Vertical Control

Amac Aerospace received EASA Part 21 Subpart G Production Organization Approval in late August, a few months after it was awarded the EASA Part 21 Subpart J Design Organization Approval. These approvals allow the company more independence in building and certifying parts for aircraft systems and interior modifications to be approved under minor modification approval or supplemental type certificates. The Swiss company, based at the tri-national EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg, is EASA Part 145 approved and has the status of an EASA continued airworthiness management organization (Camo). Amac’s main activities are the completion of airliners to custom executive configurations and maintenance of executive aircraft, as well as aircraft management. It is factory-approved for maintaining the BBJ and Airbus A320-based ACJ series, as well as large-cabin Gulfstreams and the Bombardier Global Express, including the XRS and Global 5000. Amac employs more than 200 specialists and will inaugurate an additional 90,500-sq-ft hangar capable of accommodating the Boeing 747 later this year. Amac Aerospace was founded in 2007 and started work the following year in its own 45,000-sq-ft hangar.

StandardAero’s Springfield, Ill. facility will be getting $500,000 worth of sprucing up, according to a spokesman for the company. “We have an on-going, company-wide process in which our facility managers maintain a dialog with our leaseholders. Our Springfield facility is fairly old and not the image we’d like to portray. So the Springfield Airport Authority has agreed to make the investment in the infrastructure,” he told AIN. In addition to repainting both the floor and walls, the project includes the installation of large-facility ventilation fans and new energy-efficient lighting. “The project will provide both our employees and customers with a more comfortable environment,” he said. “We definitely need to update the air circulation system where our employees spend their entire work day. The improvements will not only make them more comfortable and productive but it will also contribute to a significant reduction in utility costs throughout the facility.” According to the company, the work is slated to “begin soon” and take about six months to complete.

Toronto-based Star Navigation Systems offers business jets something better than the airline black box: the Star In-flight Safety Monitoring System (Star-ism). “Our original system, introduced in 2005, provided current information to pilots and ground controllers, giving them the ability to note anomalies and nip problems in the bud,” said Viraf Kapadia, CEO of Star Navigation Systems Group. “While it was a significant safety improvement, it didn’t do quite what we wanted,” Kapadia told AIN. “The original system measured 4,000 parameters per minute but we can now measure as many as 18,000 per minute,” he said. The system gathers information from the aircraft’s data buses, analyzing anything on the aircraft that puts out a digital signal. Kapadia cautions that the limiting factor is the age and the sophistication of the avionics. The new Star-ism system includes GPS tracking, and within the limits of the avionics it can provide both real-time and after-landing reports, intelligent flight data transmission, and detailed live flight data alerts to ground operators using satellite-based technology. “It acts as an early warning system, detecting the earliest signs of potential problems in real time,” he said.

Timco Aviation Services plans to begin widebody operations at its Macon, Ga., facility early next year, according to CEO Kevin Carter. “We’ve had requests from customers to expand our widebody capacity, which has been offered only at our Greensboro, N.C. facility,” Carter told AIN. “While we’ve done work on both widebodies and [single-aisle aircraft] in Greensboro, our Macon, Georgia, and Lake City, Florida, facilities have been dedicated to [single-aisle aircraft].” Timco provides light and heavy scheduled maintenance checks, exterior and interior modifications installations, upgrades and conversions for commercial, government and private aircraft. “We have recently received a [launch] contract for a fleet of Boeing 767s [that justifies] adding widebody capacity to our Macon facility. The state of Georgia will generously provide a small incentive package to get tooling and training for the 130 new people we’ll need to expand our capability.” Carter said that Timco will supplement the state grant by investing approximately $1.49 million in new tooling, facility upgrades and renovations, recruiting and training.

Anyone who has ever faced a potential repair of an old car knows the dilemma about throwing good money after bad. Do you make yet another expensive repair to avoid the cost of buying a new car or does the sum of the mounting repair bills equal the payments on a new purchase that will result in lower maintenance costs?

David Wyndham, v-p and co-owner of Conklin & de Decker, poses the question to owners of long-out-of-production aircraft and offers some guidance. Conklin & de Decker helps clients make informed decisions about the acquisition and operation of aircraft. 

