EBACE Convention News 5-18-11 Issue

EBACEConvention News Vol. 43 No. 10

5•18•2011

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In the Exhibit Halls Aircraft Climate Change Cabin Electronics Aircraft Sales

TAG illuminates EBACE with art for art’s sakeThe TAG Group’s indoor “chalet” looks more like an sophisticated art gallery than an aviation trade- show exhibit. Page 6

All-composite Learjet 85 has deep European rootsBombardier’s new midsize jet benefits from substantial engineering and manufacturing work done in Belfast and Manchester. Page 10

Carbon dioxide emissions to become bizav’s main headacheHow well is business aviation meeting the goals of its 2009 “commitment on climate change”? Page 20

SkyPad sets new standard for WiFi cabin control and IFEInnotech Aviation introduces a wireless in-flight entertainment system that uses an iPad tablet as the system controller. Page 21

VAT stifles UK imports, says Gama bossImports of business aircraft into the UK dried up in January after the EC forced implementation of VAT rules for aircraft sales. Page 34

VistaJet throttles upby Thierry Dubois

VistaJet put itself back in full-blown growth mode yesterday, placing a major order with Bombardier for 18 jets in a move that will take its fleet to more than 50 aircraft. The $383 million deal signed here at EBACE includes 12 Globals and Challengers and six Learjet 60 XRs. Deliveries should begin next year.

Thomas Flohr, founder and chairman of VistaJet, said his company’s current order backlog is valued at $1.3 billion. On order are 10 Global 6000s, six Challenger 605s, 11 Learjet 85s and six Learjet 60 XRs. VistaJet operates only Bombardier aircraft and prior to the financial crisis had been working toward a high-volume business

Legacys lift Kazakhstanby Chad Trautvetter

In a deal that could be worth up to $207 million, Comlux placed a firm order yesterday at EBACE for three Embraer Legacy 650s, with options for four more.

Importantly, this marks the first acquisi-tion of Embraer business jets by Comlux, which currently operates only offerings from Airbus and Bombardier.

The super-midsize Leg-acy 650s will be based at Comlux Kazakhstan, Fly Comlux’s charter outpost

Comlux placed its first order for Embraer jets yesterday at EBACE, with a firm order for three Legacy 650s and an option for four more. The super-midsize jets will be based in Kazakhstan. At the order signing were (l-r) Comlux president and CEO Richard Gaona, Comlux Kazakhstan COO Irina Pay, Embraer Executive Jets president Ernest Edwards and Fly Comlux CEO Andrea Zanetto.

Steve Ridolfi, president of Bombardier business aircraft, and Thomas Flohr, owner and chairman of VistaJet.

Continued on page 54 u


is the headwind turning ‘round?It seems all the business aviation news for the past few years has been about trying to advance in the face of a relentless economic headwind–directly on the nose. But this week’s EBACE is demonstrating improved conditions for the 12,192 delegates already in attendance.

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Bombardier, Learjet and Learjet 60 XR are registered trademarks or trademarks of Bombardier Inc. or its subsidiaries. © 2011 Bombardier Inc. All rights reserved.

This is a plane built with value and effi ciency in mind. This is cost-effective, high-speed cruising. This is uncompromising range and unmatched speed. This is the future of your business and the object of your desires. This is the cause of more than a few “Oh yeahs”.

This is Learjet.

www.thisislearjet.com

AND “OH YEAH”

S:21.625”

S:13.875”

T:21.625”

T:13.875”

B:22.125”

B:14.125”

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CLIENT PAP 2 MAQUETTE 006 May 11-09:35 06 May 11-09:35

CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER STÉPHANE CHARIER

ART DIRECTOR TONY HIRD

COPYWRITER X

ACCOUNT SUPERVISOR CATHERINE

AGENCY PRODUCER SYLVIE OUZILLEAU

ART BUYER X

PHOTOGRAPHER X

ILLUSTRATOR X

FORMAT DU PAP 21,625 po x 13,875 poARTWORK DIMENSIONS

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INFOGRAPHISTE ELENACG DESIGNER

BBDO MONTRÉALAGENCE AGENCY

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CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK

NOTE IMPORTANTE :

TYPE SAFETY TRIMBLEED

Bombardier, Learjet and Learjet 60 XR are registered trademarks or trademarks of Bombardier Inc. or its subsidiaries. © 2011 Bombardier Inc. All rights reserved.

This is a plane built with value and effi ciency in mind. This is cost-effective, high-speed cruising. This is uncompromising range and unmatched speed. This is the future of your business and the object of your desires. This is the cause of more than a few “Oh yeahs”.

This is Learjet.

www.thisislearjet.com

AND “OH YEAH”

S:21.625”S:13.875”

T:21.625”T:13.875”

B:22.125”B

:14.125”

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David A. LombardoNigel MollLiz MoscropMark PhelpsOlivia SaucierIan SheppardThomas StockerMatt ThurberJames Wynbrandt

Everjets to field a Phenom 300

Everjets signed a contract yesterday for an Embraer Phenom 300 executive jet to be placed in charter service. After taking delivery in December, Everjets will serve southern Europe from its base in Portugal.

As part of the agreement, Everjets, a division of the Ricon Group, has an option to add a second Phenom 300. “We are pleased to welcome Everjets to our growing Phenom 300 customer base in Europe and support them as they commence operations,” said Colin Ste-ven, Embraer’s vice president of mar-keting and sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

“We are thrilled to present the Phenom 300 to our customers,” commented Ever-jets CEO Jose Pereira. “The design of the aircraft perfectly suits our objectives and our target audience of multi-cul-tural, fashion-conscious clients who like to travel in style.”

Everjets parent company, the

Ricon Group, is an internationally known innovator in the fashion tex-tile and clothing business. It is the force behind a number of elite fashion

brands in the Angolan, Brazilian and Portuguese retail markets, so perhaps it’s not surprising they chose the Bra-zilian-made jet. –M.P.

Comlux inks co-op deal with Saudia

Comlux and Saudia Private Avi-ation have signed an agreement for joint development of charter busi-ness opportunities in the Middle East. Comlux Middle East, one of Comlux the Aviation Group’s com-panies, holds a European air opera-tors certificate and will make its fleet of six Airbus corporate jets (soon to be eight) available for Saudia Private Aviation customers.

Saudia Private Aviation, which is part of Saudi Arabian Airlines, operates a Dassault Falcon 7X and Hawker Beechcraft Hawker 400XP. It will soon open an FBO in Jeddah, followed by facilities in Riyadh and Dammam. The agreement will also help Saudia expand its business in Europe.

Comlux’s latest fleet addition is an A320ACJ, equipped to carry up to 19 passengers in a three-cabin layout that includes a private lounge/bed-room with a full shower. The Comlux A320ACJ (9H-AWK) is here at the EBACE static display. Comlux will take delivery of a new A319ACJ later this year and another in 2012.

“We are very pleased to have reached this agreement with Saudia Private Avi-ation, which is a key player in the Mid-dle East business aviation market with well-grounded experience of more than 35 years,” said Richard Gaona, CEO and president of Comlux. –M.T.

Pedro Silva, president and group executive of newly launched Everjets, seals the deal here at EBACE for a Phenom 300 with Earnest Edwards of Embraer. The new company, a division of the Ricon group, will use the light jet for charter service in southern Europe. Everjets also has an option to acquire a second Phenom 300.

Citation luft

Cessna’s regional sales manager, Thomas Tatum, left, hands over the keys to another new Citation XLS+. This one goes to German operator EFO Aviation, represented by man-aging director Simon Ebert (on steps), project manager Jost Hofman, and Floris Helmers, managing director of Air Hamburg, which will operate the twinjet.�

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TAG illuminates EBACE with art for art’s sakeby James Wynbrandt

At aviation trade shows the term “chalet” is used loosely, the exhibitors’ hos-pitality structures suggest-ing little of the sturdiness and warmth of their namesake–the quintessentially Swiss moun-tain cabin. Here at EBACE 2011, the Geneva-based TAG Group is demonstrating a dif-ferent approach to its tempo-rary digs (Stand 7020), evident

in touches from the finely fur-nished and expansive private meeting rooms to the breath-taking art on display, which includes works by Picasso, Chagall, Botero and many other modern masters.

“Mansour [Ojjeh] wants to change the look of the chalet to reflect what the TAG Group companies represent,” said TAG Aviation chairman Roger McMullin, referring to the group’s majority owner during a tour of the plush retreat. “He wanted a look of permanence that speaks to his vision of the style and attention to quality of the companies.”

Mansour Ojjeh didn’t have to go far to find a curator to assem-ble artwork that matched his vision. He asked his niece, Tati-ana Ojjeh, who is an art expert and had installed the art in TAG’s FBO lounge at Farnborough Air-port, to do the job.

“I was having lunch with my uncle and I said I wanted to bring art and aviation togeth-er,” recounted Ms. Ojjeh, who

founded a company, Artlin-er, with precisely that goal. “He said, ‘I want you to create an ex-hibit for the chalet.’” She agreed and gathered the paintings and sculptures in association with Geneva-based Opera Gallery.

The resulting exhibition, “Art in TAG, presented by Opera Gallery in association with Artliner,” showcases more than two dozen carefully cho-sen masterpieces. The first-floor lounge features American art-ists, including Jean-Michel Bas-quiat and Keith Haring. The

second floor meeting rooms spotlight artists and trends rep-resenting Latin, contemporary British, classic, avant garde and abstract schools, with works by artists as disparate as Ferdnand Leger, Robert Indiana, Manolo Valdes, Marc Quinn, Sam Fran-cis, Georges Matthieu, Alexan-der Calder, Joan Miro and Mr. Brainwash, as well as Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Fer-nando Botero. All are available for purchase.

“The biggest challenge was persuading everybody that

the works could merge so well together,” said Ms. Ojjeh. From the results, it appears her vision is as forward think-ing and focused on quality as her uncle’s.

The TAG Group is com-prised of TAG Aviation, the air-craft charter, maintenance and management company, TAG Aeronautics, exclusive distrib-utor of Bombardier Aircraft in the Middle East, the London-area TAG Farnborough Airport and the TAG Aviation FBO right here in Geneva. o


A “look of permanence” was TAG Aviation majority owner Mansour Ojjeh’s goal. To that end, he asked his niece, Tatiana Ojjeh, who founded a company named Artliner, to assemble a stunning collection of art for TAG’s EBACE chalet.

Public misconception is bizav’s Public Enemy 1by Liz Moscrop

Tackling the negative public perception of business aviation is key to resolving some of the industry’s challenges. This was the message pervading the open-ing general session for the 11th edition of EBACE. Although the sector is in better shape than it has been for a few years, offi-cials said that public attitudes toward private airplanes are cor-rosive and affect decision mak-ing at the highest levels.

Brian Humphries, chair-man of the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA), chaired a panel comprising industry officials, regulators and users. He stressed, “Recognition of our industry’s value is evi-dent at the European level but not in the 27 member states.” He pointed to the UK’s propos-als for an air passenger duty tax of £186 ($300) per passenger for each private flight in an aircraft weighing more than 5,700 kg (12,600 pounds) or in a business helicopter.

“This shows a complete lack of understanding,” he said. “Costs damage not only our industry, but customers who are contributing to the economic recovery.”

NBAA president Ed Bolen highlighted the new EU emis-sions trading scheme as a par-ticular bugbear. He urged the business aviation sector to stand up for itself. “It is incumbent on our industry to be aggressive in talking about how we operate,” he said.

Maxime Coffin, the head of the general aviation and helicop-ters mission at the French Civil Aviation Authority, pointed to an airfield and heliport in France that are both under threat thanks to misinformed local pres-sure groups, who were lobbying equally misinformed members of parliament. He said that the industry is “underestimating the problem of perception.”

Britain’s Lord Hesketh cau-tioned that without business

aviation, economies would strug-gle. “Companies that do not have the ability to move key per-sonnel are going to fall behind,” he said. “We do have to get the perception issue right.”

The last speaker was Fabio Cavalli, CEO and founder of

MondoBiotech, which special-izes in tackling rare diseases. His company uses a Pilatus PC-12 to ferry busy doctors from all over Europe to its Paris headquarters and back to their home bases on the same day. “It is [good] we were a private company when

we started,” he said. “Journal-ists see private aviation as a visit to St. Tropez; however, in order to stay competitive you have to move fast and use fewer people. All the technology companies in Silicon Valley have at least one, if not two or three planes.” o

The TAG collection includes this 1962 Picasso, “Femme au Chapeau Assise.” Best of all, if you like it, it’s for sale.

As part of the EBACE 2011 opening ceremony, participants voiced their opinions on how to soften the negative public view of private flying. Taking part in the event were, left to right, Maxime Coffin, head of general aviation, French Civil Aviation Authority; Brian Humphries, chairman of EBAA; Britain’s Lord Hesketh; Fabio Cavalli, CEO and founder of MondoBiotech; and Ed Bolen, NBAA president.

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U.S. pilots found guilty of one Amazon midair chargeby Chad Trautvetter

Brazilian federal judge Murilo Mendes, yesterday, found American pilots Joseph Lepore and Jan Paul Paladino,

whose Embraer Legacy 600 col-lided with a Gol Airlines Boeing 737-800 over the Amazon in September 2006, guilty of failing

for more than an hour to ver-ify whether or not the Legacy’s transponder was functioning.

The judge commuted a sen-tence of four years and four months to community service to be performed in the U.S., and he also suspended the pair’s pilot licenses. It is yet unknown whether the Brazilian sentence is enforceable in the U.S.

Lepore and Paladino were found innocent of five of the six charges against them, including failing to follow the flight plan, turning off the transponder and not reacting correctly to a com-munications failure. Additionally, the judge discarded allegations that the TCAS was never on during the flight and that the pilots falsely affirmed that the Legacy was

authorized to fly RVSM. Pilot-in-command Lepore and copilot Pal-adino had just taken delivery of the Legacy for their employer–charter operator ExcelAire of Long Island MacArthur Airport, New York–and were ferrying the aircraft to the U.S. when the midair occurred.

Judge Murilo issued iden-tical verdicts for Lepore and Paladino, saying the pilots bear equal responsibility for safety. The pilots will appeal the verdict. Murilo will also rule this week on the fate of the two air traffic controllers still charged in the case, one of whom a military court has found guilty of manslaugh-ter, delivering a sentence of 14 months imprisonment.

The pilots’ guilty verdict turned on the question of whether a white “TCAS OFF” alert appeared on the Legacy’s panel, and the judge based his ruling largely on an exchange from the cockpit voice recorder: “Dude, you got the TCAS on?” followed by: “Yes, the TCAS is off.” While ATC has primary responsibil-ity for verifying the transponder function, the judge ruled that this does not free the pilots of blame.

What worries safety experts about this conviction is the crim-inalization of accidents. Here at EBACE, AIN spoke with NBAA senior vice president of operations Steve Brown about this concerning trend.

“Criminalization has a chilling effect on safety enhancements in the aviation community. We rely on willing participation by those involved in an accident to avoid repeat accidents,” Brown said. “It is no benefit to anyone to crimi-nalize aircraft accidents. We have to preserve the safety culture and science and discipline in accident investigations to result in a posi-tive safety outcome.”

Brown said Brazil’s “differ-ent” legal system allowed for yes-terday’s conviction, even though NTSB and Brazil ANAC acci-dent reports show that the Bra-zilian air traffic controllers made the errors. All 154 aboard the Gol 737 perished in the accident, while Lepore and Paladino were able to land their crippled Lega-cy at a Brazilian military airport.

Listen to a podcast inter-view with Brown on this topic at www.ainonline.com/audio. o

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All-composite Learjet 85 has deep European rootsby Mark Huber

Bombardier’s all-composite Lear jet 85 is progressing toward a first flight in 2012 with heavy engineering and manufactur-ing input from the company’s facilities at Belfast in Northern Ireland and Manches-ter in the northwest of England. Early this year, program director Ralph Acs report-ed that 80 percent of the detailed design drawings had been released for structure and systems installation with the goal of completing them this spring. Accord-ing to manufacturer, the eight-passenger, 3,000-nm-range aircraft remains on sched-ule for certification in 2013.

“In Manchester, we pulled [an en gineering team] together from the European Community,” explained Acs. It consists of 120 engineers making ply-by-ply drawings that can be sent electron-ically directly to Bombardier’s composite factory in Mexico.

The $17.2 million Learjet 85 is being brought to market by a global team, using Bombardier’s engineering and manufac-turing assets in Canada, Europe, Mexico and the U.S. The Belfast facility will make planks, spars and other parts using resin transfer infusion technology (RTI), the same composite technology tapped for Bombar-dier’s new single-aisle C Series airliner.

Acs said the use of composites on the Learjet 85 will significantly decrease final assembly time because the parts are larger and because of the very design of the parts. For example, the fuselage barrel, from bulkhead to bulkhead, is one part number. Structures such as stringers are integral parts of the composite mold, cutting down the need for fasteners and drilling.

The Belfast facility will perform destructive test article validation before the start of large-scale fabrication. The first set of spars is now being packaged for shipment to Bombardier’s Queretaro,

Mexico plant, which will fabricate the wings and the fuselage before they are trucked to Wichita in the U.S. for final aircraft assembly. Belfast also is prepar-ing for composite plank manufacture. “We’re getting organized for the tool-ing,” Acs said. “Tooling for the planks is significant.”

Last year Bombardier completed an 185,000-sq-ft expansion of the Quere-taro complex, bringing total space ded-icated the Learjet 85 program there to 221,300 sq ft. More than 1,200 employees in Queretaro work on a variety of pro-grams including the Learjet 85, the Q400 turboprop, the CRJ series and the Chal-lenger 605/850. Throughout Bombardier, approximately 1,250 employees are dedi-cated to the Learjet 85 program.

Technology ReadinessAcs said the company’s extensive expe-

rience building composite components for existing aircraft would enable it to better make the transition to an all-composite air-craft such as the Learjet 85. He further noted the role of the company’s six-phase “technology readiness program” in keep-ing things on track. The program covers material selection, process optimization and repairability of components. Effec-tive management of the supply chain will also be critical to the program, he said. There are 41 major companies supplying the Learjet 85 and Acs said he uses a vari-ety of methods to keep the program roll-ing on time, including peer pressure and pre-testing components before they are installed in the aircraft.

“We meet with our suppliers every six months and last September we brought them down to Mexico. There they got up and gave a ‘show-and-tell’ on how well

Bombardier’s $17.2 million Learjet 85 program is an international effort, with the Canadian airframer putting its engineering and manufacturing teams in Canada, Europe, Mexico and the U.S. to work on the jet.


D e D i c a t e D t o h e l p i n g b u s i n e s s a c h i e v e i t s h i g h e s t g o a l s .

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they were doing –so there is a lot of peer pressure,” Acs said.

