Interesting Observations From Folks On The "Front Lines" Of Our Aviation Infrastructure At the 2007 AOPA Expo, staffers and officials from P.A.S.S. caught up with ANN Editor-In-Chief, and let him know in no uncertain terms that they wanted to get a few things on the record. P.A.S.S? What the heck is that? Isn't that what you were always missing when you caught in the halls, between clases, back in school? Not exactly... this "P.A.S.S." is somewhat better and far more interesting. The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) is the union that represents more than 11,000 employees of the FAA and DoD. The members of P.A.S.S. are "dedicated to certifying the safety and the efficiency of the National Airspace System (NAS); maintaining and supporting this nation’s air traffic control system with the utmost professionalism; and ensuring the integrity, the reliability, and the safety of the commercial and general aviation industries." Accordijng to P.A.S.S. officials, "Whenever you fly, the ...
Cautious Optimism Remains The Watchword For A Show Almost As Popular As 2007's This is Aero-TV's final daily update from the floor of the National Business Aviation Association's 61st Annual Meeting & Convention. Among the highlights Tuesday, Jim Bass, President of Piper Aircraft announced that, against declining industry-wide sales of piston aircraft, Piper's piston sales are up this year. We caught up with Nicolas Chabbert from EADS Socata for an update... including word on the company's next aircraft project. Hawker Beechcraft announced its own foray into a new market... with a $200 million order from its dealership in Brazil, the backyard of rival Embraer... Monday's Very Light Jet forum got a status report on the segment from four manufacturers in varying stages of VLJ development. Training and electronics leader Jeppesen signed the first of what might lead to many agreements with French planemaker Dassault Falcon, to distribute the Jeppesen's electronic flight bag software to ...
All-Composite Speedster Equipped With 'Chute Recently, Gobosh Aviation unveiled a new addition to their product line, the all-composite 800XP. Sporting rakish lines similar to several other low-wing LSAs -- more on that in a minute -- the 800XP is a Czech-designed-and-built aircraft, unlike the Polish-built G700S that kicked off Gobosh's presence in the US last July. The aircraft boasts a "structural composite" design, reducing the need for underlying metal frame supports. Gobosh adds performance also benefits from a high-performance laminar-flow wing, designed specifically for the US marketplace. The 800XP was designed by brothers Mirek & Petr Kabrt, brothers who are also responsible for the design of several other Czech-sourced LSA in the US, including the TL-2000 Sting Sport. So it's no surprise to see the 800XP carries echoes of several other LSA. The 800XP also carries forth Gobosh's nomenclature system, with "XP" signifying a glass-cockpit-equipped aircraft, equipped with the GO-SAFE ...
10:00
Aero-TV Special Series: Understanding The Critical Pilot Shortage (Part Three)
This Episode Features A Presentation By Captain Ronald Levy, University Aviation Association (Part 3 Of A Series) We've been hearing about it for years... a pilot shortage... a critical one, at that. For many in the aviation community, it sounded like good news... at least if you were on the bottom rungs of the pilot hiring ladder and working desperately to climb your way up. However; after engaging in discussions thorough the industry over the last year and in attending a particularly pointed (and very well-organized) presentation at the FAA Forecast Conference some months ago, ANN and Aero-TV are left with the troubling impression that aviation has a BIG problem on its hands. The session devoted to discussing the Pilot Supply was, as indicated earlier, exceptionally produced and wholly on target. The session was presented by Moderator Peter J. Wolfe, Executive Director, Professional Aviation Board of Certification (PABC), and augmented by presentations delivered by Kit Darby, President, AIR, Inc, ...
09:53
The KC-10 Extender Shows Aero-TV It's Multi-Mission Tanker Role (Part 1)
This Advanced Tanker/Cargo Aircraft Is An Unsung Hero... One of the highlights of the 2008 Oshkosh Fly-In was the chance to get up close and personal with all manner of military aircraft -- the same birds that can be called upon at a moment's notice to serve and protect this nation... While the fighters get most of the glory and the bombers get some notice here and there, rarely do we here about the tankers. Take the KC-10 for instance... According to the US Air Force, the KC-10 'Extender' is an Air Mobility Command advanced tanker and cargo aircraft designed to provide increased global mobility for US armed forces. Although the KC-10's primary mission is aerial refueling, it can combine the tasks of a tanker and cargo aircraft by refueling fighters and simultaneously carry the fighter support personnel and equipment on overseas deployments. The KC-10 is also capable of transporting litter and ambulatory patients using patient support pallets during aeromedical evacuations. The KC-10 can ...