Wyndham said the conventional maintenance model is for new parts to replace existing parts when they wear out. The problem is, operators of out-of-production aircraft are having an increasingly difficult time finding new parts and when they do, the parts are often expensive. More…

“I was talking to a Lear 24 owner and he made the observation that our estimate of the operating cost of his aircraft seemed to be high,” Wyndham told AIN. “The reason is we use the JSSI hourly maintenance contract cost for the engines as part of our calculation. He suggested it would be less expensive to purchase a second Lear 24, with engines that had several hundred hours left on them, and swap them out rather than have his own engines overhauled. It’s not as crazy as it sounds.” 

Wyndham agrees the strategy could be a wise one provided the operator is careful about finding the right aircraft. “If you operate only a couple of hundred hours a year it may be economically advantageous to purchase an older aircraft with engines that have perhaps 600 hours or so remaining,” he said. “It’s important to understand that overhauling an engine two or three times may not be cost effective.”  

Wyndham also points out there is more to an older aircraft than just the engines. “If you’re careful about what aircraft you buy, you’re essentially buying a parts supply for your aircraft. In that situation you might find it is more cost effective than having your existing components overhauled, but this is not quite as simple as it might appear. At some point you have diminishing returns. It doesn’t make economic sense for the owner of a single aircraft to purchase half a dozen aircraft to support it. There are hidden costs such as storage, upkeep and insurance.” 

The other potential downside is the residual value of your aircraft when you want to sell it. “If you’ve put on engines with 600 hours remaining and you try to sell it in two years, the residual value of the aircraft may not pay you back for the cost of the spares aircraft because the market for older aircraft is so depressed,” he said. “While it isn’t right in every situation, the operator of an older, out-of-production aircraft should look into purchasing a spare aircraft for parts. It potentially could result in a significant annual savings on maintenance.”

“Elevated used inventory, attractive used pricing and macro uncertainty continue to hold down demand for new business jets,” JPMorgan Equity Research noted in its latest business jet monthly report, issued this morning. “As a result, OEMs are eating further into their backlogs, and if these don't stabilize in the coming quarters, further [production] rate cuts seem likely.” However, the risk is not the same across all categories, with demand for large-cabin jets continuing to outpace that for light jets by a “striking” degree. Bombardier's second-quarter conference call last week provided “further supporting data points” as Learjet and Challenger backlogs continued to decline while the Global backlog ticked up. “We're not ready to say that large business jets are out of the woods as orders remain anemic overall, and the next two quarters will be crucial in determining whether further rate cuts are necessary,” said the firm. As for pre-owned jets, JPMorgan said used inventory of in-production models edged up to 11.8 percent in August versus 11.6 percent in July, with all categories showing increased inventories. “We believe this increase is a bump in the road and expect that inventories...will continue to decline gradually,” it added. Meanwhile, average asking prices for pre-owned jets increased 1.3 percent in August, reaching $11.4 million. JPMorgan also reported that business aircraft flight activity for July increased 7.7 percent from a year ago.

President Obama announced in Milwaukee yesterday that airports and the Next Generation Air Traffic System will be part of a more than $50 billion investment in the U.S.'s transportation infrastructure in the next year, the first installment of a six-year transportation strategy that includes creating an “infrastructure bank.” White House officials said the cost will be offset by raising taxes on oil and gas companies. While much of the President's proposal focuses on surface transportation–including high-speed rail–he promised “robust” investment in ATC modernization. Obama said the plan will “restore 150 miles of runways” and “advance a next-generation air traffic control system to reduce travel time and delays for American travelers.” A White House fact sheet apparently made no mention of general aviation. AOPA immediately urged both Congress and the Administration to “remember that general aviation is an integral part of the national transportation system, and that the key to the success of NextGen is a commitment by the government to invest in new technologies for all users.”

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) claims that general aviation, still struggling through a stalled economy, is facing “unfair international competition. Some foreign governments are heavily subsidizing–sometimes illegally–their domestic aircraft industries,” he said in a statement last week. He singled out Embraer in particular, claiming that the Brazilian OEM is now responsible for about 14 percent of all global sales of business aircraft. He noted that Embraer has been manufacturing business aircraft for only about seven years, adding that the company's growth “does not seem possible without heavy and creative government support across the board.” Brownback called for an analysis by the U.S. International Trade Commission to focus, in particular, on the business aircraft industry in the U.S., China, Brazil, Canada and Europe, examining the composition of the current industry and the factors of competition in the global industry. Embraer responded by saying its recent success with business aircraft is not the result of government subsidies. “Embraer did not use launch aid or any other illegal subsidies to develop its business jets portfolio or the equally successful E-Jet family of commercial aircraft [and it] did not use any public funds for either family,” the company said.