Installing components in test rigs is another tool Acs and his team use to keep on schedule. “One of the big keys to success

is to exercise the systems before they arrive at the final [assem-bly] line. Electrical, powerplant, all of this has to be exercised to drive and improve reliabil-ity. Entry-into-service reliability at the first flight is the strategy, and around the world we have 63 rigs to commission to support what we are doing. For exam-ple, we have an integrated rig at

Rockwell Collins and any LRU [line replaceable unit] that inter-faces with that avionics suite has to visit Rockwell Collins and go through integration checks twice. So when that avionics suite [Rockwell Collins’ Pro Line Fusion] shows up on our aircraft, I can say the ‘boxes’ have shown they have talked to each other.”

Early production all-composite

aircraft traditionally have had overweight issues, and Acs said Bombardier is attacking this through a combination of mate-rial and process selection. “We have had very good [weight] cor-relation with destructive test arti-cles because we weigh them and they correlate within a couple of pounds of the drawing,” he explained. “This level of accuracy

has a lot to do with the process. Composite plys are pre-impreg-nated with resin so that variable is controlled. The next step is to make sure we are cutting [the plys] to the exact size. The actual manufacturing process from the design is quite repeatable” thanks to the extensive use of computer technology, he said.

In Manchester, Bombardier’s engineers draw parts ply-by-ply in a computer program called Cybersim. The Cybersim draw-ings are then sent to the Mexico factory where they are uploaded to a system that projects a series of green boxes onto each com-posite mold, ply-by-ply and layer-by-layer, helping to ensure precise ply placement and weight control.

The rigidity of composite fuse-lages can present cabin noise con-trol challenges that require lateral thinking. Conventional metal aircraft can use noise-dampening blankets wedged between fuse-lage spars and frames. However, the Learjet 85’s fuselage is a single composite section approximately one-inch thick without these structures. While not divulging details, Acs said Bombardier already has done acoustic test-ing on the Learjet 85’s composite panels at European laboratories, while also working to formulate passive technology solutions for the fuselage.

Cabin Details SparseInside the cabin, Bombardier

has tapped Lufthansa Technik to provide the cabin management system, but Acs said systems spe-cifics would not be finalized until late into the flight-test program due to the rapid pace of tech-nological change. “We want to make sure the CMS backbone is adaptable. You have to cater to the traditional customer who is famil-iar with none of that stuff [iPads and so forth] and just wants to use what is on the airplane, but you also have to satisfy the whiz who shows up with the latest toys,” he said. One aspect of the CMS archi-tecture being studied is a combi-nation monitor/touchscreen.

Five test aircraft and two structural test articles are sched-uled to be used in the certifica-tion program. The fourth aircraft will fly with a production interior. While not revealing exact order numbers, Acs said he expects it to be popular with European cus-tomers because of its range. “It can get you to Moscow and the Mid-dle East and you can use 5,000-foot runways,” he concluded. o


Learjet 85 has European rootsuContinued from page 10

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Piaggio celebrates the art and appeal of the Avanti II by James Wynbrandt

With a maximum speed of 402 knots, the P.180 Avanti II, made by Italy’s Piaggio Aero Industries, is the world’s fastest turboprop, while also boasting the largest cabin in its class of midsize jets and twin turboprops. But it’s also known for a stylish airframe and twin pusher design, which has been compared to a work of art.

In fact, an Avanti II recently became a canvas for noted artist Mimmo Pal-adino, who painted the airframe with wildly colorful ancestral symbols, a work he dubbed “Cacciatore di Stelle,” or Star Hunter, and displayed in Milan.

“We are very proud that Master Mimmo Paladino has been inspired by a Piaggio Aero P.180 aircraft and that he would turn it into a unique work of art,” said Alberto Galassi, CEO of Piaggio Aero Industries. “The P.180 is an expres-sion of Italian genius in design and engi-neering. That’s why this creation is an unprecedented event.”

Here at EBACE, attendees can admire the art of both Paladino and Piaggio. A 1:13 scale model of the painted aircraft is

on display at Piaggio Aero’s stand (2143), while an Avanti II is on view in the static display area.

Meanwhile, Piaggio Aero is using EBACE as a canvas to paint a picture of its global expansion. The company introduced new exclusive sales agents for the Avanti II in the UK and Ire-land, and in Egypt. Corporate Jet Man-agement (CJM), based at Farnborough Airport, will handle sales in the UK and Ireland. CJM manages and operates business aircraft for both private own-ers and its own fleet.

The appointment will enable Piaggio Aero “to expand its sales business in these two important European aviation markets,” said Giuliano Felton, the com-pany’s deputy general manager and chief commercial officer. “CJM is one of the most competent and dynamic aviation businesses, and today’s agreement con-firms the commitment of Piaggio Aero to further strengthen its position within the traditional European markets.”

“CJM is extremely proud to be asso-ciated with Piaggio Aero,” said company

director David Stark. “In today’s ecolog-ically sensitive world, the Piaggio Avanti II is set apart from its competitors with its ability to achieve a high level of per-formance combined with great comfort, unique style and low emissions, thanks to its unrivaled fuel efficiency.”

Cairo-based Alkan Air has been named exclusive sales representative for Egypt. The company, which operates an air taxi service and an authorized Hawker Beechcraft Maintenance Center, also plans to add an Avanti II to its own fleet.

“We have always been aware of the Avanti II’s suitability for our market and I am delighted that we now have the

opportunity not only to operate the air-craft but also to help other operators in the region to discover the many bene-fits of this excellent aircraft,” said Awad Dargham, general manager of Alkan Air.

Piaggio Aero believes Alkan Air’s knowledge and experience of the mar-ket will enable Piaggio “to efficiently approach this emerging North African market and learn more about the oppor-tunities and benefits to grow its business there,” according to Felton. “We have chosen this company because it is the leader in air services in Egypt, and we appreciate the way they manage this busi-ness in their country.” o


Noted artist Mimmo Paladino used the sleek lines of a full size Paggio Avanti II as the canvas for his “Cacciatore di Stelle’ (Star Hunter). This 1:13 scale model of the original is on display at the Piaggio stand.

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It’s a GrandNew day for Turkish operator

AgustaWestland (Stand 7010) has sold a GrandNew light twin helicopter to Turkey’s Genel Havacilik. The aircraft will be used for VIP missions and is slated for delivery next month. The order marks the type’s entry into the Turkish market.

“We selected the GrandNew as the aircraft of choice in its class to satisfy our requirements to operate in the most demanding hot and high conditions of Turkey,” said Genel Havacilik CEO Ali Sulyak.

According to Agusta Westland, the helicopter is the first typecertified light twin to enter service with a new electronic flight instrument system featuring syntheticvision technology. Other pieces of kit on board include a helicopter terrain awareness warning system and global positioning awareness navigation software.

Agusta has sold 70 of its GrandNew variant worldwide

and 30 of its other helicopter types into Turkey. The company predicts a rosy future in the country for VIP/corporate transport and EMS shuttle services.

VIP Market RecoveryAccording to Emilio Dal

masso, AgustaWestland’s senior vice president for the commercial business unit, the EMS sector is growing, and VIP market is recovering, having suffered most during the economic downturn. He said that Agusta has more than a 70percent share of the light twin market for VIP applications.

Dalmasso added that the Finmeccanica company’s AW139 medium twin and the GrandNew light twin models are selling well, with 500 AW139s sold so far, more than a third of which are for offshore applications. The GrandNew has logged 300 orders, mostly from the VIP/corporate and EMS/SAR segments.

The European commercial

market accounts for a large portion of Agusta’s sales of light twins. “Leading operators with large fleets have relevant and diversified businesses across Europe for offshore transport, passenger transport, EMS/SAR and fire fighting,” said Dalmasso. “If including Russia, this is one of the most promising markets for a number of commercial roles.” He added that Russia needs to modernize its aging fleets.

The helicopter maker is bullish about the future. Last summer it launched the new AW169, which will feature advancements in avionics and airframe design. The light twin is designed to cater to the growing market for multirole capability in the 4.5ton class segment. The company forecasts a potential market for almost 1,000 of the type over approximately 20 years.

Agusta is displaying a VIP configured GrandNew light twin on the static display at EBACE, as well as models from its product range on its stand. –L.M.


King Air 250 MAKes its eBACe DeBut

Hawker Beechcraft expects to begin deliveries of the King Air 250 this quarter, following receipt of its type certificate, which Shawn Vick, executive vice president, said is imminent. The twin turboprop, the lat-est derivative of the popular King Air, is making its European debut here at EBACE 2011.

New use of composite technology distinguishes the $5.799 mil-lion King Air 250 from its predecessor, the King Air B200GT, which the 250 will replace on the production line. Key features include Bound-ary Layer Research composite winglets, Hartzell composite props and a Raisbeck ram-air recovery system, which give the new derivative model “significantly better runway performance than single-engine utility tur-boprops,” according to the company.

Here at EBACE, Wichita-based Hawker Beechcraft is introducing these same features as an aftermarket upgrade for already-fielded King Air 200GTs. With the upgrades installed, these will then be called 200GTRs.

Hawker Beechcraft introduced the King Air 250 at last year’s NBAA convention in October, and exhibited the model earlier this year at a Sun’n’Fun International Fly-In and Expo in Florida.

The company said customer feedback requesting better perfor-mance convinced the company to develop the changes. –R.R.P.

The King Air 250, the latest version of Hawker Beechcraft’s popular turboprop twin, features composite winglets and propellers, along with a ram-air recovery system, which all contribute to better runway performance.

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No-fault findings drop under Bombardier programby Matt Thurber

Bombardier’s product sup-port operation has spent the past year tackling one of the more difficult problems facing air-craft manufacturers, the no fault found issue. As a result of these

efforts, Bombardier now offers a guarantee that if a part arrives inoperative (dead on arrival), the operator will not have to pay to ship it back to Bombardier or for labor to replace the part.

Components that are returned by operators as defective then tested and found not to have faults have long bedeviled man-ufacturers, and, said James Ho-blyn, Bombardier’s president of

customer services, “that drives a lot of frustration.” The year-long effort pulled together a multifunctional initiative, he said. On each of the Bombardier business aircraft platforms, the

company identified the top 10 worst performing components. “And we’re working hard to drive down the rate of no fault founds,” Hoblyn said.

While Bombardier has made great progress in the no fault found issue, Hoblyn isn’t satis-fied. “We still have a lot of com-ponents that have high no fault found rates,” he said. “It’s not unusual to have some in the 40- to 50-percent range, which is unacceptable.” For the top 10 in each platform (Global, Chal-lenger, Learjet), Bombardier’s goal is to cut that rate to below 25 percent.

Part of the problem causing no fault found returns is that so many components contain elec-tronics and software. “As soon as bits and bytes are involved,” Hoblyn said, “they become particularly quirky when cold-soaked.” A lot of problems occur, too, where components interface with each other, and it is often difficult to recreate the exact conditions that existed when the fault occurred.

SmartFix TroubleshootsThe tools that Bombardier is

using to eliminate no fault found problems include its SmartFix Plus troubleshooting system, holding suppliers more account-able and working with cus-tomers to communicate more information about the original fault. SmartFix Plus is an online troubleshooting tool accessi-ble by customers, service centers and Bombardier personnel.

The tool contains detailed information about components, including drawings, schemat-ics and 3-D views as well as all the issues that can happen and troubleshooting procedures for those issues. “As new issues arise, we update the tool,” Hob-lyn said. Bombardier is develop-ing an iPad-accessible version of SmartFix Plus and plans to show what that looks like at its EBACE stand (7011).

Holding suppliers account-able involves fixing unreliable components and improving bench testing procedures to more accurately replicate the problem. “By giving them the data [on the problem],” Hoblyn said, “we can embarrass them into action. If a component has a 60-percent no fault found rate, there’s only so much you can do to blame the customer.”

Another part of the new guarantee program is that Bombardier won’t charge a restocking fee when it recom-mends a part to solve an AOG situation and that part turns out not to be needed. o


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CO2 emissions to become bizav’s main headacheby Thierry Dubois

Where is business aviation with its ambitious long-term goals in cutting CO2 emissions? Back in November 2009, the industry’s main lobbying groups issued a “commitment on climate change” that achieved pledges including an intent to be carbon neutral by 2020. Ahead of this week’s EBACE show, AIN reviewed the stated goals with the U.S. General Avia-tion Manufacturers Association (GAMA) and the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA) representatives, as well as an environmentalist specializing in aviation. It appears that progress since 2005–the year taken as a starting point–is questionable, and the challenges ahead are mind-boggling.

The 2009 document, authored by GAMA and the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC), also commits the industry to achieving “an improve-ment in fuel efficiency of an average of two percent per year from today until 2020” and “a reduction in total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of 50 percent by 2050 relative to 2005.” On this basis, a business aircraft built in 2050 “will be 45 percent more fuel efficient than one built in 2005,” with the remaining 5 per-cent cut in CO2 accounted for by opera-tional changes.

Around the same time, a practically identical document, called the “business aviation statement on climate change,” was endorsed by a number of other lob-bying groups. They include EGAMA (the European equivalent of GAMA), EBAA, the U.S. National Business Avi-ation Association (NBAA), the Asian Business Aviation Association (AsBAA) and many of their national counterparts.

Manufacturers on TargetHas the sector gotten off to a good

start between 2005 and 2010? “I think so,” Ed Smith, GAMA’s senior vice pres-ident for international and environ-mental affairs, told AIN. He said that manufacturers are on target, with their latest new aircraft models offering “sig-nificant efficiency improvements.” He added that operators are on target, too, because “operators, for economic and environmental awareness reasons, are

improving their fuel efficiency.”But in Europe, Pedro Vicente Azua,

EBAA’s COO, doesn’t quite agree. “Cer-tainly not for the 2005-2008 period–busi-ness aviation was growing,” he said. Since then, he believes the downturn has caused a reduction in CO2 emissions.

Jeff Gazzard is a board member of the Aviation Environment Federation, a UK-based nongovernmental organization advocating a more significant reduction in the negative environmental impacts of air transport. He expressed doubts about the sheer sincerity of the commitments. “By saying ‘Carbon-neutral growth by 2020,’ the industry means, ‘We’ll not do anything until 2020’; this is another decade of delay,” he told AIN.

Fuel, Technology, Best PracticesSmith explained that the improve-

ment in fuel efficiency is measured fleet wide, among all in-service business air-craft. According to the GAMA-IBAC roadmap, in 2050, relative to a “business as usual” scenario, alternative fuels alone will cut CO2 emissions by an expected 40 percent. Technology would be the second pillar, accounting for another 25 percent. Finally, operations and infrastructure would be credited for 14 percent, GAMA and IBAC report.

Gazzard challenged the technology pillar. “They’ll have a harder time try-ing to reach that goal than commer-cial aviation. In business aviation there is no game-changing engine [like a high-bypass-ratio geared turbofan],” he said.

This third pillar around operations and infrastructure mainly includes best prac-tices. Smith suggested a number of things such as optimized flight planning, reduc-ing weight, reducing use of APUs on ground and more accurate evaluation of passenger weights, for example. On a long-distance trip, such practices can lead to sig-nificant savings in the necessary fuel load.

On the air traffic management (ATM) side, which is also part of the third pillar, enhancements hold very limited prom-ises, according to Gazzard. “Business air-craft largely fly short distances, so their routing is already as good as it can be,” he said. He evaluated ATM efficiency as

already being at 92 or 93 percent.But EBAA has higher hopes for ATM

improvements, with Azua counting on future Sesar and NextGen advancements, like continuous-descent approaches. Such procedures avoid the leveling-off phases, which increase fuel burn, and they call for greater precision in satellite guidance. Europe is trailing the U.S. in that regard. The first EGNOS (Europe’s equivalent of the U.S. augmented GPS, Waas) approach was flown in Pau, southwest France, in March.

Biofuel ChallengeAlternative fuels may be the most con-

troversial topic. Green lobbyists like Gaz-zard have long raised the question of, “Do you want to eat or fly?” This refers to the debate about whether it is valid to grow crops to make fuel on land that could be used to grow food to feed people. But this is not the only environmental issue. Land-use change, a process that releases huge quantities of greenhouse gases that need decades to be recouped by biofuel produc-tion, is also appearing as a major concern.

In addition, the European Com-mission’s recent SWAFEA study (Sus-tainable Way for Alternative Fuel and Energy in Aviation) highlighted the chal-lenging business case of building biofuel production facilities. For the “biomass-to-liquid” option, the investment would be on the order of €400 billion ($560 bil-lion)–for Europe alone–spread over 40 years. About one quarter of the biofuel produced would go to aviation (not only business aviation). The rest would be for road transport and other uses.

This would allow aviation to meet its 2050 target, but at a price that inves-tors would very likely find prohibitive. Depending on circumstances, it could take up to 26 years to break even.

Azua admitted that “biofuels are not going to be a game-changer.” Nonethe-less, he insisted that research activities must be continued.

Smith suggested that the full impact of biofuels is projected to “kick in later, around 2030.” A big benefit of these so-called drop-in fuels (they require no change in the engines) is that they impact an entire fleet overnight, he pointed out. He acknowledged that SWAFEA’s pre-dictions are debatable but argued that the industry has to start with some sort of forecast on the contributions of biofuels.

So are bizav lobbyists supporting the European Union’s emission trading scheme (EU ETS)? Despite its profound objections to what it views as the imprac-tical and costly way ETS has been struc-tured, EBAA accepts that it will make a difference. “We are counting on the EU

ETS for a real reduction in CO2 emissions, as soon as 2012, when aviation is included in the scheme,” Azua explained. In prep-aration, business aircraft operators have already had to take a hard look at their emissions. “This has made them realize the amount of fuel they burn annually,” Azua said. He pointed out that compared to other sectors of aviation, fuel has a smaller share in business aviation costs.

However, Azua made it clear that EBAA is unhappy with the administra-tive and cost burden associated with ETS, which was conceived mainly with airlines in mind. The costs are disproportionate for business aviation, he said.

Smith agreed on that point and added another concern. “We think non-EU operators are [illegally] affected by a regional regulation,” he said. Accord-ing to the IBAC/GAMA plan, “market-based measures” like ETS will just play a small interim role in bizav’s CO2 cuts.

One especially bold statement in the IBAC/GAMA “commitment” concerns weight. “Business aviation aircraft must be as light as possible,” it declares. But what about the comfortable cabin interi-ors and higher limits on luggage weight that set business aviation apart from the airline alternative?

Azua asserted that “extravagant cab-ins are visible but, in fact, most business aircraft have relatively simple interiors.” Moreover, he said, “operators do care about weight, as it impacts range.”

Smith pointed out that business air-craft are built for a given mission. “Pas-sengers need tables and rotating seats, otherwise these aircraft would not sell,” he said, while insisting that weight does not get overlooked. “Given that business aircraft are productivity tools built for specific missions, they are designed to be as light as possible, as that is a key factor in achieving the efficiencies that the mar-ketplace demands,” he added.

