ebace convention news 5-19-11

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EBACEConvention News Vol. 43 No. 11

5•19•2011

PUBLICATIONS

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Aircraft Your Calendar Interview Software Avionics

HondaJet zeroing in on certification and deliveriesThe Japanese VLJ has been a long time a-birthing, but now the certification milestone seems to be in reach next year and production to follow soon after. Page 6

ABACE is the new EBACE as Shanghai show gels“ABACE [next April] will be to Asia what EBACE is to Europe,” said NBAA’s president Ed Bolen. Page 6

Challenges ahead for EBAABrian Humphries, EBAA president and chief executive, goes in-depth about the state of business aviation Europe with AIN’s international editor, Charles Alcock. Page 20

Smart new maintenance software keeps flight crews in the loopStart-up Keitas Systems offers a software program that can provide maintenance information to pilots via an Internet-connected laptop computer. Page 28

Primus Apex upgrade adds attractive optionsAIN experiences the Honeywell Primus integrated flight deck first hand during an EBACE flight in a Pilatus PC-12NG. Hint: It’s impressive. Page 33

Piaggio jet grows legs by Liz Moscrop

New Piaggio Aero general manager Eligio Trombetta was in bullish form at EBACE as he outlined plans for the new P1XX jet, the next aircraft to join the Ital-ian airframer’s stable. And it seems that the new model will be more of a step up

from the existing P.180 Avanti than some had imagined.

“The P1XX ideally will go beyond Europe,” he said. One of Piaggio’s key shareholders is India’s Tata group and its

More than a feeling?by Charles Alcock

They came to Geneva hoping to go home in a better mood, and many of them will, based on the uplifting expe-rience EBACE delegates are having at this year’s show. After a couple of years in which the prevailing vibe at the bizav

clan’s annual gathering has been one of mutual commiseration, EBACE 2011 has seen tangible evidence of recovery.

Nine-digit jet deals are back in fash-ion, thanks to the likes of VistaJet and Continued on page 38 u

As we gaze out onto the EBACE flightline, could it be that we have seen the low point? Can we, indeed, hope for ever brighter days to come? In the words of Winston Churchill, “Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Continued on page 38 u

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Bombardier expands network of maintenance providers

Bombardier has appointed two new aircraft-on-ground line maintenance facilities (AOG LMF), one to serve the Middle East and the other Australia. AVWest in western Australia will cover the Challenger 604 and 605 aircraft, as well as the Global Express family.

In Amman, Jordan, Arab Wings now has AOG LMF status for the Challenger 604 and 605. Arab Wings recently secured Jordanian approval as a continuing airworthiness management organization as well as getting its Part 145

certificate covering line and base mainte-nance for the following business aircraft types: Bombardier Challenger 604/605, Learjet 60, Embraer Legacy 600/650, Gulfstream G450, Cessna Sovereign 680, Hawker Beechcraft 800XP and King Air B200. It is also now seeking EASA and FAA maintenance approvals to be able to work on aircraft registered in Europe and the U.S.

The company is pressing ahead with plans to build a new hangar complex at Amman’s Marka Airport, which is to be

open by the end of 2012. Its existing complex fea-tures 10,763 sq ft of hangar space and employs 21 main-tenance technicians.

Meanwhile, Gulf Wings– Arab Wings’ sis-ter company in the Inter-national Wings Group–has added two new aircraft to its charter/management fleet. By the end of this month, it will have received a second Challenger 604 and a second 605, taking its own fleet to four. The total IWG fleet now numbers 13 jets, spread among Jordan, Dubai, Kuwait, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. –C.A.

4 EBACE Convention News • May 19, 2011 • www.ainonline.com

Representing Bombardier’s new line maintenance facility, Arab Wings, here at EBACE are, front to back, director of quality assurance, Majed Al Aqrabawi; head of sales and marketing, Manal Obeid; deputy sales manager, Dima Elyyan; and maintenance director, Abdallah Mahmoud.

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EBACEConvention News®

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

MEBA proposes ‘Middle East Control’ groupby Liz Moscrop

The Gulf region is recognized as one of the key markets for private avia-tion, and Middle East Business Aviation Association (Stand 1751) chairman Ali Al Naqbi is determined to help shape it as a safe one. To this end he is proposing to set up an informal work-ing group dubbed “Middle East Control,” rather like the early days of Eurocontrol when the six founding mem-ber states collaborated to achieve integrated air traffic services across Europe. With 22 jurisdictions covering the Middle East and North African (MENA) region, Al Naqbi is aware he has a lot of work ahead.

“This is not necessarily a government-backed entity, rather a pri-vate grouping of small companies working together to start something that we hope will eventually be adopted across the whole MENA region,” he told AIN.

The Gulf has had a rough ride recently with political instability in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen. However, Al Naqbi said that, with the exception of Egypt, the combined markets represent less than 5 percent of the Middle East’s private

aviation market. “In the long term this will be good for the industry when things settle. The situation has also had a posi-tive effect on movements in neighboring countries,” he explained.

The “grey,” or illegal, charter mar-ket is another of the prob-lems MEBAA would like to tackle. Al Naqbi declined to put a figure on the number of such flights in the region, but said that the education pro-cess to counter them would have to involve airports, bro-kers, users and fixed-base operators. He said, “The GCAA has to impose rules, but airports cannot monitor all the legal requirements. The responsibility should also go

to the FBO that releases the aircraft.”To raise awareness of the dangers of

operating illegal charters and to gather support for its initiatives, MEBAA is to run three educational sessions through-out the region over the next year. Dates and venues are still under discussion, but Al Naqbi is a firm believer in outreach work. “We have to encourage our mem-bers to take these issues to governments to raise awareness,” he stressed.