Heavy-lift helicopters from private contractors and the military are continuing to play a critical role in restoring the Gulf of Mexico's ecosystem in the wake of the BP oil spill. This month, Columbia Helicopters is flying a pair of Boeing Vertol 107-IIs equipped with brush grapples to remove sections of hard and soft boom that had been placed to protect estuaries from encroaching oil. The Vertols have been on site since May and were initially used to construct a 35-mile sandbag island to protect sensitive wetlands along the Louisiana coast. That effort included a pair of VIH Cougar Sikorsky S-61Ns, along with Black Hawks from the Florida, Illinois and Louisiana National Guard units. Guard units from Florida and Mississippi also contributed CH-47 Chinooks to the operation. BP has contracted for the private helicopters, but all helicopters in the region involved with the effort are operating under the direction of the U.S. Coast Guard and the Louisiana National Guard.

Jeppesen Mobile TC, a free iPad application that the company recently launched, allows anyone with a Jeppview electronic chart (paid) subscription to access terminal charts via the Apple e-reader. The application is not currently available on the iPhone or iPod Touch, even though these devices share the iPad’s operating system. Download and installation can be done seamlessly via Apple iTunes App Store on a PC or the App Store on the iPad. Using an existing Jeppesen e-chart subscription, AIN had no problem downloading the accompanying 500-megabyte worldwide terminal chart database from within the installed application. Jeppesen Mobile TC at present is quite basic but still provides an excellent e-chart viewing experience. However, the app has few options other than to save airports as favorites–there's no way to set up departure or arrival airports and no quick access to terminal procedures found in Jeppesen’s Flight Deck software. Search functionality is also limited to airport name or airport identifier. One of the biggest drawbacks is a lack of brightness controls in the application, a shortcoming that needs to be fixed in an update. Functionality of the Jeppesen iPad app also would increase significantly with the addition of core Flight Deck features and the capability to view en route charts in future promised updates.

The pilots of the UPS Boeing 747-400 cargo airplane that crashed on September 3 reported smoke in the cockpit as they tried to return to Dubai International Airport, according to a preliminary report issued by the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) on Sunday.

The airplane had departed Dubai International Airport at 6:53 p.m. local time for Cologne, Germany. At 7:15 p.m., UAE ATC Center received information from Bahrain that the crew could not maintain altitude and had turned around to attempt an emergency landing in Dubai.  

ATC issued clearance as the aircraft approached some 22 nm from the airport. It passed over the airfield “very high,” according to the report, and made a right turn. The aircraft then tracked southwest and rapidly lost altitude. At approximately 7:42 p.m. local time, ATC lost radar contact. The 747 crashed in an unpopulated area between Emirates Road and Al Ain Highway 50 minutes after departure. Both pilots died in the crash.   

The GCAA immediately dispatched an investigation team, which recovered the cockpit voice recorder some six hours after the accident. Investigators retrieved the flight data recorder earlier today.

A team from the NTSB arrived in the UAE on September 5 to assist with the investigation.

NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman has designated senior air safety investigator Bill English as the U.S. accredited representative. His team includes NTSB specialists in the areas of human performance, fire, operations and systems. The team also includes technical advisors from the FAA, Boeing, UPS, GE and Independent Pilots Association.

The crash of a Spanish Air Force two-seat Eurofighter at Moron airbase on August 24 that killed a pilot from the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) has raised questions about the progress of the al-Salam agreement between the UK and Saudi governments. This $6.6 billion deal provided for the training of RSAF pilots and ground crew by the UK Royal Air Force, as well as the supply of 72 Eurofighters and various support services by BAE Systems. Twenty-four of the aircraft were to be delivered from the UK production line at Warton, with the remaining 48 to be license-assembled in Saudi Arabia. 