But the Aviation Environment Federa-tion’s Gazzard simply described the state-ment on weight as “meaningless.” o


Measuring Bizav CO2 Emissions

As EBAA COO Pedro Vicente Azua noted, Eurocontrol’s ETS Support Facility is already enabling operators to measure their CO2 emissions. At the global level, IBAC has proposed that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) develop a metric suitable for business aviation. In the continued ab-sence of an ICAO formula, IBAC is suggest-ing that the industry could adopt the metric already developed by GAMA. –T.D.

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Industry groups GAMA and IBAC see biofuel playing a major role in business aviation’s efforts to reduce CO2 emissions but other industry stakeholders see this as very optimistic.

Dassault Committed To Europe’s ACArE Effort

Dassault is the only business jet manufac-turer having committed, along with the rest of the European aeronautical industry, to 2020 environmental goals set by the Advisory Coun-cil for Aeronautics Research in Europe (ACARE) in 2001. One goal is to halve CO2 emissions between 2000 and 2020–measured by passen-ger mile. However, as business jets are “flying offices” carrying very few passengers, the right metric for them should be fuel burned per

mission per mile, Dassault officials believe.In fact, ACARE’s original goals have since

been found to be too ambitious and a recent progress report indicated that only 75 percent of them are expected to be met. This is true for the whole of air transport, not only for busi-ness aviation. Dassault has indicated that the efficiency gain between the Falcon 2000EX (certified in 2003) and the Falcon 7X (certified in 2007) is in the 15- to 20-percent range. –T.D.

www.ainonline.com • May 18, 2011 • EBACE Convention News 21

SkyPad sets new standard for WiFi cabin control and IFEby Kirby J. Harrison

Innotech Aviation (Stand 1827) is introducing the SkyPad wireless in-flight entertainment system, for which it recently awarded California-based Eso-teric a contract to supply 35 ship sets for Bombardier and Cessna business jets. According to the completions and inte-riors specialist, SkyPad is the industry’s first wireless in-flight entertainment and cabin control system integrated with the iPad and Innotech’s I-Ku system through Ku-band Internet.

“We have installed SkyPad using the iPad tablet as a system controller, seamlessly integrated with our Innotech I-Ku [pronounced I.Q.] broadband sys-tem,” said Innotech president Kirk Rowe. “The SkyPad can be installed as a stand-alone media system on any aircraft or integrated with any current high-speed satellite system and wireless router.” The entire system, he added, is ready for Cloud-based content delivery via Ku-band and eventually Ka-band Internet.

Esoteric founder Alexander Dean was more aesthetically descriptive. “We wanted to create a whole new experience

in the air, one based on the same level of elegance, simplicity and convenience that our customers are used to on the ground,” he explained.

Innotech is back at EBACE with every intention of expanding its place in the European market, of which it already holds a fair share. The Canadian company provides a wide range of MRO and com-pletion and refurbishment services for a range of manufacturer makes and models at its Montreal facilities, but with particu-lar attention to Bombardier’s Challenger and Global business jet families, which are assembled at the OEM’s nearby plant. In fact, Innotech has done cabin comple-tions on more than 150 Challengers.

According to Rowe, Innotech has seen its international business increase some 70 percent in recent years, “from Europe, the Middle East and Russia, in particular for the Global Express family.”

The expansion provided sufficient motivation for Innotech to open a European office this past December in London, with Peter Rutherford respon-sible there for sales and service for all

of Europe, Russia and Africa.Tony Rawlinson, Innotech director of

sales and marketing, noted that there are some 400 of Bombardier’s Global fam-ily in service worldwide, of which 75 are in service in Europe. He added that with the first Global Express deliveries now a decade in the past, those ultra-long-range twinjets are coming due for a 10-year inspection and 10 aircraft based in Europe are scheduled this year for service at Innotech. “There are only a few service centers capable of performing that ten-year inspection,” said Rawlinson, “and at this point, demand is greater than supply.

“There are a lot of good reasons for Global owners to come here,” he said, referring to the Montreal center. In addi-tion to a favorable currency exchange rate for European clients, Innotech is located in what he calls “the Global cluster.” Within a stone’s throw are Bombardier’s manufacturing facilities, FlightSafety and CAE training centers, a Rolls-Royce turbofan maintenance and overhaul center, and Messier Dowty, which makes the landing gear assembly for the Global family of aircraft.

Rawlinson said Innotech Aviation’s business was up sufficiently in 2010 to encourage construction of a $5 million, 26,000-sq-ft hangar capable of holding two aircraft the size of Bombardier’s new Global 7000.

Rowe said in the past year Innotech

has increased its green cabin comple-tion work and as the market continues to recover, that will grow from four aircraft a year to five.

Also at home, Innotech early this month started a major renovation of its entire reception and customer areas, along with space for owners and oper-ators with airplanes in for maintenance and modification work.

Rowe said growth has been steady year-over-year and Innotech has bud-geted accordingly. “We’re up about 12 percent. That’s what we expect this year and we’re on budget to achieve that target.” If they do, he concluded, “We’ll be pretty happy.” o

Innotech’s SkyPad system uses Apple’s iPad to control the in-flight entertainment system wirelessly.

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GE/Boeing to loan engines to ferry green VIP 747-8sby Mark Huber

General Electric and Boeing are collab-orating on a program to offer their 747-8I BBJ/VIP customers optional “loaner” GEnx-2B engines to ferry their aircraft to completion centers. Called the GE Pusher Program, it would use engines from flight-test aircraft for the ferry flights. Those engines would then be removed at the com-pletion center and shipped back to GE. Following aircraft completions, estimated at 18 to 24 months for the 747-8I BBJ, cus-tomers would receive new, updated engines from GE at no extra charge.

Customers would still have to pay the full $318 million for the green aircraft, but they would not have to purchase the

engines, estimated to cost $15 million each, as early in the aircraft’s build cycle. Initial aircraft engines would come from the flight test or lease pool.

Upon completion, customers would receive new engines anticipated to incor-porate at least two of the performance improvement packages (PIP) that GE has under way on the GEnx-1B engines that have been developed for the 787 Dreamliner. A GE spokeswoman said those improvements involve changes to the low-pressure turbine and the high-pressure compressor. Together, they are expected to result in modest specific fuel consumption improvements.

The GEnx engines already are up to 15 percent more efficient than the GE CF6 series engines that power the 747-400, she said. While no formal PIP is under way for the Dash 2B engines, it is widely believed that they eventually will incorporate the Dash 1B PIPs.

Substantial Savings A Boeing spokeswoman said that, to

date, five of the eight signed 747-8I BBJ customers have opted for the engine pusher program, which would provide them with the advantages of not having to main-tain the engines while airplanes sit at com-pletion centers, along with the benefit of receiving “the latest configuration engine” when the airplane is placed into service.

Kevin Roundhill, Boeing regional product manager, said the program has the potential to save customers “a lot of money.” While he did not quantify the amount, he said the savings would be “substantial.”

The program will not, however, speed the completion process, according to Rob Tomenendal, vice president of Gore Design Completions, one of seven fac-tory-authorized 747-8I completion cen-ters. “We don’t mess with the airplane in terms of systems,” he said. “When the airplane shows up, we pickle the engines in accordance with manufacturer instruc-tions so it is not an issue for us.”

However, he did agree that the pro-gram offers obvious benefits. “From the customer standpoint, knowing that the airplane is going to be in completion for 18 to 24 months, that’s a lot of time to come off the engines for not doing any-thing. From Boeing and the customer’s perspective, knowing that they are get-ting virtually brand-new engines prior to taking delivery of the airplane out of completion is a big deal.”

A Boeing spokeswoman said the com-pany and GE are looking at expanding the program “to the rest of our VIP air-planes” eventually, but it is “only for the 747-8s so far.”

The first 747-8I is expected to arrive at a completion center late this year or early next, following aircraft certifica-tion. Boeing unveiled the aircraft Febru-ary 13 and flew it for the first time five weeks later. Jet Aviation and L3 have announced firm completion contracts for the aircraft, while rival completions houses Lufthansa Technik and AMAC Aerospace have announced customer let-ters of commitment/intent for a com-bined six aircraft. o


As part of the GE Pusher Program, Boeing 747-8s destined for VIP use will arrive at completions centers with loaner engines, so the engines do not lose two years sitting on the ground. The aircraft’s engines–with updates–will be added at the end of the completion process at authorized centers such as Greenpoint Interiors.

Avfuel touts upgraded services for its international customersby Curt Epstein

Global fuel supplier Avfuel has come to EBACE to demonstrate the recent upgrades to its offerings for international flight departments. The U.S.-based com-pany is debuting a new exhibit (Stand 7001) that highlights its capabilities in the realms of contract fuel, flight planning, aviation insurance and other areas.

For its contract fuel program, Avfuel is introducing an enhanced customizable billing process tailored to individual customer needs, along with expedited invoicing and faster price quotes. The automated system provides customers with a secure environment for obtaining fuel with no volume or uplift minimums.

“Avfuel’s contract fuel administra-tion takes place entirely in-house and is not given over to third-party handlers at any point,” said Marci Ammerman, the company’s director of market-ing. “This means that our customers

can call or email Avfuel and connect directly with the architects of our prod-ucts in minutes.”

With 600 Avfuel-branded dealers and more than 2,000 fueling locations world-wide offering the company’s contract fuel, the program has become the stan-dard for flight departments seeking com-petitively priced aviation fuel anywhere, said Ammerman.

The company has also made improve-ments to its Avplan flight planning and trip support division. Five recent staff additions will contribute approximately 100 years of industry experience, and upgrades to proprietary Avplan cus-tomer information system (ACIS) are aimed at keeping pilots better informed during each leg of the flight.

The ACIS database has been aug-mented to allow for the storage of more information in terms of destinations and

customer information. The customer database management system allows users to store their preferences in dozens of categories such as destinations, ground services and hotels. “With Avplan’s break-through system, flight planners enjoy real-time, direct access to aircraft and trip data, allowing for changes to be applied with unprecedented speed and accuracy,” Ammerman said.

Joining Avfuel this year as co-exhibitors

at EBACE are several Avfuel-branded FBOs from the U.S., including Banyan Air Service, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Fargo Jet Center, Fargo, North Dakota; Clay Lacy Aviation, Seattle, Washington; and Duncan Aviation with locations in Lin-coln, Nebraska, as well as Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, Michigan. o

AvFuel is here in Geneva to showcase its contract fuel, flight-planning and aviation insurance services.

ASM adds its second Indian charter officeby Bill Carey

Dubai-based Aviation Services Man-agement (ASM) recently opened a new branch in Mumbai, the company’s sec-ond in India, to accommodate an increas-ing number of high-net-worth individuals taking advantage of corporate jet travel. The operation is staffed by a team of six sales representatives.

ASM (Stand 857) opened a branch in Goa, India, in 2006. Then in December 2010, ASM and Abu Dhabi-based aircraft management and charter operator Royal Jet announced a joint venture serving the Indian market. ASM now provides charter sales and marketing in India for Royal Jet, which operates six Boeing Business Jets as well as Gulfstream G300 and GIV, Embraer Lineage 1000 and Learjet 60 aircraft.

“We’ve opened this [Mumbai] branch to serve better the 20-plus clients we have in India, and beyond,” said Vito Gomes, ASM founder and managing director. “We’re also looking into many other areas where we can provide better

services for our clients, such as logistics and operations support.”

Gomes founded ASM in 1998 in the British Virgin Islands. The company spe-cializes in flight support services, oper-ations consultancy, charter brokerage, aircraft management, flight planning and government and regulatory compliance. About 45 percent of its business is resell-ing fuel.

Despite the global recession, ASM reported $165 million in turnover last year, a 20-percent increase in its business over 2009. The company now employs 40 people at locations in Dubai and the nearby emirate of Sharjah, as well as in the UK, Goa and Mumbai.

The company’s expansion in India anticipates further growth in the busi-ness aviation sector. According to ASM, the country’s corporate jet fleet currently stands at 450 (although only 136 of these are registered in India), and is projected to rise to 1,200 aircraft by 2020. Operations in the wider Southeast Asia region now account for nearly half of ASM’s business, as well as in China, Africa and Sri Lanka.

In a statement last month, Gomes dis-missed “rumors” of ASM being sold to another flight support group. “This news to me,” he said. “We have no partners and I don’t envisage the ownership struc-ture changing, although we are looking to acquire aviation businesses that provide synergies with our one-stop operation.” o

JetNet unveils iQ and CRM to boost industry knowledgeby Curt Epstein

Business aviation data provider JetNet is marking a decade of consecutive EBACE show appearances by demon-strating two new products here this week (Stand 232). Introduced earlier this year, the company’s JetNet iQ advisory service is available to customers on a members-only basis and consists of three main components aimed at increasing clients’ industry awareness.

JetNet iQ Reports is an analytical business aviation reference that includes quarterly state-of-the-industry analy-sis, customer comments and demand forecasts, while JetNet iQ Consulting will provide members with customized research on a per-project basis.

JetNet iQ Summits will organize net-working conferences featuring detailed analysis and discussion of the program’s latest surveys and forecasts. The first such invitation-only event is scheduled to take place in June in New York City.

The company also is presenting its JetNet Customer Relationship Man-ager (CRM), a customer management tool that was designed specifically for

the entire aviation industry, with util-ity ranging from aircraft dealers and brokers to financiers, insurers, FBOs, service providers and airport manag-ers. The system will provide subscrib-ers with access to JetNet’s worldwide database of aircraft, along with their owners and operators, while allowing users to append and organize their own industry prospects, contact names and addresses and notes.

According to JetNet, since each sub-scriber’s CRM is hosted separately, users can add their own database to the sys-tem without fear of sharing proprie-tary information. Since it is Web-based, the program, maintained and hosted by database software firm Aero Web Tech, works equally well on Macintosh or PC platforms, the company noted.

“These new services are a direct result of feedback from our subscribers and our col-leagues in the aircraft industry,” said Paul Cardarelli, JetNet’s director of sales and marketing. “Our mission is to give them the tools they want and need, so engaging them in regular dialog is crucial.” o


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Asked at the 1986 Farnborough airshow what market share Canadair wanted for the Challenger corporate jet, Donald Lowe said simply, “We want our third.” Lowe was chief executive designate at the governmentowned aircraft company that Canadian masstransit manufacturer Bombardier had agreed to acquire just three weeks earlier.

Although it seems only the day before yesterday that Bom

bardier entered aerospace, in fact 25 years have passed. During that period the company has built a formidable portfolio by buying airframing companies de Havilland Canada (in 1992), Learjet (1990) and Northern Ireland’s Short Brothers (1989) and carving out rich niches in the business aircraft, regional airliner and amphibious utility aircraft markets.

Lowe’s aspiration was not a prescient reference to fractional ownership: he wanted the Challenger program that came with the Canadair territory to take its place in the longrange business

aircraft market alongside the competing Dassault Falcon 50 and the Gulfstream GIII designs. Analysis of shipment statistics for the past 13 years, the second half of Bombardier’s time in the industry, shows that in headtohead competition against contemporaries Cessna, Dassault, Embraer and Hawker Beechcraft, the company has held its place in the market. During 19982010, Bombardier accounted for just

over 21 percent of more than 10,000 worldwide business jet deliveries, according to the U.S. General Aviation Manufacturers Association (which does not break down the value of those shipments).

Earlier this month, Bombardier Aerospace had not yet announced how it plans to celebrate its quartercentury in the business, although the formal anniversary of the Canadair purchase is not until December 23.

In the 25 years since it bought into the industry, the Bombardier group has established an aerospace business that in its most

recent year (the 12 months to Jan. 31, 2011) generated revenues of $8.6 billion, compared with $9.4 billion in 200910. Earnings before interest and taxes are put at $448 million (5.2 percent of revenues) compared with $473 million (5.1 percent) a year earlier. Bombardier Aerospace fiscalyearend backlog was $16.6 billion, down only slightly on 200910’s $16.7 billion.

Bombardier Aerospace reported 201 orders (after accounting for 66 cancellations) in fiscal year 2011, compared to just 11 orders (with 202 cancellations) a year earlier. Deliveries totaled 244 aircraft compared with 302 in the previous fiscal year. “We seem to have turned the corner with business jet orders picking up substantially in the fourth quarter,” said Pierre Beaudoin, president and chief executive of the Bombardier parent company and grandson of founder JosephArmand Bombardier. “To further strengthen our productleadership position, we continued to make progress on the development of new products within our business and commercialaircraft segments, both of which have healthy longterm growth prospects.”

Bombardier, which claims to be the “world’s thirdlargest civil aircraft manufacturer,” employs about 30,000 people worldwide.

“Since 1989, we have launched 28 successful new aircraft programs. Our production sites are situated in Canada, the U.S., the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland) and Mexico. We have a robust network of maintenance

service centers, authorized service facilities, distribution centers, depots for spare parts and sales and marketing offices worldwide,” said Beaudoin.

Looking back, the Canadian manufacturer sees the value of continued investment in the business. “Over the past years, we have taken significant steps to strengthen our operations and invest in our future programs,” said Bombardier Aerospace president and chief operating officer Guy Hachey.

“By meeting the challenges of today and setting our sights on the future, we believe we are creating a loyal customer base for our products and services, and will emerge from this difficult [global financial crisis] environment a stronger and more efficient company.

“With a comprehensive portfolio of products, we believe our fundamentals are strong in the long term for both the business and commercialaircraft markets. The aviation industry is cyclic by nature and Bombardier’s long history of success is attributable to our ability to face each challenge headon, focus on the things we can control and put our plans into action,” concluded Hachey.

Current business aircraft products are based on three distinct families of corporate, longrange and executive jet designs: the Challenger 300, 605 and 850; the Global Express XRS, Global 5000, 7000 and 8000; and the Learjet 40XR, 45XR, 60XR and the indevelopment Learjet 85.

In fiscal year 2011, Bombardier delivered 143 business aircraft and Lowe would have been proud. That part of the company remains “market leader, with a share of 32 percent based on revenues.” Bombardier has its one third. o


When Bombardier acquired Canadair in 1986, it took over production of the Challenger 600.

Lufthansa, Panasonic team on cabin electronics

Lufthansa Technik and Panasonic Avionics have formed a 5050 joint venture in executive/VIP cabin electronics, and the new standalone company–IDair (Innovation Design for the Air)–is making its trade show debut at EBACE 2011 (Stand 167).

“It’s our big bang,” said IDair CEO Andrew Muirhead of the EBACE introduction. “The independent company was founded in April and we are now open for business.”

According to Muirhead, IDair will be taking the crème de la crème–electronically speaking–from Lufthansa’s business jet products and Panasonic’s X series commercial inflight entertainment system. The marriage will create a onestop cabin management and inflight entertainment shop for owners and operators of singleaisle and

twinaisle airliners converted to executive/VIP use. Components will include digital distribution, highdefinition media playback, iPod and iPhone controls, remote maintenance, highspeed connectivity, ipTV, media and game libraries “and much more.”