Not All Air Force Reserve Pilots Fly Fighters... During last summer's Ocean City Airshow, Aero-TV got the chance to sit down with the best and brightest of the personnel and performers that made this first-time show a truly outstanding event. It was Ocean City, MD’s first ever airshow and was initiated to kick off the town’s 2008 summer season on June 10-11, 2008, adding a new signature attraction to Ocean City’s roster of annual events. Military aircraft demonstrations, low altitude flyovers and civilian aerobatic performances took place over the Ocean City beachfront from noon to 4 pm each day. The airshow was visible along the majority of the Boardwalk creating an inspiring experience for visitors while they enjoyed the hospitality of Ocean City’s beach and attractions. One of the standouts among an impressive roster of expert performances was a stirring routine performed by Veteran Pilot (in more ways than one), Ed Hamill, flying on behalf of the USAFR. While a ...
Aero-TV Profiles The Futuristic ECJ Program (Part 2 of 3) The Surprise Unveiling of 2007: The ECJ Concept What a year! 2007 was an amazing combination of so many good and bad things... but for sure, there was NO end of excitement. If there was a "reveal" of the year, it HAS to have been the first sight of the super-secret Eclipse Concept Jet program... which only Eclipse, ANN and a few others knew ANYTHING about until the opening morning of Oshkosh 2007. Eclipse Aviation -- and company CEO Vern Raburn, in particular -- certainly have a flair for the dramatic. At a kickoff press event early Monday morning, before the gates opened at AirVenture 2007, the planemaker took the wraps off a concept model of its Eclipse Concept Jet: a single engine, four-passenger, slightly futuristic-in-appearance V-tailed aircraft intended to test the waters in the emerging Personal Jet category. But the planemaker didn't stop there. A line in Chief Operating Officer Peg Billson's speech describing the concept ...
A fitting subject, we think, for our annual April 1st edition of Aero-News is the feature we present today. It's a story about a guy who REALLY loves his Mooney... enough to have its logo tattooed on him for life. On the opening day of AOPA Expo 2007, Mooney Aircraft Company reasserted its claim for the world's fastest piston single. "We can at last, completely and finally, put to rest any debate about what piston single-engine airplane is the fastest: It's the Mooney Acclaim, or to be more specific and precise, the new Mooney Acclaim Type S," the company said... "We've added more than a new designation to the Acclaim; we've dramatically increased its top speed. The Type S truly stands for speed: 242 knots of speed, and increased range, all with the legendary aerodynamic purity that Mooney pilots appreciate." Powered by a 280 hp Teledyne Continental Motors IO 550-G engine equipped with dual Kelly Aerospace turbochargers, the Acclaim will maintain sea level manifold pressure all the way to its ...
07:46
Airshows 2008: Aero-TV Talks With The Airshow Biz About The 'Value' Of Today's Airshows (Part 3)
It's Airshow Week At Aero-TV! The third in a five part series, this week, starts off a series of interwoven interviews in which we asked about a dozen airshow professionals the same three questions... each of which will become the topic of its own program over the next three days. In this installment we asked a number of airshow luminaries the following question... after the airshow business was rocked by the loss of a favored team's sponsorship (the Red Barons), do airshows provide the kind of value necessary to keep attracting high level sponsorship??? In the next two parts, we'll address the airshow industry's ability to keep up with the times and the overall safety situation we find ourselves in as 2008 gets underway in earnest. Produced at the ICAS Convention just before the end of the year, we were pleased to be able to tackle such important subjects as the industry made ready to start another year... but we apologize for some of the lighting, as we were stuck with some bad conditions ...
Attendees and Friends of Women In Aviation Discuss the Pending Pilot Shortage As the 19th Annual International Women in Aviation (WAI) Conference drew to a close, all the statistics pointed to the organization's biggest Conference ever. Women in Aviation, International is a nonprofit 501(C)(3) organization dedicated to providing networking, education, mentoring and scholarship opportunities for women (and men) who are striving for challenging and fulfilling careers in the aviation and aerospace industries. "By all accounts, this has been one of the most exhilarating and successful conferences we've had," said WAI President Dr. Peggy Chabrian. Highpoints Attendance reached a new high with 3,320 women and men registered. More than 250 of the Conference-goers were from the military, also a new record. The Exhibit Hall was the biggest ever with 151 separate companies and organizations on display, representing all aspects of the aviation community Nearly $700,000 in scholarships was distributed ...