When we last reported on al-Salam two years ago, work on a final assembly facility at Dhahran airbase was due to be completed in August 2009. But AIN has learned from two industry sources that this plan is well behind schedule. Eurofighter subassemblies and avionics equipment destined for Dhahran are being stored in the UK. The UK Ministry of Defence told AIN that the plan to produce 48 Eurofighters in Saudi Arabia was unchanged, “but the governments remain in confidential discussion on the details.” British newspapers reported that a planned visit to Saudi Arabia in late July by Britain’s new defense minister, Liam Fox, was canceled on short notice because no Saudi officials were available to meet him.

Deliveries of the RSAF’s Eurofighters from Warton did start as planned in June last year. To date, eight single-seat and four two-seat Eurofighters have been flown to the kingdom; another two of each type have flown at Warton but are yet to be delivered. Meanwhile, only six RSAF pilots have completed their conversion training at RAF Coningsby in the UK. According to the UK Ministry of Defence, another batch of Saudi pilots are due to train in the UK later this year. “The Spanish are also training Saudi Typhoon pilots but we cannot comment on this as it is a matter for the Spanish and Saudi governments,” the MoD added.

AeroVironment has become the first company to fly a stratospheric, very-long-endurance UAV as part of the U.S. government’s Global Observer initiative. The 175-foot-wingspan aircraft took off from Edwards Air Force Base on August 5 and flew for one hour, reaching 4,000 feet. The airplane’s four airscrews were turned by battery power on this maiden flight, but AeroVironment will substitute a liquid-hydrogen system later this year for the high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) tests. Six U.S. government agencies are providing more than $120 million in funding for the Global Observer joint capability technology demonstration. Interest in UAVs and small airships that can remain airborne for at least four days at altitudes up to 65,000 feet is growing fast, as lightweight composite structures and lighter-weight payloads make practical applications possible. AeroVironment said that its Global Observer UAV can provide “valuable communications and reconnaissance at a lower cost to military and nonmilitary customers.” Boeing has developed the liquid-hydrogen-powered Phantom Eye to meet similar requirements, and has teamed with Aurora Flight Sciences to develop the Orion, a smaller UAV with even longer endurance. 

Responding to public complaints from Pentagon officials about the cost and progress of the Global Hawk program, Northrop Grumman has provided a robust defense. In briefings at the Farnborough airshow followed by the AUVSI (Association for Unmanned Systems International) show in Denver last month, company officials made detailed comparisons with the cost of using manned platforms for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. According to Gene Fraser, v-p of Northrop’s aerospace systems sector, it costs nearly five times as much per-orbit-hour to fly the U-2 as the Global Hawk. The U.S. Air Force plans to deploy the high-altitude UAV to two new locations in the next few weeks: Guam in the Pacific and Sigonella, Italy. From these locations, the Global Hawk can replace the U-2s that still fly operational ISR missions over Korea and the Near East, respectively. However, the UAV has not yet formally passed its initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E), despite having been deployed continuously to the UAE for flights over Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. The key IOT&E milestone should be accomplished by the end of November, according to George Guerra, v-p for HALE Systems with Northrop Grumman. The U.S. Congress has refused to allow the U-2 to be retired until the USAF has demonstrated that the Global Hawk can provide an equivalent capability.

Iran unveiled a jet-powered UAV that it claimed could deliver two 250-pound bombs to targets beyond 600-miles range. The Karar drone appears to be in the same class as the CL-289 UAV designed and built for reconnaissance by Canadair in the 1980s. It was unveiled on Iran’s Defence Industry Day by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who described it as “a messenger of death.” Karar is the Farsi word for “assailant.” The UAV’s claimed range is about half that of the longest range ballistic missile in the Iranian inventory. Israeli analysts have suggested that the new Iranian UAV is a scaled-up version of the Skua target drone manufactured by Denel in South Africa. It has the same tail section design, but no other apparent similarities. 

An improved version of the Lockheed Martin Desert Hawk mini-UAV is now operating with the British Army in Afghanistan. The hand-launched system has an improved video sensor and a larger wing. The UK is the only announced customer for the Desert Hawk. Another mini-UAV, the Honeywell T-Hawk VTOL system, is also operating with British forces, probably on inspection tasks connected with the counter-improvised-explosive-devices effort in Afghanistan. 