The backbone of the IDair system is a combination of the Panasonic eX2 with components from Lufthansa Technik’s networked, integrated cabin equipment system known as “nice.”

“We thought it was quite doable to marry VIP and commercial, and the result will provide scalable solutions from the Boeing Business Jet up through the Airbus A380,” explained Muirhead.

IDair will also provide highly customized cabin electronics solutions for the airline industry. –K.J.H.

On silver anniversary, Bombardier looks aheadby Ian Goold

Bombardier’s Global 5000, certified in 2004, is one of 28 new-airplane programs the company announced since 1989.

GE plans TechX run in 2013; touts benefits of fan bliskby Thierry Dubois

Engine manufacturer GE Aviation (Stand 358) is busy developing new powerplants at both ends of the business aviation spectrum–the 2,095-pound-thrust HF120 turbofan for light jets and the 16,500-pound-thrust TechX for large-cabin, ultra-long-range air-craft. The company also is offering upgrades for lighter maintenance for older 9,000-pound-class CF34s.

Bombardier has selected GE as engine supplier for its new Global 7000 and 8000 ultra-long-range business jets. The aircraft and associated engine program announcements at the 2010 NBAA con-vention were followed in March by a major order from NetJets for the new Globals. The fractional ownership giant plans to buy at least 20 Global 7000s and 8000s. So the TechX is set to become GE’s main engine program in the business avi-ation sector over the coming years.

On a new Global, a pair of TechXs will each provide 16,500 pounds of take-off thrust (at ISA+ 20-degree C condi-tions). “It is capable of more for climb and cruise,” Shawn O’Day, GE’s director

of marketing for business and general aviation, told AIN. Whether the engine is fitted on a Global 7000 or 8000 will make no difference in terms of either hardware or software.

One notable feature of the engine is the 52-inch-diameter fan bladed disk (blisk). In a conventional design, blades are separate parts held by a slotted disk or pinned holes. This design permits air to leak between blade platforms causing lost performance. Moreover, blades shift back and forth in their slot or on their pin caus-ing wear and vibration.

In a blisk, the blades and disk are one piece. This eliminates leaks, wear and vibration, O’Day said. In addition, the inner (hub) diameter can be made smaller, allowing for a greater airflow within the same fan outer diameter.

But what about maintenance for the 18-blade metal blisk, since obviously you cannot replace a single blade? “In case of a dent, you can blend a blade to a ser-viceable limit,” O’Day explained. The company is also devising a procedure for on-wing replacement of the entire blisk.

This will be the first time a fan blisk is used in a civil engine. GE already builds fan blisks for military engines such as the F110 and F414 that power the F-16 and the F/A-18, respectively.

Downstream of the fan, the TechX will have a three-stage booster (low-pressure com-pressor), a 10-stage high-pressure (HP) compressor, a TAPS II combustor (see below), a two-stage HP tur-bine and a four-stage low-pressure (LP) turbine. “We have a very high pressure ratio in the HP compressor,” said O’Day, with-out giving a precise number. The HP compressor has been designed using third-generation, three-dimensional aero - dynamic computation.

Leap-X CoreThe core engine uses the same technol-

ogy as that of the Leap-X, which is sized for commercial single-aisle aircraft. “It is scaled down,” O’Day said. A first core, dubbed eCore 1, was tested until Novem-ber 2009. A second, eCore 2, “is the next iteration in compressor and HP turbine aerodynamics and TAPS combustor oper-ation,” he explained. It is to be tested begin-ning in the middle of this year. The HP turbine now has two stages instead of one and features advanced clearance control.

As for combustor technology, TAPS

stands for “twin annular pre-swirl,” a tech-nology supposed to provide a lean burn and low emissions. TAPS I is the standard on the Boeing 787’s GEnx, and TAPS II will be the TechX’s standard. It will play

a key role in the expected 50-percent margin to CAEP6 standards on

all pollutant emissions. Com-pared to “current engines in the field,” which AIN understands to be the Rolls-Royce BR710s that power the Global Express XRS, GE

plans an 8-percent improvement in specific fuel consumption.

The design will be finalized early next year, according to GE’s current schedule and the first full TechX engine will begin testing in 2013. Certification and first flight are pegged for 2014. The engine certification process will involve six to eight engines. Entry into service is then slated for 2016.

The TechX will be delivered to Bombar-dier as an integrated propulsion system. Nexcelle is supplying the nacelle and thrust reversers. The nacelle features a slim-line design and outward opening cowls “for reduced weight and more accessibility.”

In the light-jets sector, keeping the HF120 turbofan program on time again is proving to be a challenge. Asked whether engine certification was still planned for


Continued on next page u

GE TechX

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Rising costs could drive bizav away from UK by Ian Goold

Rising regulatory and admin-istrative costs could drive busi-ness aircraft away from the UK, according to the British Business and General Aviation Association (BBGA). One sig-nificant source of additional expense could come if the UK Civil Avia-tion Authority (CAA) has to fully recover its costs from those it regulators, as is expected. But there is also the prospect of new taxes, such as the extension of air-line passenger duty (APD) to business and private aircraft.

Nonetheless, the BBGA welcomes a more con-structive relationship between the UK industry and its main regulator as the CAA embarks on a business-process re-engi-neering (BPR) exercise that includes an end to cross-subsidi-zation in the way it accounts for industry fees. Unlike other Euro-pean national aviation author-ities, the UK organization is required to more than cover its overhead costs from ser-vice charges, explained BBGA’s recently appointed chief operat-ing officer Marc Bailey.

In March, CAA non-executive chairman Dame Deirdre Hutton told the BBGA annual confer-ence that under a new strategic plan the authority would “be more transparent, more stream-lined, will work more closely with industry, and be more user-friendly.” BBGA chief execu-tive Guy Lachlan has praised the agency for its “deliberate, outgo-ing, and inclusive” approach to the new plan. The industry lobby group has responded formally to proposals, but had received little feedback from BBGA members (or fellow UK aviation industry associations) by mid-April.

Recognizing the new attitude to industry, Bailey acknowl-edged “a step change” in CAA operating procedures “The bot-tom line is that [the authority] is trying to engage industry for BPR, looking to change its pro-cesses and make savings within its structure,” he said.

According to Bailey, the impli-cation of ending internal CAA cross-subsidization is that extra money would have to come from GA, of which business aviation is

but one element. “This will drive operators to [base aircraft in] Europe, where [cost-plus charg-ing] does not happen.”

Bailey said CAA internal cross-funding would not be available in two or three years’

time. As a result, he fears that the move could disadvantage British business avi-ation and he said the BBGA wants to see the impact of the change reduced, if not eliminated. The disadvantage stems from the fact that other European states do not require their aviation reg-

ulators to recover their costs directly from the industry.

A 20-year UK Future Air-space Strategy is another pro-posal to which the business and general aviation community needs to respond. “This is still in full consultancy mode, so we have not yet [established] a for-mal position,” said Bailey. “The CAA is being open; it’s not [hap-pening] behind closed doors, so we welcome the openness”

Bizav SubsetIn outlining strategic plans,

Hutton was careful to identify business aviation as part of the larger general aviation industry that the CAA oversees. In this context, does the BBGA fear loss of identity for business air-craft operators? Bailey said that, as laid out, the plan seems to treat general aviation as “a sec-ondary part of [civil] aviation, with business aviation as a sub-set,” a situation he attributed to the industry’s failure “to com-municate our message.” He said UK tax and customs authori-ties suffer a similar lack of per-spective. “We need to educate them more so that they under-stand. The message needs to get in there a little stronger.”

Plans to modify Britain’s controlled airspace during the 2012 summer Olympic Games in London is another example of the industry’s needs not being understood, according to Bai-ley, who fears the CAA might have been intimidated by gov-ernment security concerns. Con-sultation on temporary airspace proposals ends this month.

Under the temporary airspace

proposals, Bailey cited potential problems for the flight-train-ing sector, most especially for companies operating at air-fields in the London area. “For two months, some [operators] will be shut out of their nor-mal business,” unless the pro-posed changes are modified. “There will be no solo [flights], all [cross-country] flights will have to be ‘planned’ and all aircraft must ‘squawk’ [a transpon-der identity code],” explained Bailey. As planned, in some cases there would be no means for gen-eral aircraft based close to the Brit-ish capital to reach uncontrolled air-space beyond Lon-don’s metropolitan area.

Meanwhile, the BBGA con-tinues to oppose UK Bor-der Agency (UKBA) plans to improve the General Aviation Reporting (GAR) system under which business-aircraft opera-tors provide notice of inbound and outbound international flights for security and counter-terrorism purposes. The opera-tors fear local procedural delays could negate the time private travelers otherwise might save

over commercial passengers. The UKBA, created from

former Customs & Excise and Immigration government departments, wants to enhance GAR arrangements from mid-2011 and points to GA’s inher-ent scope for security risks given “around 4,000 known [UK] landing sites [and] obvi-ous potential for illegal flights

anywhere.” Planned enhancement includes automatic passenger-data checking against security and criminal records, with imme-diate notification of matches. Bailey said the required notifica-tion puts business-air-craft passengers at a disadvantage com-pared with executives

traveling on commercial flights.The UKBA says compliance

with notification requirements would “normally mean no delay on arrival.” Indeed, no change is planned to notice periods for inbound flights from European Union (EU) countries, the Com-mon Travel Area (Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands) and non-EU countries, some of those periods also apply-ing to UK outbound flights.

Another area in which Britain’s

business aviation industry fears it could lose privileges is travel tax, currently paid by commer-cial airline passengers but from which business aircraft passen-gers are exempt. The UK gov-ernment may extend APD to cover business aircraft travelers, with a consultation process due to end on June 17, with a final decision anticipated in the fall.

Industry representatives infer from an initial consultation paper that aircraft with a take-off weight of less than 5.7 met-ric tons (about 12,600 pounds) and business aircraft performing roles such as emergency medical services might remain exempt. A current “not carried for reward” APD-exemption privilege might be withdrawn, allowing the UK government to tax individ-ual travelers on noncommercial business aircraft flights.

Bailey said banded fees could be as high as £186 (about $300) per passenger, a rate equivalent to first-class, long-haul charges paid on commer-cial airline flights. The BBGA believes commercial business aircraft operations should be subject to an appropriate APD charge, but insists that the levy should be proportionate and reflect actual services provided and distances traveled. o


Operators of G-registered aircraft could soon be facing even higher regulatory and administrative costs.

BBGA chief executive Guy Lachlan

BBGA COO Marc Bailey

this year, a GE Honda Aero Engines spokesperson stopped short of giving a firm commit-ment. “The team is still working toward completion of all certifi-cation testing/reports in 2011,” he said.

Two conforming engines have been flying on the HondaJet F1 aircraft. “The flight-test crew/team have been very pleased with the performance of the engines,” the spokesperson said. He added that no issues have been found that necessitated a design change.

The 2,095-pound engine fea-tures a wide-chord, compound-swept front fan and a two-stage

booster (LP compressor). The single-stage compressor is made of a high-temperature titanium impeller “for maximum engine pressure ratio and stall-free per-formance,” according to GE Honda. The combustor is in a reverse-flow configuration, with single-stage air-blast fuel nozzles. The HP turbine has one stage, while the LP turbine has two. The HP and LP spools are coun-ter rotating. The bypass ratio stands at 2.9. As for maintenance, the company is pledging a 5,000-hour time between overhaul.

GE also keeps in mind its older customers. The company can convert certain CF34-3A2 engines to a task-oriented (on-condition) maintenance plan without a shop visit. Some 36 engines in the Challenger 601 fleet have the right hardware to

allow such an upgrade, which does not call for any hardware or software change. GE techni-cians just check that the config-uration is the right one.

The engines in question all feature a more durable solid steel. According to Bill Hoern-schmeyer, GE’s general manager for corporate aviation sales, these three dozen engines were built at the end of the -3A2 production line and so are close to the later -3A1 and -3B standards.

Hoernschmeyer promised sig-nificant savings with the upgrade priced at $150,000 per engine. For instance, the upgraded engines would likely avoid exten-sive maintenance tasks, such as a hot section inspection or an engine overhaul at a cost of around $500,000 and $1.3 mil-lion, respectively, per engine. o

GE TechX run planned for 2013uContinued from preceding page

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Falcon 7X operational credits stem from second-gen EVSby Thierry Dubois

The Dassault Falcon 7X is among the first business jets to benefit from the better quality of LCD imaging for the enhanced-vision system (EVS) that the manufacturer is now offering as an option on its head-up display (HUD). The system allows crews flying the large-cabin trijet to see more clearly at night and in foggy conditions.

In many cases, they even get opera-tional credit, which means they can land in weather conditions that would be prohibitive for non-equipped aircraft. In short, they can get Category 2 minimums at a Category 1 airport. However, the EVS is not a cure-all against bad weather.

Dassault received U.S. FAA certifica-tion for its new EVS in October last year, three months after approval was granted by the European Aviation Safety Agency. EASA calls the system an EVS, while the FAA calls it an enhanced flight vision system (EFVS).

“It is the second EVS generation,” Dominique Chenevier, a Dassault test pilot, told AIN. The Falcon 2000 and 900 models already had a HUD EVS option available; however, they do not have an LCD display and do not offer opera-tional credits.

The new system took four years to develop. CMC Electronics is supplying the cooled infrared sensor, which “sees” wavelengths between 1.2 and 5 microns. Airport lights emit wavelengths at approx-imately 1.5 microns and runway markings are visible at around 4.5 microns.

Rockwell Collins (Stand 7036) is in charge of the head-up display system–computer, projector and combiner. Das-sault’s engineers have collaborated with their counterparts to develop a tailored product for the sensor and the HUD, and as is common with Dassault product development, pilot input was decisive.

Operational CreditThe new EVS is approved as a situa-

tional awareness aid for all the approaches for which the 7X is certified. However, the EVS is not approved for steep approaches–those having a glideslope angle greater than 4.5 degrees.

Using the EVS, the Falcon 7X crews can descend below the published approach minimums down to a height of 100 feet above the runway, compared to the usual 200- to 350-foot DHs, depending on the airport’s landing aids. At the usual DH, the pilot must see the runway with the EVS, otherwise he has to go around. He or she must keep the runway in sight through the EVS until the 100-foot DH is reached, at which point he/she must see it with natural vision.

In other words, on an airport fitted with a relatively modest Category 1 instru-ment landing system (ILS), the Falcon 7X can land as if it were a Category 2.

These operational credits are still valid on some non-precision approaches, such as those without an ILS.

For European operators, the Falcon 7X’s EVS also gives an operational credit in runway visual range (RVR). “The crew can begin the approach with an RVR reduced by about one third below pub-lished minimums,” said Arnaud Paulm-ier, a Falcon customer support engineer.

Proliferating in BizjetsUse of the EVS is becoming more

widespread on business jets than on air-liners because business aircraft more

often land at airfields that have lower cat-egory instrument landing systems or even no precision guidance for approaches. Dassault has delivered a dozen Falcon 7Xs with this infrared system since November 2010. Some 80 percent of the aircraft delivered before then–about 80–will undergo retrofit. Clearly, the EVS option is very popular with operators.

However, crews still have to be persuaded to use it, a spokesman said. According to Dassault, a notable pro-portion of EVS units on the Falcon 900s and 2000s stayed in the “off” posi-tion. Therefore, it concluded, not only do pilots have to be trained to use EVS, they also need to be encouraged to do so. Dassault is convinced that once they are used to it, pilots will not want to revert to their previous way of flying.

Test FlightAIN was aboard an EVS demo flight in

March, at night from the Istres flight-test center in southeast France to Chambéry. The latter airport is surrounded by hilly terrain, a populated area and a lake. With

the EVS, we were able to perform a south-bound approach and then circle to land on Runway 36 (northbound). The crew could not see as well as if it had been a clear day, but mountains, obstacles and the runway were easy to see. The procedure is normally prohibited at night because it involves visual flight at 900 feet above the city, but we were permitted to do so because the flight was in the “test” category.

“You do not fly in the EVS image; rather, the system comforts the pilot who uses landing aids like an ILS,” Chenevier explained. This is the “equivalent visual operations” concept, he said. If the addi-tional information supplied by the EVS is consistent with the primary guidance when reaching minimums, the crew can carry on. Our night pattern went a little bit beyond this principle, as it really was a visual flight.

The EVS image is superimposed on the HUD’s combiner with conventional HUD

symbology. It includes, for example, the velocity vector that shows the direction of the aircraft’s flightpath. The EVS’s field of view is 28 degrees in width and 26 degrees in height. An obvious requirement is that the EVS image must be perfectly overlaid with the real view, which was a major chal-lenge for design engineers.

In terms of image quality, LCD tech-nology provides a brighter display. The difference appears most evident during the day, with the display more easily readable. LCD technology enables one to see both the EVS image and the symbology, whatever the light condi-tions. The previous-generation EVS used cathode ray-tube HUDs, and the

pilot sometimes had to choose between image and symbology.

However, Dassault’s pilots and engi-neers make it clear that the new sys-tem does have limitations because of the nature of IR technology. For exam-ple, the EVS can “see” through “young” fog–fog made of small droplets, but more mature fog, with larger droplets, cannot be tamed. This also is true of heavy rain.

Moreover, the system cannot “see” through clouds. This can be a benefit, however, in that the crew can better see towering clouds at night and thus antic-ipate turbulence. Paulmier noted that compared to seeing with the human eye, the EVS performs best in snow.

In short, the EVS is not an all-weather system–a factor that, in the late 1990s, deterred Dassault from following rival Gulfstream, which was then pioneering EVS use on business jets.

Training ChallengesEVS training for Falcon 7X pilots is

a one-day session, and among the chal-lenges, Paulmier said, is that the simu-lated EVS image is often “too beautiful.” This is one reason the French manufac-turer believes in educating pilots about how to use the EVS, because while the system does improve safety, expectations should not be too high. For example, pilots must be taught how to take advan-tage of the EVS, while avoiding a “fas-cination” effect. Crew coordination must be maintained, Paulmier said.

Procedurally, the pilot in the left seat flies the aircraft using the HUD, whereas the right-seat pilot monitors the approach using head-down infor-mation. Paulmier explained that “spe-cific procedures have been developed to ensure maximum crew coordination during the approach.” For example, he said, during an EVS approach when the left-seat pilot detects the approach lights or runway in the EVS, he or she calls out “EVS lights.” As the pilot fly-ing, when reaching the minimums he will decide and announce whether to land or discontinue the approach. Fur-ther along in the approach, the first crewmember who sees the runway announces it. The crew then makes the final decision to land.

To get accustomed to the system, Dassault recommends flying with it in normal operations before using it for operational credits. “We also try to give our customers as much feedback as we can from our experience in development flights,” Paulmier said.

