Dassault Falcon 6X Rollout Set for December 8

Dassault Aviation will roll out the first Falcon 6X on December 8 at its production facility in Bordeaux-Merignac, France, the company announced today. The program is thus firmly on track to achieve first flight early next year. This is “thanks to the hard work of the [6X] development team, which has steadily moved forward over the summer,” the French aircraft manufacturer said.

“Development of the 6X, including its Pratt & Whitney PW812D engine is right on schedule,” it added. “First flight is set for 2021 and certification and initial delivery are planned for 2022.”

Ground testing on the first flight-test 5,500-nm Falcon 6X is still ongoing, with electric, hydraulic, and fuel system tests having been completed. Ground fatigue and damage tolerance testing are also underway.

Meanwhile, the second and third flight-test aircraft are nearing final assembly, according to Dassault. Aircraft number three will also be outfitted with a full interior.

Judge Gives One Aviation ‘Short Rope’ on Last-ditch Sale

Time appears to be dwindling rapidly for Albuquerque, New Mexico-based One Aviation, as the Eclipse 500/550 support provider moves toward liquidating its assets following last week's collapse of a bid to purchase the company out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

In a status conference yesterday, company attorney Chris Dickerson expressed disappointment that the purchase agreement did not proceed, which he attributed in part to proposed buyer SE Falcon’s “failure to provide a deposit or to move forward with the sale in a meaningful fashion.” However, Dickerson noted negotiations are underway for a new entity, Global Eclipse, to purchase the company’s assets.

That bid, which Dickerson hopes to have finalized “in the next few days,” is “significantly less” than the now-defunct $13 million bid by SE Falcon. “And it is on a liquidating basis,” he added. “It is not a going-concern purchase of the company.” Dickerson said One Aviation furloughed its remaining workforce last week.

One Aviation filed a motion in late August to allow SE Falcon to bid for the company, after original debtor-in-possession Citiking International US failed to fund its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In the aftermath of a second unsuccessful effort, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Christopher Sontchi cautioned One Aviation has “a short rope” to complete the Global Eclipse asset purchase. A hearing date on the sale could be available by month's end.

Embraer Launches Urban Air Mobility Division Called Eve

Embraer is stepping up its plans to develop eVTOL aircraft with the formation this week of a new subsidiary called Eve Urban Air Mobility Solutions. The Brazilian aircraft manufacturer said the new U.S.-based division is working on “a portfolio of solutions to enable the urban air mobility (UAM) market,” confirming that these include an eVTOL it has been developing in stealth mode for the past four years through its EmbraerX advanced technology unit.

In addition to advancing plans to certify the aircraft, which also now carries the name Eve, the new subsidiary will work on other infrastructure and systems needed to support UAM, including air traffic management software, which is being developed by its Atech subsidiary. The new company will be led by CEO Andre Stein, who was formerly head of strategy for EmbraerX.

In April 2017, Uber Elevate named Embraer as one of several partners developing eVTOL aircraft for its planned Uber Air air taxi network. Embraer has steadfastly declined to share details of the program until three months ago, when it acknowledged that its engineering team had started to develop the aircraft’s flight control parameters and control laws using a simulator. In that same month, FutureFlight found a U.S. trademark application filed for a product called “Eve by EmbraerX."

This story comes from the new FutureFlight.aero resource developed by AIN to provide objective, independent coverage, and analysis of new aviation technology, including electric aircraft developments.

NetJets Rolls Out Sustainability Program

Fractional share provider NetJets today unveiled its global sustainability program as a “commitment to reducing the environmental footprint of the brand and its owners.” The Ohio-based company, which operates more than 750 aircraft worldwide, previously announced that it would purchase sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for all of its flights out of San Francisco and its home base in Columbus, and is also exploring other SAF purchase opportunities.

“Our sustainable aviation fuel purchase is crucial for the continued availability of the product in the market, and we’re excited to help create that opportunity, as well as to announce the next phase of our global sustainability program,” said Brad Ferrell, the operator’s executive v-p of administrative services.

NetJets Europe has been carbon neutral since 2012 with its participation in the Emissions Trading System. Through NetJets' Blue Skies program, its European customers have offset more than one million tons of CO2 through ClimateCare verified environmental projects, while those in the U.S. have offset 75,000 tons.

Starting next year, NetJets will also offset its approximately 1,600 annual administrative and training flights in the U.S. To demonstrate its accountability, it will track key metrics such as percentage decrease in carbon emissions and miles offset to carbon-neutral to share with its owners, employees, and the aviation community.