Bombardier Aerospace “is starting to see signs of recovery as shown by the significant reduction in business aircraft order cancellations,” Bombardier president and CEO Pierre Beaudoin said yesterday during an investor conference call. During the second quarter ending July 31, Bombardier took gross orders for 26 business jets but had 12 cancellations, resulting in net orders for 14 business aircraft. While this is much better than the 27 orders and 80 cancellations (-53 net) a year ago, “We’re seeing only a slow progressive trend for order intake,” said Bombardier Aerospace president Guy Hachey. “We expected the market recovery to be better by this point, though the business pipeline for business jets is good.” Demand is stronger for the company's large-cabin Globals, with a 28-month backlog as of July 31 versus 26 months a year ago. Challenger backlog is nine months–“within our target range of nine to 12 months,” Hachey said–but is down from 13 months last year. Learjet demand is the weakest, with backlog for Bombardier's light jets at seven months. And while this is one month’s worth of backlog more than last year, Bombardier delivered just three Learjets in the second quarter versus 13 in the same period last year. The company also has 11 unsold "white tail” aircraft, which Hachey admitted are mostly Learjets.

“There’s a fair amount of caution out there, but we're seeing steady activity at our aerospace division, which consists of Gulfstream and Jet Aviation,” Jay Johnson, chairman and CEO of Gulfstream and Jet Aviation parent company General Dynamics, said yesterday at the Morgan Stanley Global Industrials Unplugged Conference. Backlog for current-production large-cabin Gulfstreams is “about where we want to be” at 18 months, he noted. There are also orders for about 200 G650s, which won’t start being delivered until 2012. Johnson said the midsize business jet market is “beginning to stabilize,” though added, “It’s not where it needs to be or where it will be, but we're seeing order book activity for mid-cabin Gulfstreams at modest but encouraging levels.” Meanwhile, he said the G650 and G250 test programs are proceeding on track: “Significantly, both aircraft are performing in test exactly as predicted.” The super-midsize G250 and wide-cabin G650 are expected to be certified next year, and G250 deliveries will start “in 2011.” Johnson said that Gulfstream plans to deliver 17 G650s in 2012 and 33 each in 2013 and 2014–a quick ramp-up that he says can be done thanks to the aircraft’s lower parts count and use of new metal bonding techniques. No production schedule was given for the G250.

Forecast demand for executive charter flights has softened slightly for the second consecutive month, according to the latest data from online charter portal Avinode. As of August 31, the demand index produced by the Sweden-based group was 93.07, slightly more than 17 points down from where it had stood 30 days earlier. However, this was still almost 32 points above the 61.36 demand index recorded a year earlier. This suggests that 2010 continues to be a year of slow recovery for the private charter sector, which has experienced its usual dip in business travel during the peak summer months of July and August. The latest Avinode data also shows that charter prices are stabilizing. The August 31 price index of 97.40 was barely a quarter of one point above the level seen at the start of last month and barely more than two points above where it had been on the same day last year. Over the past month, average flight hour rates have been creeping up by between 3.5 and 5.6 percent–a slight improvement of market conditions. In North America, the August 31 rate for a Cessna Citation Excel increased to €2,498 ($3,197), while the rates for a Hawker 800 rose to €2,627 ($3,362) and for a Challenger 604 to €3,900 ($4,992). The pattern in international markets tracked by Avinode saw only slightly smaller increases, with the average rate for the Excel rising to €2,764 ($3,537) and those for the Hawker 800 and Challenger 604 reaching €3,399 ($4,350) and €4,803 ($6,147), respectively.

The FAA yesterday issued Draft Advisory Circular 20-147A, which provides new guidance to aircraft manufacturers on compliance with regulations covering engine induction system icing and engine installation ice requirements. The new guidance will replace AC20-147A, which was last revised in 2004. Comments on the draft AC are due by November 1 and can be sent to the FAA's John Fisher. One of the key changes in the draft AC is mixed phase or ice crystal icing conditions, which "has caused more than 100 turbine engine power losses," according to the FAA. These conditions "occur when supercooled liquid water droplets and ice particles coexist in a cloud, often around the outskirts of a deep convective cloud formation." This is the first time the FAA has introduced compliance methodologies for these conditions and is likely a response to instances of power rollback that have caused engine flameouts. Indeed, the AC goes on to state that the aviation industry believed that turbine engine susceptibility to mixed phase or ice crystal conditions was "minimally consequential" with the exception of pronounced inlet bends and high-solidity, high-turning front-stage compressor stators. The FAA is also recommending that ice-detection systems be evaluated for TAT probe malfunctions during icing events.