One limitation is the installation loca-tion. The HUD is installed in front of the left seat and the copilot has only a head-down EVS, which begs the ques-tion as to why the manufacturer would not offer dual EVSs on a pair of HUDs. This may be the next step, but two obsta-cles will have to be overcome. First, the price of the option–$455,000 for a single-HUD EVS–is probably too high. Sec-ond, to comply with the required level of redundancy, the entire avionics architec-ture would have to be reviewed. o


The Falcon 7X’s enhanced-vision system gives operational credits, meaning the crew can get Category 2 minimums on a Category 1 airport, but because it is an infrared system, it cannot see through all kinds of fog.

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Paper charts give way to digital in the cockpitby Matt Thurber

Evidence that Jeppesen is moving rap-idly toward a world cluttered with less paper can be seen in airline terminals all over the world. Many airline pilots have been freed of the burden of dragging around their own bulging chart cases full of approach plates and en route charts and regulations, thanks to Jeppesen’s Air-side service, which facilitates the delivery of charts to aircraft instead of to pilots. At the other extreme are pilots who are not using paper approach plates at all, but pulling up Jepp charts on electronic devices in cockpits, from electronic flight bags (EFBs) and now to Apple iPads, which the U.S. FAA has approved for in-flight duty.

While Jeppesen hopes eventually to eliminate printing of paper documents, most airlines still use paper, and the tran-sition to electronic charts will take longer. Hence, said Rick Ellerbrock, Jeppesen’s chief strategist for aviation, Airside

Services remains “part of the paper-to-less-paper-to-electronic transformation.”

Here at EBACE, Jeppesen (Stand 1339) is focusing on how its technology can help business aviation customers–from the company’s flight and trip plan-ning services to deliver more chart products online and via devices like the iPad using Jeppesen’s Mobile TC app. Currently, Mobile TC provides viewing of Jeppesen’s worldwide approach chart database, and this year the company will add en route charts to the iPad, accord-ing to Ellerbrock.

As part of the move to displaying en route charts, Jeppesen plans to make both approach plates and en route charts geo-referenced, which means that the iPad will be able to show own-ship position of the aircraft in which the iPad is being used. This requires a 3G iPad with the built-in GPS or cou-pling of an external GPS to the iPad, which usually works better in aircraft with heated windshields.

The Jeppesen Mobile TC iPad app simplifies the transition to electronic doc-uments with innovative ergonomic design features that make using the iPad almost transparent for pilots. Approach charts fill the screen and are easily readable, but pilots can zoom in or out with the stan-dard iPad pinch movement. Details on the charts remain sharp at high zoom levels because Jeppesen’s graphics are all vector-based, which enables graphical elements to be sharp at any size.

When viewing an approach chart for a particular runway at an airport, a “scrub-ber” feature at the bottom of the page allows the user to switch to a different approach chart at that airport. Moving the scrubber left or right instantly pulls up the next or previous chart in sequence. Pilots can select airports as favorites for faster recall, but finding any chart is as


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Jeppesen is delivering more chart products online and via devices like the iPad using its Mobile TC app.

Jeppesen’s Mobile TC has its own brightness control, allowing users to make adjustments much faster.

simple as typing in the airport’s code in the search box.

For operators seeking regu-latory approval to use iPads in the cockpit, Jeppesen is assist-ing with rapid decompression test data, which is available for both the original iPad and the iPad 2. Jeppesen can either provide the data directly to the regulators or allow the oper-ator to include the data in a package requested by the regu-lator, according to Ellerbrock. “We’re partnering with our cus-tomers, finding out their needs and the most efficient way to help the process.” Jeppesen is also assisting by creating train-ing materials that operators can incorporate, “which helps refine and speed up the pro-cess towards authorization,” he said.

Jeppesen does not rec-ommend testing every iPad under rapid decompression conditions, however, because the test subjects the unit to environmental pressures that are not typical, according to Ellerbrock. “The best practice is to do the rapid decompres-sion test on a representative unit, and that covers the entire class of that unit. You don’t know if you compromised the components by subjecting it to the test. We do a class rep-resentative test and pull that unit out of circulation and put it in the archives so it can be looked at.”

Interference TestingOperators will also have to

conduct interference testing, but that will have to be done with the aircraft flown by that oper-ator. Jeppesen is working on an industry standard checklist for this testing to make the process easier, but the testing still needs to be done on an airplane-by-airplane basis.

Electronic flight bags and newer devices like the iPad and Android-based tablets are part of what is driving Jeppesen to more electronic distribution of its charting products, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. “Our general strategy is that we are facilitating and encouraging the move to a digital content world,” said Ellerbrock, “not just for charts but all the elements pilots deal with on an airplane. Once we’re in the digital world, we can

integrate between functions in ways that weren’t possible.” This will include, he explained, better information management, deci-sion-making and awareness, and making flight more cost-effec-tive. One example will be real-time Notam activity as it affects the flight route. Another is giv-ing pilots a better awareness of weather so they can make

intelligent reroute decisions much earlier, instead of making drastic last-minute maneuvers.

“It goes beyond the tradi-tional flight case information,” he said. “We’re talking about real-time integration with the flight department, connected with and communicating to the cockpit. In the commercial mar-ket we’re looking at crew and

fleet management and disrup-tion management and recovery. And there is an aspect of what we’re doing that involves inter-faces with other systems on the airplane. You’re going to see capabilities that are unique.”

Paper remains popular and won’t disappear soon from Jeppesen’s product mix. How-ever, Jeppesen prints far fewer

sheets of paper now, from a peak of 2.5 billion per year five years ago to about one billion today. “When we look on the horizon,” said Ellerbrock, “as aggressive as digital [is moving], we still see paper. There will always be users who want paper; it’s a great solution, and we will support it as long as there’s a market for it.” o



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Avidyne autopilots offer digital retrofit solutionsby Matt Thurber

Avionics manufacturer Avidyne is displaying its full line of cock-pit displays and flight control systems as well as its R9 inte-grated flight deck at this year’s EBACE show (Stand 1951). New for the company is the announcement that it is work-ing with Aspen Avionics on an interface between the Avidyne DFC90 digital autopilot and Aspen’s Evolution retrofit cock-pit displays.

The Aspen Evolution inter-face for Avidyne’s DFC90 is to be certified later this year, with pricing for the Aspen interface to be announced soon. Evolu-tion displays include an inte-grated air data and attitude heading and reference system (ADAHRS), so the combina-tion of the Aspen display and the Avidyne DFC90 autopilot delivers an all-digital solution for avionics retrofits.

The DFC90 is a slide-in re-placement for the S-Tec 55X auto-pilot system in Cirrus airplanes

equipped with Avidyne Entegra flight displays. DFC90 features include improved stability, indi-cated airspeed hold, straight-and-level button for one-touch unusu-al attitude recovery and Avidyne’s new flight envelope protection and alerting system.

Avidyne received FAA tech-nical standard order (TSO) and supplemental type certifi-cation (STC) for its DFC100 digital flight control system in February. The STC cov-ers installation in the Cirrus SR20 and SR22 aircraft. The company’s DFC100 adds new features for Entegra-equipped airplanes, including redun-dant attitude inputs provided by both flight displays, full FMS integration allowing coupled Vnav (vertical navi-gation) descents, approaches and missed approaches and full-time envelope alerting, which works even when the autopilot and flight director are not engaged, according

to the company. The DFC100 also includes the straight-and-level button.

The DFC100 offers many features not available in more sophisticated aircraft and is a “turbine-class autopilot sys-tem,” according to Avidyne, with flight director, altitude, airspeed and vertical speed hold, Vnav and navigation capabilities for

localizer/glideslope, Lnav/Vnav and Lnav+V.

The autopilot’s full-time envelope alerting system warns pilots of underspeed, overspeed or excessive bank conditions via aural and text alerts even with the autopilot off. When the autopilot is engaged, the pro-tection system not only pro-vides alerts but it also actively intervenes and prevents the air-plane from stalling or flying too fast. The DFC90 flight control system offers both these capa-bilities, but the DFC100 also offers full-time envelope alert-ing, which works all the time, not only when the flight direc-tor is engaged.

Envelope ProtectionWith the autopilot engaged,

both the DFC90 and -100 use the roll and pitch servos to keep the airplane within the flight enve-lope. During an IFR approach descent at reduced power, for example, if the autopilot is used to level the airplane when near-ing the final approach fix, the pilot might forget to advance the power. The airspeed will decay and when the autopilot’s parame-ters are exceeded, it will normally turn off, leaving control to the pilot, who suddenly has to figure out what’s wrong.

With envelope protection, the autopilot’s aural and visual “underspeed” warning will alert the pilot and the system will also lower the pitch attitude to maintain a 20-percent margin above stall speed, according to Avidyne. If the airplane is turn-ing, the system will also reduce the bank angle to help maintain the 20-percent margin.

Flight envelope protection can also help a pilot survive

an oxygen system failure. If a pilot is flying at high altitude in a turbocharged airplane and suffers from hypoxia due to oxygen system fail-ure, the Avidyne autopilot will maintain altitude until the engine runs out of gas. Then, instead of allowing the air-plane to stall after the auto-pilot exceeds limits and turns off, the envelope protection system will lower the nose to maintain the 20-percent stall margin, allowing the airplane to descend to a lower altitude where, hopefully, the pilot will wake up, switch to a tank with fuel and restart the engine or make an emergency landing.

Other unique DFC100 fea-tures include the Vnav mode, which automatically starts descent at the computed top of descent point and climbs to and levels off at the target alti-tude during a missed approach. The DFC100 also works with the R9’s FMSVectors feature. This allows the autopilot to fol-low the dashed magenta vectors line on the HSI display, after the HDG button is pushed on the autopilot, and then auto-matically intercept nav legs or approach procedures (when the magenta line is drawn to inter-cept the leg or procedure).

Other Avidyne products in-clude the dual-antenna TAS600 active traffic advisory system, MLB700 broadcast datalink, MLX770 worldwide datalink and TWX670 tactical weather detection system. o


Avidyne’s DFC100 adds redundancies to the Entegra Release 9 integrated flight deck installed in the Cirrus SR20 and 22.

EASA Grants Approval for Avidyne’s EX600 MFD The European Aviation Safety

Agency has approved Avidyne’s EX600 multi-function display (MFD) under a technical standard order is-sued in April. The displays incorporate the company’s latest map panning, CMax approach charts and worldwide airport diagrams, as well as Europe-an datalink graphical weather. The approval means the situational aware-ness system can now be installed on European-registered fixed-wing air-craft and helicopters.

According to Avidyne, it is the only MFD manufacturer supporting the dis-play of EASA-certified European VFR charts. The EX600 incorporates a 5.8-inch diagonal, 640-by-480 VGA dis-play, for which Avidyne has developed what it believes to be a user-friendly interface for pilots.

Pilots can more readily access and display critical flight data via the unit’s map-panning keys and Quick-Pan function. QuickPan allows the pilot to quickly toggle between the present

position of the aircraft and a panned-to position, such as the destination air-port, by pushing just one button.

The display can show Jeppesen’s CMax electronic approach charts and more than 6,000 worldwide air-port diagrams for no additional charge, as well as support all Euro-pean VFR charts for 2,200 airports in 29 countries.

The EX600 can interface with 20 different radar models and so can serve as a replacement display for many outdated and unrepairable cathode-ray-tube radar displays. Ad-ditionally, the display is claimed to have the widest range of sensor in-terfaces in a retrofit MFD, including TAS600-series traffic advisory capa-bility and TWX670 tactical lightning detection. Avidyne’s multi-link capa-bility allows the MFD to show both broadcast datalink in the continen-tal U.S. through MLB700 and world-wide datalink through the MLX770 datalink transceiver. Optional inter-faces for TAWS, EGPWS and HTAWS also are available.

Pricing for the EX600 starts at $9,990 and runs up to $16,990 with additional options. Existing EX500 customers can upgrade to the EX600 display from $6,495. –M.T.

Avidyne’s EX600 multi-function display now provides European datalink graphical weather, such as this presentation of Hamburg, Germany.

VAT stifles imports, says UK charter firmby Charles Alcock

Imports of business aircraft into the UK have ground to a halt since tax authorities there scrapped its zero-VAT rating in January, according to Gama Aviation CEO Marwan Khalek. The change was forced on the

UK by the European Commis-sion with the intent of harmo-nizing VAT rules for aircraft sales, but the outcome has been a confusing muddle in which no one seems sure how VAT should now be applied.

Khalek, who is also chair-man of the British Business and General Aviation Association, has been pressing HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Cus-toms) to clarify how the rules now apply and to ensure that the UK is, in fact, in alignment with the VAT regime in other European Union (EU) coun-tries. “The VAT issue is a night-mare and the HMRC couldn’t have made a worse job of this if it had tried,” he told AIN.

At the heart of the confusion

is how the key VAT exemption is interpreted, namely whether an operator can be categorized as “an airline.” UK aircraft manage-ment and charter operators like Gama say they can’t get a straight answer from HMRC on this and Khalek said that the uncertainty is having a “paralyzing” effect.

For example, Gama has a management client who recently acquired a new aircraft. It was delivered after the January 1 deadline for the VAT rule change and so tax would have applied at the current 20-percent rate. Instead, the owner, who is not resident in the European Union for tax purposes, put the new jet on the Cayman Islands register with the right for it to have tem-porary admission to the EU. The only drawback of this arrange-ment is that the aircraft now can-not be made available for charter and Gama had been counting on having a couple of hundred hours of charter capacity from it.

From Khalek’s perspective, UK officials have “gold-plated” the VAT tax rules–choos-ing to interpret them as liter-ally as possible in a way that causes maximum disadvantage to owners and operators. The UK industry believes that tax rules, as with many aviation reg-ulations, are implemented more flexibly in other EU states.

Despite his annoyance over this latest setback to the indus-try, Khalek takes comfort from what he sees as signs of recov-ery in the market. In addition to its UK base, Gama (Stand 354) also has operations in the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates.

“The recovery is continuing and the picture is pretty much the same in all regions,” said Khalek. “The level of inquiries [for char-ter] is increasing and even though profit margins are still under severe pressure, the volume [of flight activity] has picked up.”

According to Khalek, the

aircraft management sector now is more stable in that fewer own-ers want to dispose of their air-craft. “Most of those who were looking to sell were doing so not so much to sell the asset but to stop the running costs from hem-orrhaging,” he explained. “But as the resale market is recover-ing slowly so is the business and things are picking up now that owners once again have more need to use their aircraft.”

Fleet ExpansionDespite the UK tax situation,

a Dassault Falcon 2000 is join-ing Gama’s Farnborough-based fleet this month and the com-pany is also handling the deliv-ery of a Cessna Citation for another client. Its footprint in the Arabian Gulf also is increas-ing, with the recent addition of a new Bombardier Challenger 850–the first of its type to be registered in the UAE. Gama aslo has just added a Citation CJ2+, a Global XRS and a Dassault Falcon 2000 to take its fleet size above 80.

Khalek remarked that the continuing political insecurity and violence in some parts of the Middle East and North Africa may actually stimulate interest in using private aircraft. “Busi-ness aviation has always had blips as a result of adversity, but this does tend to demonstrate the versatility of this mode of transport,” he commented.

Having diverse activities, spanning management, charter, maintenance and consultancy, has been crucial to Gama’s resil-ience in tough trading condi-tions. The group’s Lees Avionics subsidiary at Farnborough has been expanding its maintenance capability over the past year. It recently won a major contract from Babcock to upgrade the cockpits of 93 Grob 115E train-ing aircraft for the UK Ministry of Defence. o


A Bombardier Challenger 850 is the latest aircraft to join Gama Aviation’s fleet in the UAE. The company moved into the Middle East market in 2007 and already has a Challenger 604 and Embraer Legacy 600 based in the Arabian Gulf region.

Cessna selects Aircell for optional satcomby Matt Thurber

Cessna Aircraft has selected Aircell’s Aviator 300 satcom sys-tem as optional equipment for the Citation XLS+, Sovereign and Citation X starting with 2012 models. Broomfield, Colo-rado-based Aircell is a master dis-tributor for Thrane & Thrane’s SwiftBroadband products, includ-ing the Aviator 200, 300 and 350 systems, and is displaying the full range of Aircell inflight connectiv-ity products here at EBACE (Stand 1735). The Aviator 300 works on Inmarsat’s SwiftBroadband satel-lite network, providing email and light Internet access at up to 332 kbps with global coverage.

The Aviator 300 for the Cessna models is integrated with Aircell’s Access cabin system, which adds two Iridium satellite voice chan-nels and an in-cabin wireless access point. Voice calls can be made on integrated cabin handsets. The

Aviator 300’s Internet capabil-ity includes sending and receiving email with attachments and access to the Web and corporate VPNs using WiFi-enabled laptop com-puters, tablets, electronic flight bags and smartphones.

Wichita, Kansas-based Cessna is also offering Aircell’s ATG 4000 high-speed Gogo Biz Inter-net service for the XLS+, Sover-eign and Citation X. Gogo Biz works in the continental U.S. and parts of Alaska and delivers speeds roughly the same as home Internet access.

“The demand for in-flight con-nectivity continues to increase rapidly,” said Mark Paolucci, Cessna senior vice president of sales and marketing. “It’s quickly becoming a vital element of the travel experience.”

In the European business aviation market, demand for

in-flight connectivity has been growing rapidly during recent months, according to Aircell. “We’re fielding more inquiries, giving more proposals and per-forming more installations,” said Florent Feltrin, regional sales director southwestern Europe for Aircell dealer Jet Aviation.

Aircell’s Aviator 200 has added a number of aftermarket certi-fications recently, including the Hawker Beechcraft King Air 200, Citation CJ1 and Bombar-dier Challenger series. Certifica-tion programs are also under way for additional airframes, includ-ing Falcon 2000EX/LX, Embraer Legacy, King Air 350, Citation XLS, Gulfstream IV and Doug-las DC-8. The Aviator 200 uses a small-gain antenna, making it easier to install and certify. The system offers global email, light Internet and voice service, all for about $60,000.

In other news, the company will soon begin shipping its Aircell Smartphone, which runs on the Android platform. It claims the new device makes placing air-borne calls as easy and convenient as calling on the ground. o

Jet Aviation upgrades Asian FBOJet Aviation (Stand 7060) is

upgrading and expanding its facilities in Asia to meet growing demand for service in the region. The company recently refur-bished its Singapore FBO and maintenance facility, upgrad-ing the customer lounge, bath-rooms, meeting room and pilot lounge. The facility upgrade also includes security enhancements, such as a perimeter fence and closed-circuit cameras.

The company has plans to add a 65,600-sq-ft mainte-nance hangar. Construction is

scheduled to begin in the fall, with the hangar expected to be operational in January 2013. “The decision for significant investment in Singapore was made in direct response to clear signs of further growth in the Asian market,” said Christof Späth, senior vice president of MRO and FBO services for Jet Aviation EMEA and Asia. –A.Y.