07:52
Aero-TV At AEA 2008: So... How Does The Future Look For The Avionics Biz?
The Avionics Industry Seems Hopeful About The Future Opinions! We love them... especially when they come from folks with something interesting to say! Aero-TV engaged in one of its favorite exercises during the 2008 AEA Annual Convention... that of surveying a dozen or so people at an event with three questions targeted toward the interest group that we're shooting... So, we came up with three good questions for the thousands of folks who populated this year's convention... continuing with a popular topic... "How Does the Future Of The Avionics Industry look To The Industry, Itself?" We think you'll get a kick out of what they had to say. The Annual gathering of the truly 'uber-professional' folks who populate the ultra-high-tech avionics business was a great success this year -- with outstanding attendance, accomplishments and achievements to be boasted about for years to come. These are interesting people... and they belong to an equally interesting organization. Founded in 1957, the ...
The 19th Annual International Women in Aviation (WAI) Conference is now history but statistics showed it to be the organization's biggest Conference ever, and both ANN and Aero-TV were there to cover it all. "By all accounts, this has been one heck of a successful Conference," said WAI President Dr. Peggy Chabrian. We couldn't agree more. Attendance reached a new high with 3,320 women and men registered. More than 250 of the Conference-goers were from the military, also a new record. The Exhibit Hall was the biggest ever with 151 separate companies and organizations on display, representing all aspects of the aviation community. $710,855 in scholarships was distributed to WAI members at every stage of life from university students to mature members seeking a mid-life career change to aviation. The WAI silent auction raised $28,000 for WAI's Endowment Fund, also a new record, bringing the total in the Endowment Fund to $563,000. The money in the Endowment Fund is used for scholarships. At ...
Garmin's Synthetic Vision System Heralds A New Age For GA! ANN, as you read last month, was privileged to finally be able to talk about something we've known about for a while... real-live Synthetic Vision for GA. As amazing as the concept may be, the reality is even more so. Garmin got this right... and right from the start. During a flight in an SVT-equipped DA40-XL, Aero-TV flew checked out each of the now-certified features of the G1000's SVT capabilities -- Highway In The Sky, Obstacle Clearance, Terrain Avoidance, Traffic Alerts... you name it... and came away feeling like the state of the art in the general aviation industry has just been raised by an astounding degree. And if you can wait about 24 hours, for the next Special Edition of Aero-TV, you'll see that they're not remotely done yet... but we can't say anymore about that... yet. Garmin's Synthetic Vision Technology (SVT), is designed to fully integrate with the G1000... both present and past models. Garmin's SVT presents a 3D ...
Despite The Obstacles... Gas Prices, Bad Economy, Whatever - Flyers Flocked to Oshkosh! Monday, July 28th, was a banner day for Oshkosh... despite the fears of many that economic factors might keep aviation fans away in great numbers, it became clear to many that this year's big event as likely to be one of the best attended yet. It was a day of big news and the expectation of far more to come⦠we saw the introduction of the new Flight Design and ICON LSAs, some incredibly exciting news from Lycoming, an interesting take on the "identity" of Oshkosh from Tom Poberezny, an amazing airshow that featured (of all things) a fully aerobatic helicopter demo, the arrival of Boeing's massive Dreamlifter⦠and so much more. FMI: www.aero-tv.net, www.airventure.com Catch Up On The Amazing Opening Day of Oshkosh 2008 -- With Aero-TV! Copyright 2008, Aero-News Network, Inc., ALL Rights Reserved.
Just How Will They Train All Those Eclipse Pilots, Anyway? Despite all the growing pains associated with getting the Eclipse program up to speed, one thing continues unabated... Eclipse Pilot training. A visit to the factory flight training facility a few weeks back showed ANN that this was one part of the program that seems ready and able to keep up with the demand, and that Director of Customer Training, Randy Brooks, seems more than optimistic about their efforts. Just last January, Eclipse told us that the FAA had awarded Eclipse's training provider, Higher Power Aviation (HPA), authorization to conduct Eclipse 500 Type Training under HPA's Part 142 Training Certificate. The authorization increases Eclipse's training capacity and enables the company to type rate customers entirely in its certified Level D Full Motion simulators. During the Part 142 certification process, the FAA examined Eclipse's training curriculum and analyzed how Eclipse uses its advanced simulator to train and type ...
