FAA somewhere in between. The NTSB’s position is that video images—when supplemented by flight data and voice—would be helpful in learning more about why an aircraft crashed. But the FAA has not mandated the installation of CIRS, citing privacy, security, cost, and other concerns. And pilot unions, including the Airline Pilots Association International (ALPA), oppose their installation due to privacy issues and a belief that images/video would provide imprecise information during an investigation.
For the investigator, video is rich with information and would be helpful to determine the cause of a crash, whereas the pilot associations have drawn the line and clearly want to protect its membership from misuse of images. Each position is understandable. The FAA must act and weigh the benefits of cockpit video versus other concerns such as privacy.
To me, the choice is crystal clear. After doing flight data analysis work for more than 20 years and flying professionally for 35, even the most advanced aircraft have limitations with the quantity and quality of recorded flight data. Video recorders as proposed would be used only after an accident and would supplement existing flight data and voice recordings in a tightly controlled environment. The time has come.
TAG Aviation has been awarded an air operator certificate from the Civil Authority of the Cayman Islands, adding to its existing approvals from San Marino, Malta, and the UK. The operator has already registered its first managed aircraft on the registry—a Gulfstream G650.
According to Richard Smith, director general of Civil Aviation of the Cayman Islands, the registry has seen approximately 5 percent growth in private aircraft over the past two years. “That’s an indication to us that the business aviation industry is strong, unlike what has happened in the airline world where aircraft found themselves on the ground for extended periods.”
Smith told AIN the registry’s typical customers are aircraft management providers such as TAG, with the majority of the 320 aircraft on its registry consisting of large-cabin jets all the way up to a privately-operated Boeing 777.
JetNet announced at EBACE a partnership with Flash Scientific Technology to provide the latter’s lightning-prediction technology to the aviation market. The company’s patented deep learning technology predicts lightning up to one hour in advance within a radius of less than one-half mile with 96.5 percent accuracy.
“JetNet has always served its customers with unique data sets that provide the industry’s deepest and most insightful intelligence, and this exclusive partnership will set the foundation for the next generation of weather prediction and forecasting,” said JetNet CEO Greg Fell.
“This is a big deal in our industry,” added Paul Cardarelli, JetNet v-p of sales, citing the safety of ground handlers and airport delays among the problems the technology can alleviate.
As the business aviation world moves toward more widespread adoption of safety management systems (SMS), Aviation Manuals is seeing growing interest in its ARC SMS services. “It’s been a remarkable 18 months,” said Aviation Manuals CEO Mark Baier. “Flight departments are upping their game,” especially during the Covid pandemic when flying activities diminished and there was more time to work on SMS projects.
Now, Baier explained, “SMS is helping them assess what changes they need to implement.” This includes meeting requirements for European ramp inspections, keeping flight crew current, and dealing with challenges imposed by Russia’s war with Ukraine.
“We’re seeing a real demand bump,” he said. Aviation Manuals grew 30 percent during 2021 and in the past 14 months has grown its staff by 25 percent as new subscribers reached 85 per month.
In addition to helping companies set up and run their SMS, Aviation Manuals also provides content-management services, which is its core capability. “We help them identify what they need to improve,” Baier said, “and then make that flow through into the way they’re operating.” This includes, for example, keeping operating manuals updated and sharing that information with all pertinent personnel. “It’s a continuous self-improvement loop,” he said, “an integrated process.”
Piaggio Aerospace formalized an order with the Italian Minister of Defence for six P.180 Avanti Evos at EBACE 2022. Signed by the Directorate of Aeronautical Armaments and Airworthiness, the agreement is valued at €55 million and calls for deliveries to be completed over the next two years.
The order comes in addition to nine sold to the Italian armed forces in October 2019. Those aircraft are currently under production. Piaggio said the new aircraft will partially replace retrofit work on 18 P.180s in use by the Italian Carabinieri, Army, Navy, and Air Force.
With the latest deal, Piaggio’s backlog has grown to €446 million, the company said. The Italian manufacturer has been operating under “extraordinary administration” bankruptcy since 2019 and is currently for sale under a bidding process.
Signature Flight Support has opened its new FBO facility at the UK’s Birmingham Airport. The structure replaces the previous 1930’s-era terminal that was damaged by flooding in 2018.
The world’s largest private aviation service provider, Signature had been operating from a temporary facility until the opening of the new building. Construction took three months plus an additional month of interior finishing. The 222-sq-m (2,400-sq-ft) facility features a passenger lounge, refreshment bar, in-house security screening, pilot lounge, and electric vehicle charging station.
“The newly-built FBO in Birmingham reflects the resilience of our team and the importance of this location within our EMEA network,” said Daniel Myles, the company’s area director for the UK. “General aviation continues to be a commercial driver to both the airport and Birmingham city and we look forward to greeting attendees of the upcoming Commonwealth Games and Women’s UEFA Football Championship this summer.”
SEA Prime, which manages the general aviation infrastructure at Milan's major airports, is looking to build on its success from last year. The company, part of the SEA Group, saw a 74 percent increase in traffic in 2021 at its Milano Prime facilities at Linate and Malpensa airports following a Covid-depressed 2020 and its associated lockdowns.
So far this year that growth trend has continued, with movements up by 57 percent year-over-year and 113 percent over 2020. The increase was driven by international traffic, which climbed nearly 70 percent year-over-year and made up the majority of activity, a sharp contrast to the pandemic period that was primarily domestic.
SEA Prime has also begun construction of a new €10 million, 4,700-sq-m (50,600-sq-ft) hangar at Linate. The dedicated maintenance facility for Sirio is expected to be completed by year-end and will bring the Linate complex to nearly 43,000 sq m (460,000 sq ft) of hangars. Last year, aircraft management and maintenance provider Sirio saw a 15 percent increase in its maintenance manhours, according to CEO Tom Englehard. He said the new hangar will allow the maintenance organization to expand its capabilities.
SEA Prime plans to add an additional 20,000 sq m (215,000 sq ft) of private jet hangar space at Linate by 2024 as part of the airport’s master plan.
Flight deck of the future. The Honeywell-based neXus next-generation flight deck for the Dassault Falcon 10X features large touchscreen displays throughout and smart sidestick controllers. But its most innovative feature is a single-lever Smart Throttle that controls both engines, which enables a single-button recovery mode that can bring the airplane back to straight-and-level from any unusual attitude. Image taken by AIN photographer David McIntosh this week at EBACE 2022.
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