Sojourn offers an eclectic mix of business aviation servicesby Matt Thurber

Since former Hawker Beechcraft pres-ident of commercial sales Brad Hatt formed Sojourn Aviation last year, the company has quickly moved into diverse areas of business. That diversity has helped Sojourn Aviation prosper during the economic downturn, Hatt told AIN.

Sojourn Aviation focuses on four main businesses: consulting for aircraft com-panies; buying and selling used aircraft; brokering aircraft and helping buyers make acquisitions; and distributing air-craft like the Nextant 400XT and Quest Kodiak, as well as buying a selling air-planes for fractional-share companies Flight Options and NetJets. In launch-ing Sojourn Aviation, Hatt teamed with Directional Aviation Capital principal Kenn Ricci, who heads Nextant Aero-space and Flight Options.

Activity has been greatest in the buy-ing and selling of used aircraft, Hatt said, because of continuing low prices. “We’ve done the most business in the last six months, a little over 20 trans-actions in the last 120 days. The oppor-tunity is quite good, although you have

to be careful that you’re buying the air-craft right.”

Hatt credits his extensive network of contacts around the world with help-ing Sojourn make sales. This also helped persuade Quest Aircraft to hire Sojourn to set up and manage the international distribution network for the Kodiak sin-gle-engine turboprop. “It’s a great airplane,” he said, “and a great little com-pany, but they’ve focused on selling to missionaries and bush applications ver-sus into more of the main-stream general aviation market. [The Kodiak] has tremendous capabilities because of the STOL [fea-tures] and cargo/payload-range ability, and it’s a very rugged, versatile aircraft. People don’t know a lot about it, and we’re working to expand the brand awareness.”

In the fractional market, Sojourn is

helping Flight Options and NetJets sell airplanes that are leaving the fleets. “We’re working to tap into those same world-wide connections to sell the airplanes,” Hatt said. While these airplanes have logged more than typical average flight times, he added, they cost less and have been well maintained by factory autho-rized service centers. A number have been sold in Latin America and Africa, and others in Europe and India. Hatt noted that these are not worn-out 30-year-old jets but fairly young airplanes being bought by increasingly sophisticated buy-

ers. “They do their home-work,” he said.

Sojourn is the exclu-sive international distrib-utor for Nextant’s 400XT, an upgrade of the Hawker Beechcraft 400 series with new Williams Interna-tional FJ44-3AP engines, Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 avionics and other improvements. Sojourn will also help Nextant obtain international certifications. Nextant flew the first pro-duction 400XT here to EBACE, where it is on static display. “It’s taken

what was a four-passenger, 1,200-nauti-cal-mile airplane and made it a 2,000-nau-tical-mile airplane,” he said. o


Former Hawker Beechcraft exec Brad Hatt has been busy with his new company Sojourn Aviation.

Czech jet operator targets Med coast

Prague-based executive jet operator Grossmann Jet Service is to base a six-seat Cessna Citation II in Cannes, France, from early July. This marks the first foray out of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region for the charter and aircraft management company.

“We are seeing increased demand from our clients for trips to the Medi-terranean, for business and leisure,” said CEO Dagmar Grossmann. “We will also be marketing the aircraft in Montene-gro, Croatia and the Dalmatian Coast–the new hot spots for high-net-worth individuals who want quick access to their yachts.”

Grossmann Jet also operates an Embraer Legacy 600 and Hawker 900XP, and offers innovative ideas for passenger pleasure. For example, all three of its aircraft are fitted with spe-cial egg cookers and waffle makers, as well as more conventional comforts, such as iPads. –L.M.

Experts have known about Altitude Radiation Exposure for the past 50 years

Pilots and flight crews have known for some time that a significant amount of cosmic radiation exposure is abundantly present in their work environment. What scientific research has discovered is that this measurable increase in radiation exposure over the years is prone to causing cancers.

The average cosmic ray dose exposure for cabin crews is about 227 mrem’s per year based on 575hrs per year. Over a 20 year period this represents about 4540 mrem’s of exposure which puts you and flight crew at a high risk of

contracting cancer over time .

The AIMS kits can be custom fitted for any aircraft type configuration If only choosing the Anti-Radiation option only the headliners are affected.

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00 EBACE Convention News • May 17, 2011 • www.ainonline.com36 EBACE Convention News • May 18, 2011 • www.ainonline.com

by Nigel Moll

The past couple of years have not been the best of times for a would-be developer to sign deals with industrial partners and customer-users for a new supersonic business jet (SSBJ), but Aerion has been hanging in there and is now seeking to make subsonic aircraft aerody-namically slicker.

“As a result of our discus-sions with potential OEM part-ners over the SSBJ, a number of OEMs have raised interest in applying natural laminar flow [NLF] technology to subsonic aircraft,” Aerion vice chairman Brian Barents told AIN. “Our Aerion SSBJ design has two sweet spots–one at Mach 0.96 to 0.97 and the other at Mach 1.5. There is a lot of inter-est in subsonic efficiency gains, and this might be a good avenue for us to pur-sue and establish relation-ships with OEMs.” To this end, Aerion has formed Aerion Technologies and “we will pursue this in par-allel with further development of the SSBJ,” said Barents.

Will NLF require a clean-sheet design or could the tech-nology be applied to rewinged versions of the business jets we’re already familiar with? “The easy answer is, ‘it depends’,” replied Aerion chief technology officer Dr. Richard Tracy.

“If one is looking at a Mach 0.75 or 0.80 airplane, then it can be done with rewinging or wing modifications. If the intent is to take advantage of efficiency gains or speed increases or just simply to operate at 0.85 or 0.90, this definitely requires an integrated design both in terms of fuselage-wing integration and, frankly,

in terms of the propulsion sys-tem.” Tracy emphasized that the task is “nothing as elaborate as required to go supersonic,” but it has to be done as a unified air-plane. Boeing, he noted, is look-ing at “laminarizing” engine nacelles for its commercial trans-ports; Dassault is talking about a laminar-flow horizontal tail, and Tracy believes “all those things can be done.”

Designers search high and low for a small decrease in drag and it’s hard to come by. “Laminar flow is out there, and it’s available more

or less for free. It doesn’t involve complex gadgets. It’s just a matter of designing for the right pressure distributions,” said Tracy.

Pressure GradientsAs Tracy describes it, NLF

is achieved by designing for a combination of pressure gra-dients both chordwise and spanwise that are conducive to maintaining what nature starts with–laminar flow–and finishing it off with a manu-facturing approach that can allow the finished structure to maintain that flow. Both the correct pressure distri-bution and suitable manu-factured surface condition

are “eminently achievable in high-subsonic and supersonic airplanes,” he said.

“We have almost two decades of working with tech-niques for rapidly predicting the location of transition [the point where smooth laminar flow dis-rupts into the otherwise ubiqui-tous turbulent-flow boundary layer] on a three-dimensional wing surface. What we have are user-friendly codes for predict-ing the transition location over an entire wing surface so it can be used as part of an optimiza-tion process, including shapes for drag minimization. We also

bring an understanding of surface imperfections that are tolerable and not tolerable in areas where you are maintaining lam-inar flow, so we can pro-vide the criteria needed for setting the manufac-turing specs.”

Tracy regards compos-ites as a better material than metal for achieving these levels of manufac-turing accuracy because of their lower density and

the way they’re made. “The skins tend to be thicker and therefore stiffer and less prone to wrinkling and buckling, but metal surfaces can also be totally compatible with NLF,” he said.

Bearing in mind that the NLF Aerion SSBJ design looks not unlike an F-104 Starfighter, with its long fuselage, short-span straight wings and straight empennage surfaces, would a clean-sheet subsonic NLF busi-ness jet resemble today’s designs? “NLF is uncomfortable with moderate to high sweep, certainly beyond 20 to 25 degrees,” noted Tracy. “The amount of laminar flow starts to become limited

then. The design can incorpo-rate any amount of sweep but if the objective is the minimum amount of drag at some partic-ular cruise Mach number, then the solution might turn out to be a slightly less swept and slightly thinner wing profile.”

NLF vs non-NLF BizjetAs regards an NLF design

versus a non-NLF business jet, Tracy anticipates gains in range or speed or fuel load of 10 per-cent–a big number in the context of efficiency gains. “Yes, it is a big number. For the technical conditions of a high-subsonic or low-supersonic design, it turns out that the skin friction per unit area that’s covered by lami-nar flow is about 10 percent of what it would be if you had turbulent flow there, so parts of the wing and tail surfaces can virtually go away in terms of contributing to skin friction. There is essentially a 90-per-cent drop in skin friction, and this can be applied to empen-nage surfaces too unless they are sharply swept,” Tracy said.

Tracy regards a 10-percent efficiency gain as a realistic expectation and “probably not the upper limit for a clean-sheet design–especially one seek-ing more range and fuel effi-ciency over speed.” The gains would equate to 10 percent

more range for a given amount of fuel or 10 percent less fuel to fly a given range. “If a certain range is the primary target, you can apply this increased effi-ciency to carrying a little less fuel and having slightly smaller engines, and now you’re into this virtuous circle when the gross weight goes down and the gains start multiplying.”

According to Aerion CFO Doug Nichols, the company is “adequately financed to under-take operations for infrastruc-ture going forward,” with

strong backers who believe in the com-pany. There have been no changes in board membership, and “we have the same financial com-plexion this year as last, with about 20 people working full-t ime-equiva-lent–a number that has remained sta-ble over the years,”

Nichols said.“Robert Bass [Aerion’s bil-

lionaire founder and chairman] is still not only financially involved but also intellectually commit-ted to the technology and ulti-mately the success of the SSBJ program,” said Barents. “We have had to live with this prevailing economic environment but we are still encouraged and optimis-tic about the ultimate success of the program.” Projected price of the SSBJ remains at $80 million in 2007 dollars. o

As it waits for economic conditions that are more conducive to the full launch of its proposed supersonic business jet, Aerion is pushing makers of subsonic aircraft to tap the aerodynamic benefits of natural laminar flow.

Aerion to subsonic set: Go with the (natural laminar) flow

Aerion vice chairman Brian Barents

Aerion CFO Doug Nichols

UK’s Hangar 8 expands fleet, service offerings

Six months on from its success-ful share flotation on London’s AIM stock market, UK-based aircraft management and charter group Hangar 8 is expanding into Africa through a joint venture with Nigerian operator Triton. Meanwhile, at its Oxford head-quarters, Hangar 8 has applied for Part 145 maintenance approval so as to be able to provide line sup-port for its 28-jet fleet, which con-sists of 13 different types.

One of the most recent addi-tions to the fleet is the first Embraer Lineage large-cabin jet to be regis-tered in Europe and the first to be available for charter outside the Middle East. “We’re optimistic about how the market is going and

how charter revenues are building up,” commented chief operating officer Keiron Blay.

Hangar 8 also has developed its own iPad application. Here at the EBACE show (Stand 2027), the company is giving away iPads to visitors who are lucky in its draw.

The company was formed in 2002 and already has aircraft based at various airports in the UK, as well in Nice, Dubai, Mumbai and the Russian cit-ies of Moscow, Krasnodar and Sochi. Its goal is to have aircraft positioned within 90 minutes’ flying time of any customer in the world, outside the Americas and Australasia. –C.A.

Aerion chief technology officer Dr. Richard Tracy

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Daher-Socata considers joining the jet-age corpsby Jeff Apter

Why is a successful French turboprop manufacturer with just one aircraft in its cur-rent-production family evalu-ating a new business jet? The surprise at 100-year-old Socata was compounded when, at the end of last August, Stéphane Mayer, France’s “Mr. Turbo-prop,” returned to the company as CEO of Daher-Socata’s aero-space division. He had had a successful stint with the com-pany between 2004 and 2007, followed by three years as CEO of French-Italian regional air-liner manufacturer ATR.

Daher-Socata (Stand 1439) has suffered from the recent economic crisis that has affected all general aviation manufac-turers. Its 36 deliveries in 2009 represented a 40-percent decline in demand for the TBM 850 turboprop single, mostly due to order deferrals. The 69 deliveries anticipated for 2009 had been revised downward to 53, and the final tally dropped to 36.

The company also suffered a 20-percent decline in the aerostructures activity that accounted for what had been 50 percent of Daher-Socata’s revenues –the remaining income being split fairly equally between TBM manufacturing and after-sales support. Aerostructures activity includes building com-posite structures, fluid distri-bution and cabin insulation products for commercial and business aircraft, and civil and military helicopters. Major clients include Eurocopter, Dassault and Airbus, for which it is supplying the A350XWB landing gear doors.

The collapse in 2009 came on the heels of a record 60 deliver-ies in 2008. “The downturn was not easy, but we managed to adapt and there were no layoffs,” Mayer told AIN.

In 2010, TBM deliveries recovered marginally to 38 aircraft –Socata’s fourth best year ever. It is forecasting around 40 deliveries for this year. “The target of 40 deliver-ies this year is not as much as we would like. We have flexibility on our assembly line in Tarbes and plan to increase produc-tion to around 50 aircraft from 2012-13.” As much as 70 percent of TBM sales go to the U.S., 20 percent to Europe and 10 per-cent to South America and the Asia-Pacific region.

Jet Age BeckonsLate last year, Daher-Socata

seized an opportunity that might lead to its entry into the light business jet market. It acquired the two remaining prototypes of Grob Aerospace’s moribund Grob SPn program. It is now test flying them to determine whether the design could form the foundation for a program that the French airframer is call-ing NT9. It previously used the codename NTx to describe pos-sible jet and turboprop options.

Grob introduced the SPn at the Paris Air Show in June 2005 as a would-be jet successor to Hawker Beechcraft’s ubiquitous King Air twin turboprop family, so in this respect it could prove to be a complement for the TBM turboprop singles. The Germany-based company had to abandon the program

after its main financial backer pulled out in August 2008. Had it been developed, the air-craft would have entered service by now, since it had attracted more than 100 firm orders at a price of approximately $7.7 million. The twin-engine jet that Daher-Socata now has in mind will be larger than the TBM 850. It will have a greater use-ful load, more payload, a more spacious cabin and would be suitable for multiple roles–just as the SPn had been.

Though it may take the SPn as a starting point, Mayer said Daher-Socata’s jet will be a new design. Still to be determined is whether the company would stick with the SPn’s Williams FJ44 engines or select a new powerplant, such as a turbofan offered by Pratt & Whitney Can-ada, which makes the PT6A-66D turbofans for the TBM 850. The French company’s goal will be to get the new aircraft to market ahead of products being planned by rivals Piaggio Aero Industries of Italy and Switzer-land’s Pilatus.

The second phase of Daher-Socata’s plans would involve

resolving financing, partnerships and industrial strategy. Accord-ing to Mayer, any possible pro-gram launch likely wouldn’t come until the end of 2012 or the beginning of 2013. New pro-duction facilities could be built at Socata’s plant in Tarbes.

“We already had a number of turboprop and jet options and came across a good oppor-tunity that could fit in with our plans,” Mayer said. “It hap-pened to be for a business jet, and we are evaluating it.” He stressed last month that no deci-sion on the launch of a new jet program has been taken. In any case, he said, the company will continue to improve the TBM 850, which it upgraded in Jan-uary 2008 with the installation of the Garmin 1000 avionics suite including synthetic-vision system. Socata claims the TBM

850 is the world’s fastest single-engine turboprop, with a maxi-mum cruising speed of 320 ktas at 26,000 feet.

Mayer told AIN that the expansion of Daher-Socata’s aerospace business is a prior-ity for the group’s new major shareholder. Before French family-run holding company Daher completed a deal for 70 percent of Socata from EADS (which retains a 30-percent stake) in February 2009, Soca-ta’s revenue was derived equally from aerostructures and the TBM family. o

Turboprop manufacturer Daher-Socata is considering developing a business jet in addition to its single-turboprop TBM 850. The company announced plans for a new aircraft–then codenamed the NTx–in October 2008 but had not determined whether it would be a jet or a turboprop. Declining demand for the turboprop TBM 850 could have renewed the company’s interest in adding a jet to its line.


TBM 850 by the NumbersEngine 1,825-shp PWC PT6A-66D

Speeds:

Cruise (max) 320 ktas at 26,000 feet

Cruise at long-range settings 252 ktas

Performance:

Range 1,585 nm

Range at max cruise speed 1,410 nm

Takeoff distance 2,840 feet

Landing distance 2,430 feet

Time to climb to 26,000 feet 15 minutes

Certified ceiling 31,000 feet (20-min climb)

Weights:

Takeoff (max) 7,394 pounds

Payload (max) 1,443 pounds

Payload with full fuel (max) 931 pounds

Cabin:

Width 1.21 meters/3.9 feet

Length 4.05 meters/13.29 feet

Height 1.22 meters/4 feet

Volume 3.5 cu m/123.6 cu feet

Daher-Socata acquired the two Grob SPn prototypes last year. Daher might use the SPn as the initial platform for its entry into the light jet market. Before Grob suspended the utility jet program in 2008, it had secured orders for approximately 100 copies of the aircraft.


SixStars, from Lufthansa Technik VIP & Executive Jet Solutions: Whether it’s our full-range offering or single parts of our program, you always get exactly what you need. That’s because individual care is important to us. For example, Creative Design takes you from the fi rst sketches to your completed custom interior. Get in touch with us.

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Androids, iPads, big screens mounted by Flight Displayby Matt Thurber

Flight Display Systems (Stand 668) is breaking new ground with large displays mounted in VIP aircraft cabins. The company’s largest display is the 52-inch widescreen LCD, which retails for $25,414. Display sizes will likely grow

even larger, and Flight Display Systems has bid on installing a 72-inch LCD in a customer aircraft, but that unit is not formally part of the company’s current product menu.

Another area where Flight Displays

Systems sees growing interest is mount-ing systems for Apple iPads, both in the cabin and the cockpit. Its FDARM-IPD mount sells for $2,533 and allows for viewing an iPad in portrait or landscape mode in a cabin setting. Features of the iPad arm mount include power supply for the iPad, easy removability when not in use and no wiring changes needed when used with a Flight Display Systems base mount.

Pilots want to use their iPads for dis-play of charts in the cockpit, and Flight Display Systems now offers a yoke mounting system. Gulfstream jets are the first aircraft for which the new yoke mount is available. The installation uses a standard Gulfstream yoke fitting that slots into the back of the iPad mount. The mount, once installed, rotates hori-zontally or vertically and locks into either position. The iPad is held securely by a padded clamp so it can’t fall out of the mounting system. The mount includes

a power supply that drops the aircraft’s 28-volt power to the iPad’s 5-volt needs. The iPad yoke mount costs $2,994 and will be available to fit other aircraft types; it is available at a lower price without the power supply.

iPod Docking StationAlso available from Flight Display

Systems, and priced at $3,947, is the FDiPD-MD iPod docking station that can be mounted vertically or horizontally and can be supplied with power and connections allowing the iPod to play audio and video throughout the aircraft. The iPod cable adapter costs less at $1,063 and is mounted inside a sidewall or cabinet. It provides the same functionality as the docking station but without the iPod mounting capability.