Threshold Aviation Group Adds New Hangar at Chino

California-based aviation services provider Threshold Aviation Group has acquired an additional hangar at Chino Airport, where it operates one of three FBOs on the field. The company, which offers a full spectrum of business aircraft-related services, occupies the approximately 50,000-sq-ft Hangars 3 and 4 in the airport’s commercial complex, one of which it uses for its maintenance operation, and it has now added the similarly-sized Hangar 1. Each of the hangars, which were originally built to shelter C-130 transports, also include 8,000 sq ft of office space and another 8,000 sq ft of upstairs storage space.

“The fact is we needed more space before Covid-19 hit and then things looked somewhat bleak for a while,” said company founder and CEO Mark DiLullo. “Now people are looking for a more reasonable option to get to and from where they need to go, and private aviation is a more reasonable option than ever due to health and safety concerns with flying commercial.”

DiLullo’s company operates several large-cabin business jets in its fleet, and he told AIN the new hangar would be used for their storage, as well as for transient aircraft.

GE Partners With Uber on eVTOL Flight Data Monitoring

GE Aviation’s Digital Group is working to develop a flight data monitoring (FDM) program to support Uber Elevate’s planned eVTOL aircraft rideshare service. The technology will form part of the safety management system (SMS) that Uber intends to voluntarily implement and be based on the FAA’s Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) model.

The two companies have been collaborating on the project for several months to develop the technical requirements to apply FDM and analysis to any of the eVTOL aircraft that will be used for the Uber Air operations, which are due to start from 2023 in cities such as Dallas and Los Angeles. So far, Uber has selected eight manufacturers as partners to develop eVTOL aircraft for its program. These include Bell, Embraer, Hyundai, Jaunt Air Mobility, Joby Aviation, Overair, Pipistrel, and Aurora Flight Sciences (a Boeing subsidiary).

The plan is to use GE’s eFOQA software to process and analyze flight data to identify safety risks, determine root causes, and monitor corrective actions. Uber Air Part 135 operators would use a standardized FOQA solution so that data could be comparatively analyzed and stored in GE’s secure servers. The software is used to support the FAA’s Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing program, which uses aggregated data from multiple operators to address systemic safety issues in the National Airspace System.

The full version of this story is published at FutureFlight.aero, which is a new resource developed by AIN to provide objective, independent coverage, and analysis of new aviation technology, including electric aircraft developments and advanced air mobility.

NTSB Improves Public Access to Accident, Safety Data

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has rolled out a new database query system—Case Analysis and Reporting Online (Carol)—that will serve as a central repository for public access to investigation, safety recommendations, and dockets across all of the agency’s modes. In keeping with federal data requirements for open data, Carol also changes the way the NTSB shares information with other agencies, it said.

The NTSB’s information previously was siloed in three separate query systems involving dockets, the aviation database, and safety recommendations. This approach did not provide for queries on details or findings in non-aviation accidents, the Safety Board added.

In development for more than two years at the behest of a congressional directive, Carol will enable users to query information from all modes and seamlessly move through information, the NTSB said. “Carol allows users to quickly find data to questions like ‘To what degree are safety management systems, or impairment, or fatigue a factor in NTSB-investigated accidents across all modes of transportation?’”

Currently, all 15,000-plus NTSB safety recommendations and aviation investigation information since 2008 are available in Carol. Investigative information from other modes and older aviation investigation data are being migrated into the system.

The agency further allowed that the acronym is a nod to its former analyst Carol Floyd, who retired in 2017 after four decades with the NTSB.

Startup Platform Arranges Shared Charter Flights

Veteran pilot Carl Marbach has launched SharedCharter, a Web-based platform for connecting people to book and share private charter flights in the U.S. “When charter flights fill empty seats, typically the price of the flight goes down for all the travelers,” said Marbach, president and CEO of SharedCharter. “I realized there was a need for a hub where people could easily find others to share their desired flights and at the same time, significantly reduce the price of the flight versus chartering the plane on their own.”

The platform—which earns a commission on each trip from either the operator or broker—allows people to search for a charter flight or sign up for a free membership and propose a new, shared flight. Once two parties match a flight, SharedCharter provides secure and anonymous communication between them to discuss trip specifics. Once the parties agree on the specifics, SharedCharter also will provide a concierge to manage flight arrangements with Part 135 operators and charter brokers.

Those operators and brokers are vetted by SharedCharter to ensure users of the web-based platform end up on legal Part 135 flights.

Webinar: An Expert Take on Cybersecurity for Bizav

Aircraft systems in both the cockpit and cabin are vulnerable to cybersecurity threats, and the vital connectivity on which aircraft owners and operators depend needs to be kept secure from security risks that are constantly evolving. Please join us on October 21 for a webinar that will offer expert perspective and guidance from leading companies providing connectivity and the security capability to protect it. AIN senior editor Charles Alcock will moderate this discussion with Rob Hill, v-p, product line management of CCX Technologies, and Rich Pilock, director of fleet accounts at SmartSky Networks.