The Brady's Rugged Little RANS S-7 While I'm sure that you're having as much fun with the heavy iron and hot biz birds as we are, sometimes it makes sense to get back to basics... especially when Part 2 of our program on the Eclipse Training Program gets nuked by a bad hard drive (Don't worry, we'll salvage it and have it for you shortly) and we really needed a good excuse to put up a different program. Grin. OK... so let's get to the meat of the matter. While perusing Oshkosh 2008, we ran into lots of REALLY cool people, planes and products... sometimes all at once. The Bradys provided one of those welcome interludes as well as an excuse for a cool Aero-TV piece... from the perspective of a Sport Aviation couple and their little RANS S-7. Their RANS S-7 was the result of a "need to train Coyote I pilots: (the single seat Randy Schlitter design that preceded the S-7 by a number of years). Named the Courier in honor of one of Designer Schlitter's favorite planes, The Helio Courier, the S-7 ...
08:10
Aero-TV: More Intriguing Details From GAMA's 2008 Annual Industry Review (Part 1 of 3, with GAMA Prez Pete Bunce)
Bunce Takes On FAA... Reiterates FAA Funding Shouldn't Be Tied To User Fees During its Annual Industry Review and Market Outlook Briefing a few days back, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) identified several dynamic challenges that must be managed in order for the robust growth in general aviation to continue. Pete Bunce, GAMA’s highly motivated president and CEO, stated the fundamental debate in the US over how the FAA should be funded was settled when the Administration’s proposal to introduce broad-based user fees for aviation was rejected by Congress last year... contrary to recent attempts by the Bush administration to bring the issue back around, and current deliberations underway in the Senate. "GAMA continues to oppose the introduction of user fees on any segment of aviation," said Bunce. "The priority now is to ensure that the nation embarks on a decisive path to modernize our air traffic control system to accommodate future growth and address airline ...
One of the most exciting and innovative programs in the sport aviation industry is an interesting little program that attempts to defeat the many common issues that prevent today's kit aircraft builder from completing the complex task of completing a kit-built SportPlane. Called "Two Weeks To Taxi," the folks at Glasair Aviation have looked at all the factors that keep airplanes from being built and built a packaged solution that not only virtually guarantees a completion, but does so in near record time. "Two Weeks to Taxi was created because a high percentage of the over 1000 kits sold each year are not completed by the original buyer. We wanted to know what the industry could do to change that," Glasair Aviation President Mikael Via reports. "We determined that buyers often have a false sense of the time and expense involved with building an airplane. They know the cost of the kit, engine, and avionics. What they don't realize is the cost of induction and exhaust systems, spinner, brakes, windows, ...
More Online Courses Than Ever Before One of the most powerful forces in all that is good about General Aviation is AOPA's Air Safety Foundation... an organization that wants to do nothing more than keep you from getting hurt. The AOPA Air Safety Foundation is a nonprofit, tax exempt organization promoting safety and pilot proficiency in general aviation through quality training, education, research, analysis, and the dissemination of information. But... most important, they're getting RESULTS. ASF notes that "...Back in 1950, the total accident rate was 46.68 accidents per 100,000 flight hours (the 100,000-hour measure being the statistical standard); the fatal accident rate was 5.17 per 100,000 flight hours. Today, both those numbers have plunged dramatically—7.05 and 1.26 per 100,000 hours, respectively. Those represent 85-percent and 76-percent drops. Fifty years ago, newspapers and accident reports were replete with stories of fatal buzzing accidents, hundreds of fatal forays by ...
09:58
Aero-TV At NBAA2008: Day Two, With A Lot of Surprisingly Good News
The News Keeps Soaring At NBAA2008.... Despite the turmoil outside trhe sunshine state, the business avaion indsutry is still doing Business... and lots of it. NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen welcomed Attendees of the NBAA 61st Annual Meeting & Convention at this morning?s Opening General Session, which featured distinguished speaker Roberto Kobeh González, International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) president, along with Ron Kaplan, executive director of the National Aviation Association Hall of Fame, who announced this year's recipient of the Combs-Gates Award. To underscore the increasing international presence of business aviation, NBAA invited Kobeh to give this year's keynote address. The engineer, professor and former deputy general has served as ICAO's president since 2006. "It is a great pleasure for me to address this Opening Session, and to take part in the largest and most important civil aviation event," said Kobeh. His address focused on several key issues facing the business ...
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