For aircraft needing a cabin manage-ment system upgrade, the U.S. company’s low-cost ($25,000) Club CMS provides a moving map with worldwide database, two seven-inch displays, four OLED switch panels that can control up to 12 audio sources, plugs for a headphone jack, a volume control, optional DVD player and iPod adapter. While the Club CMS is targeted at smaller aircraft like

turboprops and light jets, it is expandable. The Club CMS is going to be standard equipment in the Pilatus PC-12 aircraft.

A new Flight Display Systems DVD player includes USB and SD card slots and RCA jack connections. To cut down on the cabin wiring, a new three-channel wireless 900 MHz transmitter and larger more comfortable three-channel wireless headset are now available.

The Select CMS designed for larger aircraft now has Bluetooth Android-based controls, which mirror the switch-panels in the aircraft. For ease of CMS design, Flight Display Systems devel-oped its SelectCMS Web site to help clients to understand and be involved in the process.

Flight Display Systems sales for 2010 were up more than 35 percent and the recovery appears to be gathering momen-tum, a spokesman said. For the first quar-ter of 2011, sales were up more than 100 percent over the same period last year. o


Flight Display’s FDARM-IPD mount, above, allows an iPad to be viewed in portrait or landscape mode in a cabin setting. The FDiPD-MD iPod docking station, below, can be mounted vertically or horizontally in a sidewall and allows the iPod to play audio and video throughout the aircraft.

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CAE SignS TrAining AgrEEmEnT wiTh inTErnATionAl JET

Austria’s International Jet Management (IJM) and CAE signed a four-year training agreement on Tuesday at here at EBACE. Under the contract, more than 100 IJM pilots will train at CAE facilities in the Middle East, Europe and the U.S. on a number of aircraft. IJM provides aircraft management, charter and sales.

Montreal, Quebec-based CAE also announced here its plans to double the number of training locations over the next two years, adding facilities in Amsterdam, Mexico City, São Paulo and an undisclosed loca-tion in Asia.

Pictured at the CAE stand (1051) are Robert Stevenson, CAE head of sales Europe; Jan van Engelen, CAE vice president Europe and Africa; Jeff Roberts, CAE’s group president, civil sim-ulation products, training and services; Helga Wallner, IJM training manager; Felix Feller, IJM CEO; Robert Schmölzer, IJM managing director; Svend Torrild Thomsen, CAE regional sales man-ager; and Bill Dolny, CAE vice president business aviation sales. –R.R.P.

Bombardier’s Schiphol center expands servicesby Matt Thurber

A year after the grand-open-ing celebration for its Schiphol Service Center in Amsterdam, Bombardier Aerospace (Stand 7011) is adding more capacity to the wholly owned facility. The company is growing the staff at Schiphol by 30 percent and add-ing shifts this year to provide more flexibility for customers to sched-ule light and heavy maintenance tasks. Maintenance for the Chal-lenger 850 is also being added as is expanded expertise in interior refurbishment for the entire Bom-bardier business jet fleet.

“The market overall has recov-ered nicely in the last six months,” said James Hoblyn, Bombardier’s president of customer services. “We see it certainly in the emerg-ing economies in Europe as you go east and south.” Bombardier plans to continue investing in the European marketplace on top of recent expansion of investments in parts distribution, simulators and personnel. “We’ve added a number of different people on the ground,” he said.

Rapid ResponseBombardier’s AOG sup-

port is targeted for growth, too, and the mobile response team, based in Belfast, is slated to add two more maintenance techni-cians by July, bringing the total to eight. The mobile team sup-

ports customers in Europe and the CIS, operators of more than 580 Bombardier business jets.

During the past six months, Montreal-based Bombardier added a regional support office in Dubai and a PartsExpress aircraft to serve the Middle East and parts of Asia and Africa; established new authorized service facility relationships in China and Latin America, and inaugurated a parts satisfaction guarantee program. Bombardier now has 52 authorized service facilities and AOG line maintenance facilities in 26 countries. o


Signature-Aviapartner can ease fuel flow woes at Nice

Signature Flight Support (Stand 7030) and Aviapartner have launched a dedicated into-plane refueling service at Nice-Côte d’Azur Airport.

“Fueling at Nice airport can often be challenging due to the high traffic volumes, particu-larly during the peak summer season,” said Joe Gibney, Signa-ture Flight Support vice presi-dent and managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa. “Customers want the security and convenience of immediate fueling, and by having our own dedicated fueling equipment we will meet that customer need.”

Two years ago at EBACE, Orlando, Florida-based Signa-ture and Brussels-based Avi-apartner formed their initial commercial agreement at Nice

Airport. At last year’s show, the companies announced their new dedicated general aviation ter-minal at the French airport. The FBO–which has a VIP lounge, dedicated pilot lounge and a busi-ness center–can provide ground handling for all business and gen-eral aviation aircraft, as well as flight planning, crew accommo-dations coordination, crew trans-portation and catering.

In other news at Signature, the FBO chain tapped Brad Drew as vice president of sales for its global operations. He will be based at Signature’s head-quarters in Orlando. Addition-ally, Signature yesterday joined the Twitterverse, sending its first Tweet here at EBACE. Twitter users can follow Signature at @SignatureFBO. –C.T.

VVIP 747-8 project spurs expansion at Amac center

Amac Aerospace (Stand 1079) has decided to expand its business aircraft maintenance and completion activity into the widebody VVIP segment. The Basel, Switzerland-based com-pany has signed a contract for the completion of a VVIP Boeing 747-8 cabin interior and is build-ing an 88,000-sq-ft hangar and preparing to hire more staff.

The 747-8 work has been ordered by “a Middle Eastern head of state.” The aircraft is to arrive in Basel in July 2012 and be completed by March 2014, when delivery to the cus-tomer is anticipated.

Amac’s third hangar, like its second, will be able to accom-modate one Boeing 747-8, one A330 and two narrowbodies at a time. The expansion will increase the company’s workforce by an expected 150 jobs over the next 20 months, adding to the some 100 jobs it has created at its Basel facil-ity over the last 12 months. Amac is “preparing its application for the 747 series” but already has EASA approval for 777 maintenance.

Meanwhile, the company’s air-craft management division, based at Zurich Airport, has grown its fleet to 12 business aircraft, rang-ing from two Pilatus PC-12 turbo-props to an Airbus A320. –T.D.

EyE-CATChing iCon

At its stand, Aerion displays one of the many wind-tunnel models of its proposed supersonic business jet in polished metal. The extreme area-rule configuration is clearly visible–part of the aerodynamic strategy for min-imizing the impact of the sonic boom. Aerion vice chairman Brian Barents, left, holds court in the background.

‘gEnTlEmEn, STArT your imAginATionS’

Freestream Aircraft has consigned its latest BBJ completion project to Lufthansa Technik. Signing the contract here at EBACE are, left to right, Dr. Hans Schmitz, Lufthansa Technik senior vice president of VIP executive jet solutions; Walter Heerdt, Lufthansa Technik senior vice president of market-ing and sales; and Alireza Ittihadieh, CEO of Freestream Aircraft. The custom interior will be designed by Marc Newson of MNAerospace in London. � n

DAV

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Jet Aviation program tracks emissions databy James Wyndbrandt

Business aircraft owners and operators struggling to comply with the European Union’s new emissions trading system (EU ETS) regulations have a new potential solution in a compliance management service that Basel-based Jet Aviation (Stand 7060) is touting at EBACE.

The EU ETS initiative aims to reduce greenhouse gas pol-lution by creating an emissions market. All aircraft operators flying into or out of any airport within the EU must now partic-ipate in the trading system, or face monetary penalties or sus-pension of flight permission within the EU.

Supports Jet Aviation’s EU ETS com-

pliance service supports all pro-cedural requirements of the ETS, from monitoring flight data and calculating CO2 emissions to managing production of the annual report and acquiring CO2 emission permits.

“We introduced our new EU ETS management service to ensure continuous provi-sion of the highest quality ser-vices to meet our management clients’ needs and expecta-tions,” said Mario Ruettimann, manager EU ETS Services.

“We already have more than 45 subscribers to our EU ETS service and some EU member states are even recommending Jet Aviation to aircraft opera-tors requiring assistance.”

Mobile Web SiteAlso at EBACE, Jet Avia-

tion announced the launch of a service that can help man-age aircraft anywhere in the world: a new mobile Web site.

A compressed version of its main website, the site is ac-cessible from all smartphones and mobile telephones with Internet access, and includes features such as Charter Quick Quote, FBO Pre-Ar-rival Form and maintenance contact information.

“This new mobile Web site was developed to ensure we best meet the needs of our mobile customers around the world,” said Heinz Aebi, senior vice president group marketing and communications. “As a measure of our strong customer focus, it reinforces our commitment to building relationships through the highest quality standards in service delivery.” o


Simply understanding the EU’s emissions trading system can be a tall order, let alone ensuring compliance. Jet Aviation has a program to take the worry out of going green.

z Socata Adds Aviastec to Marketing TeamSpain’s Aviastec has joined Daher-Socata’s sales network.

The Oviedo-based company will market the TBM850 in Spain and Portugal. Aviastec also has a maintenance facility at Madrid Cuatro Vientos airport. In Argentina, Socata delivered the first multi-mission version of the TBM850, to the country’s airport security police.

TBM700 owners can upgrade their cockpits to the Garmin 1000 suite. The first two modified aircraft have been delivered. One of them is military (as part of a 26-aircraft contract with the French Ministry of Defense) and the one other is civil. The STC is FAA- and EASA-approved.

Socata is celebrating 100 years of continuous aircraft production since the founding of its predecessor company, Aeroplanes Morane-Saulnier (see page 38).

z Wyvern’s ‘Wingman’ Audit Goes GlobalWyvern, the Avinode group’s aviation safety auditing arm, has

announced a global expansion of its review standard. Over the last few months the firm has rebranded its audit, which is now called “Wingman,” and will promote operators who have been through the process.

Wyvern set up its Audit Standard almost 20 years ago using its own safety professionals and a customer advisory board comprised of the world’s top corporate flight departments. In June it is due to publish the latest update focused on global operations with particular attention to safety management systems (SMS). Wyvern also recently teamed with Lufthansa Flight Training Services in a move that means it now has auditors in every regulatory jurisdiction in the world.

Avinode (Stand 843) has just appointed Dr. Oliver King as managing director of its Avinode Marketplace division, taking over from Avinode founder Per Marthinsson, who has moved to Miami, Florida, to assume his new role as managing director of Marketplace America.

z Nexus Partners with Argus for Middle East Offering Middle East flight operations support provider Nexus has

teamed with Argus International, an aviation safety management company based in Cincinnati, Ohio, to bring Argus’s services to the Middle East and North Africa. Nexus, which is a subsidiary of the MAZ Aviation Group, announced two new flight operations centers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain in December.

“Aviation safety and security within the region are of our utmost importance,” said Nexus president and CEO Abdullah Al-Sayed. “This new initiative as we work in conjunction with a global leader Argus International will certainly enhance and develop the services we provide to our clients and further demonstrate our commitment to the safety of our clients.”

Argus is equally bullish about the alliance. Joe Moeggenberg, president, added: “As this is our first venture into the region we are looking forward to working with Nexus to ensure we are providing the same level of support and expertise to local operators as we are to our North American operators.”

Nexus also recently launched a joint venture with FlightSafety International to provide training for aircraft dispatchers in the Middle East. The Nexus set-up further includes a satellite concierge operation in Egypt and plans for an additional one in Hyderabad, India. It also has a partnership to provide security support for its customers through FAM Security International.

z Greenpoint Picks Facility for Aeroloft CompletionBoeing Business Jet completion center Greenpoint

Technologies (Stand 651) has selected Boeing’s Global Transport & Executive Systems (GTES) facility in Wichita, Kansas, to install its new 747-8 Aeroloft interior.

Kirkland, Washington-based Greenpoint and GTES have partnered for 10 years in supporting modifications of head-of-state aircraft interiors. The Aeroloft interior, now in production phase, is accessed by a spiral staircase and provides eight private sleeping berths located between doors four and five above the main deck.

GTES is a Boeing commercial derivative business headquartered in Wichita, with domestic operations in Oklahoma City and the Puget Sound area in the state of Washington.

news clips

Full-service UK firm fills owners’ every need

UK operator PremiAir is at EBACE (Stand 843) show-casing its private jet and exec-utive helicopter management and charter services. The com-pany also provides maintenance for both fixed-wing and rotary aircraft and operates a Hawker Beechcraft service center at Oxford Airport.

PremiAir currently operates three Learjet 45s and a Premier I; it will be adding a Hawker 750 in the coming months. In addition, it has plans to add large-cabin jets such as the Challenger and Global to its fleet. The relatively new char-ter operation has been grow-ing steadily and “we’re now well ahead of our 2011 plan,” said group managing director David McRobert.

The UK company also

manages and operates the heli-port at Battersea, the only licensed commercial heliport in London. Last year, the site was upgraded and now includes a five-star hotel.

Olympic DemandLooking ahead to the 2012

London Olympics, PremiAir expects the heliport–and its exec-utive helicopter fleet–to be in high demand. In fact, said McRob-ert, “Our Sikorsky S-76 fleet is already booked heavily for ‘exclu-sive use’ clients during the period of the Olympics, and many of the big fleet jet operators are now booking helicopter transfers into the London heliport at popular times, recognizing that availabil-ity may soon be an issue.”

According to McRobert, 2011 has brought improving

levels of business right across the group. In addition to growing charter demand, the PremiAir Global aircraft sales business also is picking up after several very slow years.

PremiAir is looking to fur-ther strengthen the mainte-nance side of its business and will soon have FAA approval for its London Biggin Hill base. It has just recruited Mike Pres-ton as its new director of engi-neering. He will oversee plans to add new aircraft types to its Part 145 certificate and even-tually to win further manufacturer service center approv-als. The company also wants to grow its Part 21 services, coverage tasks such as avi-onics upgrades and the installation of inflight entertain-ment systems. –A.Y.

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That’s why the G550 is recognized and respected worldwide.

To learn more, visit our booth in Hall 7, #7040. www.gulfstream.com/g550

11_10316_AIN_EBACE_5-18-11.indd 1 4/25/11 9:19 AM

Dassault offers extensive support for worldwide Falcon fleetby Thomas Stocker

Dassault entered the world corporate jet market in 1963 with the launch of the highly successful Falcon 20 midsize twin. The OEM’s current lineup includes the widebody series 900, 2000 and 7X, and a new super-midsize jet announced for 2016. Today, the French manufacturer supports a fleet of some 1,900 corpo-rate and special-mission jets on four con-tinents. This year, Dassault organized 13 regional seminars for its operators in eight countries around the world. AIN attended the European 2011 seminar in Geneva in early April.

All of the regional one-day seminars are composed of a morning presentation, followed in the afternoon by roundta-ble meetings where operators can discuss specific problems of their aircraft with manufacturer’s representatives. Support-ing a diversified fleet of almost 2,000 aircraft in today’s world of increasingly dense regulations is not an easy task, but Dassault conveys a clear message to the operators of its jets built since the sixties: all will be supported, for many years to come, anywhere in the world.

As a consequence of that philoso-phy, Dassault is expanding its support and training network into areas beyond Europe and North America, where most Falcons are traditionally based. For gen-eral customer service, Dassault quoted as focus points for 2011 implementation of operator advisory board recommen-dations, improved dispatch reliability and fast response to aircraft-on-ground (AOG) situations. The French manufac-turer has set up a 20-member advisory board, which proved very useful for sys-tematic feedback from customers. In addition to operators from the U.S. and Europe, the board includes members from Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and India.

The mainstay of Dassault’s support organization are five factory-owned ser-vice centers–one in Paris, three in the U.S. and one in São Paulo, plus a worldwide network of factory-approved contractor service centers.

The manufacturer also maintains three field service tech centers in Paris and the U.S., which in turn support locally based field technical reps and customer service

managers at 17 locations in the U.S., three in Europe and one each in Brazil, Saudi Arabia, India, Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing. All are available 24 hours, seven days a week.

For AOG situations, the network can be reached over just two phone numbers worldwide, one in Europe and one in the U.S. This is complemented by a worldwide net of spare stock cen-ters in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Two additional spare parts locations are planned in Moscow and Beijing. These facilities also have specialized tooling available to maintenance shops.

Overall, Dassault now maintains $700 million worth of spares in these facili-ties. In case of an AOG situation, parts are ready for shipment within two hours after the initial contact.

AOG SolutionsCustomer support is to be further

strengthened by a series of innovations announced at the seminar. They include the Falcon Link and the Falcon Broad-cast, which are designed to speed up res-olution of AOG situations by simplifying failure diagnostics and anticipate ship-ment of spares as needed.

Maintenance technicians undergo practical training at Dassault’s Mérignac plant.

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Falcon Link replaces phone calls by audio/video conference links via laptops and email with the customer home base, the Dassault customer support network, independent service centers, spare depots and others as required.

Falcon Broadcast is a similar scheme but is optimized for EASy avionics of the Falcon 7X, 900 and 2000 series. This sys-tem is also designed to work from aircraft in flight.

Falcon Link will become available within the second half of 2011 for newly delivered aircraft and in early 2012 for in-service aircraft. Falcon Broadcast will be field-tested until the third quarter of 2011 and become available during the fourth quarter.

Flight Data Monitoring is a new service offered by Dassault for all Fal-con operators in partnership with CAE Flightscape and Ruag Aviation. It pro-vides systematic analysis of flight data and proposes remedies in case of unexplained events, such as unstable approaches or erratic attitudes. Results of analysis are made available to other Dassault operators and the system can also establish statistics to monitor fleet-wide frequency of events. FDM is widely used by airlines but new for business aviation. Yearly subscriptions to Falcon operators will be offered at around $5,000 starting in the second quarter of this year.

Information on pilot and mainte-nance training possibilities is also part of the seminars. Innovations in pilot training include three additional flight simulators –one 7X simulator at Flight Safety International in Dallas, Texas, and one at CAE Dubai, plus a convertible F900, F2000EX EASy simulator, also at CAE Dubai.

As for maintenance training, Dassault has obtained certification from the French DGAC to extend to the Falcon 900 and 2000 series its practical training scheme set up for the Falcon 7X in 2007. The 10-day training cycle puts trainees in realistic working conditions at Dassault’s assembly plants in Mérignac or Istres.

Practical Training Dassault experts and technicians guide

the trainees to perform real-life mainte-nance tasks on green aircraft. To com-plement to their theoretical training, participants are prepared to carry out work in the field after completion of the practical training.

In early April, more than 220 techni-cians from Dassault authorized service centers and owner-operators had com-pleted the training program in France. The manufacturer is now seeking EASA Part 147 approval for the training scheme and plans to duplicate the program at its U.S. facility in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 2012.

Dassault is committed to implementing

all upcoming rule and regulation changes for the entire fleet of Falcons, including older models. Upcoming changes include EASA implementing rules; controller pilot datalink communication (CPDLC) to become mandatory for all aircraft fly-ing over FL 285 in European airspace in early 2015; ADS-B; and the improved collision-avoidance system TCAS 7.1 to become mandatory in Europe in March 2014. The manufacturer will also seek operational certification for its paper-less electronic flight bag for all aircraft equipped with the EASy flight deck by the end of this year.

Falcon 7X, 900, 2000, 50 and 10 series aircraft registered in EASA countries are certified for the steep-approach into Lon-don City Airport. The 7X is also FAA-approved for London City, and Dassault hopes to obtain FAA clearance for the 900LX and EX series this year. N-regis-tered F2000 EX and LX are expected to receive London City clearance sometime next year.

Narrowbody SupportSupport of Dassault’s narrowbody

fleet, which totals 1,092 aircraft delivered between 1963 and 2008–864 of which are still in service–requires upgrades to cope with new rules, maintenance and train-ing, as well as readily available spares, just as the more recent widebody fleet.

While the operators of these older

jets tend to be less affluent than owners of newer aircraft, a look at the original Falcon 20 fleet shows that the majority of the 303 aircraft still flying have not reached the original life limit of 20,000 landings or 30,000 hours total flight time. Dassault and the certification authorities have extended that limitation to 40,000 landings or 60,000 hours, providing these midsize twins with a service life of at least another 15 years.

In addition to the airframe manufac-turer, main vendors are also committed to keep the Falcon 20s going, including General Electric, supplier of the orig-inal CF700 turbofan. A considerable number of F20s have been re-engined with more recent Garrett/Honeywell TFE731-5 turbofans, taking the desig-nation of Falcon 20-5.

In addition to useful operator informa-tion, the Dassault seminars offer an impres-sive insight into the complexities involved in keeping a diversified fleet in the air. o


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SWITZERLANDRinaustrasse 452 CH-4303Kaiseraugst Switzerland

t. +41 (0) 61 815 90 20 f. +41 (0) 61 815 90 21 e. [email protected]

Please come and meet the Spectro and Jet-Care teams on Stand #729

J-C_EBACE ad_J-C_EBAN 21/04/2011 07:32 Page 1


Frakes stacks solve soot problemby Matt Thurber

Owners and operators of Hawker Beechcraft King Airs enjoy the solid reliable per-formance offered by the ven-erable turboprops, but there is one King Air characteristic

that probably isn’t appreciated, their propensity to turn nacelles brown with exhaust stains. Long-time EBACE exhibitor Frakes Aviation (Stand 434) has a solution: aerodynamically

optimized retrofit exhaust stacks that route turbine tinges away, leaving nacelles clean and shiny.

Frakes Aviation has been manufacturing King Air exhaust stacks for more than 40 years,

and its products are available for most King Air models, from the 100 through 300 series. Basi-cally, any King Air powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6-20A engine or higher can use Frakes exhaust stacks, accord-ing to Joe Frakes, who founded the company with his father. The exhaust stacks are manufac-tured under FAA-approved parts

manufacturer approval regula-tions and installed under an FAA supplemental type certificate, and they are also EASA-approved.

“About 1,300 King Airs are flying with our stacks,” Frakes said. The company also makes exhaust stacks for OEMs, includ-ing for Quest for the PT6-powered Kodiak and kit manufactur-ers Epic Aircraft and Lancair, and aftermarket PT6 modifica-tion companies such as Rocket Engineering, StandardAero and Blackhawk Modifications.

Stainless SteelThe Frakes exhaust stacks are

made of stainless steel, which is easier to work with than the Inc-onel used by Hawker Beechcraft, according to the company. Stain-less steel is also easier to polish, and most customers opt for the polished stacks. The company also offers exhaust stacks in a matte finish produced by glass bead blasting.

The warranty period for Frakes King Air stacks is seven years, with no flight-hour limi-tations. If the operator is based in the U.S., the company prefers to have stacks sent back to its facility in Cleburne, Texas, for repair or replacement if unre-pairable. For operators outside the U.S., Frakes will evaluate the condition of the stack using digital photos then authorize a local repair or replacement. In 2010, the company didn’t have to replace any stacks under war-ranty, and in 2009, only one.

Secret SauceFrakes is careful not to reveal

the secret sauce that helps his exhaust stacks avoid depositing soot on nacelles and airframes. “Most operators of King Airs say we reduce stains by about 90 percent,” he said. One customer was washing the airplane every day after flying for two to three hours, but after installing the Frakes stacks, shifted to wash-ing the airplane once a week. And this wasn’t to remove soot but accumulated bugs, accord-ing to Frakes.

While Europe is a smaller mar-ket for Frakes Aviation’s exhaust stacks, it is worth marketing to European King Air opera-tors, especially the maintenance shops that install the company’s products, he explained. Frakes Aviation has been a consistent exhibitor at EBACE every year since 2003 and has also branched into shows in Australia, Brazil and Singapore and made visits to South Africa. “We are trying to work the export markets,” Frakes concluded. “A lot of it is built on long-term relationships.” o


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DhabiJet is new face of Al BateenAl Bateen Executive Airport in Abu

Dhabi took a step toward its goal of becoming “the best business aviation air-port in the world” in the words of general manager Steve Jones, with the introduc-tion of its branded FBO, DhabiJet, at EBACE yesterday.

Converted from a military field to a dedicated business and general aviation facility, Al Bateen Airport (Stand 336) is

owned by the Abu Dhabi Airports Com-pany (ADAC), and $50 million has been spent on the transition so far. Moham-med Al Bulooki, vice president of the air-port, noted that the past three years of development have focused on safety and certification, and with Phase 1 complete, “Phase 2 is the service.” Pauline Smith, formerly of Harrods Aviation, has been named senior FBO manager.

Housed in the existing executive ter-minal, DhabiJet aims to provide a “one-stop shop” for business aircraft and passengers. Work has already com-menced on an operations center and a crew facility with lounge, showers and other amenities.

DhabiJet’s goals include providing the fastest possible “door-to-door” transit time for passengers and crew, full on-site support for immigration and customs and a full range of competitively priced FBO services. Jones did not rule out having

other providers establish FBOs on the airport in the future, but said that ADAC preferred to develop a homegrown capa-bility initially, bringing Arabian hospital-ity to the FBO arena.

“We really believe this FBO will take us to the next level,” Jones said. –J.W.

toasting a decade-and-a-half of bbj success

How fast they grow up. Toasting the 15th birthday of the Boeing Business Jets division are, left to right, sales directors Carlos Horan and Arnie Schumacher; marketing director Charles Colburn; director of revenue management Jeremy Griffin; president Stephen Taylor (holding knife); director of operations Tracy Valentine; and chief pilot Rene Gonzalez.�

dassault taps jet aviation in hong kong

Dassault Falcon senior v-p of customer service Frank Youngkin, center, celebrates the naming of Jet Aviation Hong Kong as an approved Falcon line service center. Youngkin is flanked by Jet Aviation’s Group CEO, Peter Edwards, left, and Christof Spath, senior v-p of MRO and FBOs for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

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King Air 200GT is next in line for the upgrade paradeby James Wynbrandt

Hawker Beechcraft Corp. (HBC) announced the King Air 200GTR upgrade program for existing King Air 200GT turboprop owners and opera-tors at EBACE yesterday. The upgrades will increase the per-formance and resale value of King Air 200GT, according to the company. The King Air 200GTR package incorporates BLR Aerospace composite winglets, a Raisbeck Engineer-ing ram-air recovery system and Hartzell four-blade com-posite propellers.

Christi Tannahill, HBC vice president Global Customer Sup-port (GCS), called the upgrade “consistent with our ongoing commitment to satisfy customer requests by working with them to maintain the highest levels of efficiency and productivity for their current aircraft.”

At maximum gross take-off weight, the upgrade will reduce sea level take off over a 50-foot obstacle to 2,111 feet, a 400-foot reduction over the performance of a King Air B200GT. At a 5,000-foot eleva-tion at 25 degrees C, the King Air 200GTR’s takeoff distance over a 50-foot obstacle is 3,094 feet, 700 feet shorter than the B200GT’s. The upgrade also offers a slight increase in climb performance, high-speed cruise and range for King Air B200GT.

The improved takeoff per-formance allows access to more than 1,100 airports previously unavailable to King Air 200GT operators, Tanahill said. About 120 King Air 200GTs are cur-rently flying, and the company “will continue to look at other models” of the King Air 200 according to Tannahill, with an eye to making the upgrade pro-gram available to them.

Certification and availabil-ity of the upgrade is expected by the end of June. The cost is $350,000 (U.S.) and installa-tion requires four weeks. The upgrades can be performed at any of HBC’s 10 authorized service centers in the U.S. and its Chester, UK authorized ser-vice center. Tannahill invited attendees who want to learn more about the program to visit the GCS area of the HBC stand (7070).

This is the third aftermarket upgrade program for its aircraft that HBC has introduced in the last year as part of its strategy

to leverage retrofittable tech-nologies to capture upgrade business from existing custom-ers. The company previously

unveiled the Hawker 400XPR and Hawker 800XPR upgrade programs for operators and the Hawker 400XP and Hawker 800XP, respectively. o


Hawker Beechcraft v-p of Global Customer Support Christi Tannahill, right, announced the King Air 200GTR upgrade. Chairman Bill Boisture, left, and executive v-p Shawn Vick listen. D

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BAE and Design Q co-op on ABJ Elegante’s interior decor

BAE Systems (Stand 751) and design consultancy Design Q have unveiled their latest interior concept for the Avro Busi-ness Jet: the ABJ Elegante.

Designed with “space and grandeur” in mind, the ABJ Elegante is the fourth of five interiors commissioned by BAE Systems Regional Aircraft from Design

Q targeted at different VIP aircraft mar-ket segments. “A fully converted ABJ of this level of quality can be put on the ramp” for between $12 million and $15 million, the company said.

BAE reports 24 ABJs–executive and VIP versions of its BAe 146 and Avro RJ regional jets–in service or under

conversion. The company has 110 BAe 146s and Avro RJs on its leasing portfo-lio, most on lease to airlines.

The first two interiors–ABJ Explorer One and Explorer Four–were introduced at EBACE 2010; the third–ABJ Fusion–was unveiled at the NBAA convention last October.

The Elegante interior seeks to maxi-mize cabin space with a fluid layout that guides passengers through the cabin. There is a large galley at the front of the aircraft that can be segregated from the main cabin and a forward lounge with two large sofas and an offset dining table in the aft section with a 46-inch video dis-play screen. The aft section accommo-dates an additional lounge and office that can be quickly converted into a private bedroom. The aft bathroom/dressing room stretches the width of the aircraft, with a full height wardrobe.

The new interior was designed to “tease the imagination and demonstrate the versatility of the cabin,” said Chris Sedgwick, BAE Systems Regional Air-craft technical sales executive.

“With this [interior] we want to make a big statement as you walk into the air-craft,” said Gary Doy, director of Design Q. “This is a very interesting and via-ble interior. It will be interesting to see if someone takes it up and buys one.” –B.C.


Design Q developed a fluid design that “makes a big statement,” but also demonstrates the flexibility of interior possibilities for BAE’s executive BAe 146s.

Spain’s Gestair and Iberia launch Corjet mx shop

Spanish business aviation group Gestair (Stand 450) and the country’s flag carrier Iberia have joined in a 50-50 joint venture to create Corjet Maintenance.

Corjet specializes in maintenance of business jets, as well as providing logis-tics and parts support. Gestair started the company two years ago and Ibe-ria joined as a partner in December last year, and the partners believe they will soon be achieving revenues of almost $15 million per year.

Corjet Maintenance, based at Madrid-Barajas Airport, has a staff of 59. Gestair claims a 41-percent share of the business air-craft management market in Spain. –R.R.P.

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VistaJet is introducing new cabin interiors, above, into its 30-plus-strong fleet. with new silverware and china by Christofle and Italian-produced cashmere soft furnishings. In-flight snacks are now provided by London’s Harvey Nichols.

On Monday, VistaJet unveiled this unusual tail painting on one of its Bombardier Global XRS business jets–a work of art by U.S. street art-ist Retna (far right). Joining him on the ramp here at EBACE are, left to right, creative art consultant Andy Valmorbida, Bombardier president Steve Ridolfi and VistaJet founder and chairman Thomas Floh.

z Comlux America Now an Approved Airbus Outfitter Airbus announced that Comlux America has been appointed

an Airbus cabin outfitter in the U.S., following a detailed audit of the Indianapolis, Indiana-based company. The addition of Comlux America to the Airbus-approved VIP cabin outfitting network

brings the list of approved outfitters to nine.

Comlux plans to complete three to four jets per year, and its first VVIP Airbus ACJ is an ACJ320 that is being shown here at the EBACE static display. The 19-passenger ACJ320 is fitted with three cabin areas, including a center private lounge with full lavatory and shower. The lounge’s divan can be converted into a queen-size bed.

“Growing the Airbus-approved VIP cabin outfitting network by adding companies, such as Comlux America, helps us provide an efficient solution to increasing customer demand for turnkey solutions, as well as facilitating faster access to completion slots,” said Klaus Richter, Airbus executive vice president of procurement.

z Jet Aviation Signs BBJ2 Completions ContractAnother Boeing BBJ2 is slated for completion at Jet Aviation

Basel, following the signing of a new contract with an undisclosed client. Jet Aviation (Stand 7060), founded in Switzerland in 1967 and now a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics, has completed more than 30 wide- and narrowbody jets during the past 15 years.

“Interest in customized completions of both widebody and narrowbody aircraft continues to be high,” said Eugen Hartl, vice president of sales, market development and customer service for the completions business unit. Due for re-delivery this year are a Boeing 747-400 and 757-200 and two Airbus A340s and one A319.

z ABS Jets and Avcon Jet To Open Embraer Line Maintenance Station in KievPrague, Czech Republic-based ABS Jets (Stand 775)

has announced the creation of a joint venture with Vienna, Austria-based Avcon Jet to open an Embraer line maintenance station at Kiev Borispol airport in Ukraine. The agreement also covers warranty work. Both companies are Embraer sales representatives, and both operate Legacy 600s–five and four, respectively. The station will service the partners’ fleets and be open to third-party operators.

Avcon Jet operates 30 aircraft “all over Europe, specifically in Ukraine and Russia.” It is the appointed Embraer sales rep for southeast Europe. Avcon Jet CEO Alexander Vagacs claims the company is the largest business jet operator in Ukraine. He told AIN that the maintenance station is to start with the Legacy 600 and then expand to other Embraer models.

z ExecuJet, Bilen Join Forces for Istanbul FBOExecuJet Middle East (Stand 242) and Bilen Air Services

have signed a “strategic partnership agreement” to develop an FBO at Istanbul Ataturk airport. The building, currently operated by Bilen, will undergo a full refurbishment over the next few months. It already offers crew facilities, passenger lounges, a private hangar and ramp parking. It can provide services such as technical assistance, flight and landing authorization, flight plans and weather reports. The cooperation will combine ExecuJet’s experience as a major FBO operator and Bilen’s local knowledge and focus on traditional Turkish hospitality.

news clips

At the announcement appointing Comlux America as an Airbus cabin outfitter were, left to right, Christophe Pelet, head of Comlux transactions; Scott Meyer, v-p of operations Comlux America; Ettore Rodaro, president of Comlux America; Arnaud Martin, v-p, and Gregory Coston, senior procurement manager, Airbus Corporate Jet and VIP program; and Fabienne Fioroni, Airbus cabin procurement manager.

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VistaJet UnVeils Global XRs with tail aRt by Retna

plan that would see its fleet rise above 100 aircraft. Between this month and November, it is due to take three more of the previ-ously ordered Challengers and a pair of Global Express jets.

Flohr pointed out 75 per-cent of the operator’s flights now originate from or go to “fast-growth markets,” such as Brazil, Russia, India, Nige-ria, China and the Middle East, instead of 25 percent four years ago. Hence, the need for ultra-long-range, fast jets. “With the Global 6000, you can fly from London to Abuja, Nigeria, and back on the same day,” he said. Most international flights are in the five- to nine-hour bracket, he added. [The Global 6000 is the renamed Global XRS featuring the Global Vision cockpit.–Ed.]

While 2011 is “off to a good start,” Flohr said 2010 saw a 25-percent increase in revenues over the previous year. He added some 20,000 passengers trav-eled aboard VistaJet aircraft last year. He said this is the result of a strategy “centered on [the pas-senger’s] actual requirements, rather than a perceived desire for abstract ownership.”

VistaJet offers various con-tract options, including 100-hour and 200-hour programs with guaranteed availability and a fixed hourly rate. “We take the asset risk,” Flohr insisted. The company also offers con-ventional on-demand charter

flights. The Swiss-based opera-tor aims to keep a fleet of young aircraft, with an average age of less than two years and no indi-vidual aircraft more than three years old.

“The first quarter of this year has been blockbuster for us,” Flohr told AIN. “The world crisis is far behind and we are fully booked and fly-ing longer ranges. Focusing on the top of the market has paid off.” Since around October of last year, VistaJet has seen flight

bookings increase by as much as 30 to 40 percent.

According to Flohr, charter rates at the top end of the market are returning to pre-crisis levels. “But our success is due to a com-bination of top-quality service and rates, and the fact that we can pro-vide guaranteed availability,” he said. “We now see the market being polarized between fractional own-ership and us. What the rest [that is, traditional charter operators] are doing is a completely different business model.” o

VistaJet throttles upuContinued from page 1

CAE signs training pact with International Jet Management

Austria’s International Jet Management (IJM) and CAE signed a four-year training agreement on Tuesday at here at EBACE.

Under the contract, more than 100 IJM pilots will train at CAE facilities in the Mid-dle East, Europe and the U.S. on a number of aircraft. IJM

provides aircraft management, charter and sales.

Montreal, Quebec-based CAE also announced here its plans to double the number of training locations over the next two years, adding facilities in Amsterdam, Mexico City, São Paulo and an undisclosed loca-tion in Asia. o

in the former Soviet republic. Embraer is to deliver the first aircraft in December, with the remaining two Legacys to be handed over early next year.

Comlux Kazakhstan cur-rently has four aircraft that it uses for charter–two Bombar-dier Challenger 605s and two Challenger 805s. The division’s COO, Irina Pay, noted that

Kazakhstan sits neatly between two key emerging markets–Rus-sia and China–making it a good base for a charter operator. Kazakhstan is also the world’s ninth-largest country and, thanks to its abundant natural resources, could soon emerge as one of the wealthiest countries in Asia, she said.

According to Pay, Comlux Kazakhstan employs 70 peo-ple and, besides charter, can also provide aircraft dispatch, ground handling and flight operations services. o

Legacys lift KazakhstanuContinued from page 1

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It’s my handshake in Helsinki.

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