MEBAA would also like to receive more support from the mature busi-ness aviation associations. “I’d like to see more minimum cooperation between MEBAA and groups from more estab-lished markets,” he said. “The sector in the Middle East has really only just started.” His proposal is to create a com-mon pool of information in a shared database to help counter security issues and shape a global business jet market. “We can’t impose rules, but we can be proactive in making suggestions to oper-ators, which would make the authorities happy as well,” he added. o

Citation CJ4 Earns Easa tiCkEt

Cessna announced yesterday that its newest Citation, the $9 million CJ4, has earned its European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification. The CJ4 obtained its U.S. Federal Aviation Agency ticket in March 2010, and debuted in Europe at EBACE last year.

Certified for single-pilot operation, the aircraft shares a common pilot rating with the other CJs in Cessna’s stable. –L.M.

Ali Al Naqbi

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LonErgan and gaona win EbaCE honors

Former Biggin Hill Airport director Peter Lonergan and Comlux Aviation Group president Richard Gaona are the recipients of the 2011 European Business Aviation Awards, which are given jointly by the European Business Aviation Asso-ciation (EBAA) and U.S. National Business Aviation Association (NBAA). The awards were presented here at EBACE on Tues-day during the opening session.

Lonergan was lauded for turning around Biggin Hill airport, which was once scheduled for closure but is now thriving. Under his stewardship, a new runway with an apron was added, new hangars have continually been con-structed and the staff swelled from 36 when he arrived to more than 100 today. He now plans to represent EBAA and its members as the business aviation rep-resentative at the European Aviation Safety Agency’s rulemaking group on requirements for aerodrome operations.

Gaona has also had a distinguished career and record of service to business aviation. His more than 25 years with Air-bus included his work on the launch of the Airbus Corporate Jetliner. During his eight years leading that program, more than 120 of the aircraft were sold. As president of Comlux Aviation, he has expanded the company’s service offer-ings, opened new facilities across the globe and more than tripled the number of aircraft the company operates. –C.T.

Family oF ExcEllEncEFamily oF ExcEllEncE At Gulfstream, we back each aircraft with a superior warranty and award-winning product support. That’s why we are The World Standard® in business aviation, and have been for more than 50 years.

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HondaJet zeroing in on certification, deliveriesby Matt Thurber

As the HondaJet enters the final phases of FAA and EASA certification, Honda Aircraft employees are preparing for vol-ume production and first deliv-eries, scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2012. The 263,400-sq-ft Honda Aircraft production facility in Greens-boro, North Carolina, opened in April. The customer deliv-ery center is nearly ready and the first FAA-conforming HondaJet (F1) has expanded to the full high-speed and high-altitude envelope during more than 100 hours of flight test-ing since it first flew on Dec. 20, 2010. The conforming GE Honda HF120 turbofans for F1 were delivered to Honda Air-craft late last October.

The $4.5 million, seven-seat HondaJet features Garmin’s G3000 avionics suite with two touchscreen controllers. The pri-vate lavatory features an exter-nally serviceable flushing toilet. The external aft baggage com-partment holds up to 57 cu ft of luggage, and another nine cubic feet are available in the nose compartment.

Because the conforming jet is aerodynamically much cleaner than the proof-of-concept pro-totype and the 2,050-pound thrust HF120 is more powerful than the POC’s Honda-made HF118 engines, the latest ver-sion climbs faster, flies faster and burns less fuel. During flight testing, the FAA-conform-ing HondaJet F1 has flown at a maximum speed of 425 knots (true airspeed), climbed at 3,990 fpm and on April 27 reached the maximum operating altitude of 43,000 feet. The 425-knot fig-ure is five knots faster than the original estimate, according to Honda Aircraft president and CEO Michimasa Fujino.

“It’s a very quiet aircraft,” he said, even without insula-tion installed. The unique over-the-wing positioning of the engines helps minimize external noise but also eliminates engine vibrations transmitted through the fuselage.

Fujino designed the engine inlets to maximize efficiency and minimize noise. Instead of using a composite-honey-comb sandwich for the nacelle, he selected laminated compos-ites, which further reduce noise. The honeycomb material tends

to amplify vibrations, he said, “and resonance damping is not good,” thus requiring more insulation, which adds weight. The laminated composites thus end up being lighter and qui-eter. The length of the inlet leading edges is also critical. Too long, and efficiency suf-fers, but too short and noise is a problem, so Fujino optimized this element as well.

The next HondaJet to fly will be F2–the third conforming jet. Honda Aircraft has completed power-on testing and is per-forming function testing on F2 in preparation for its first flight this summer. The second con-forming jet has been undergo-ing structural testing, which is being done on the full airframe and quite a complex process, Fujino said.

Honda Aircraft technicians are busy installing systems on the fourth conforming HondaJet

(F3), which will also join the flight test program. The fifth jet (ST2) is slated for stress and fatigue testing, then the final test jet (F4) is expected to fly in spring 2012 and be used for cabin systems and function and reliability testing.

Some of the interior will be installed on F3, but it will still carry test equipment and sen-sors. So the first HondaJet with a production-conforming inte-rior will likely be F4. “With a total of six aircraft planned to support the certification process,” said Fujino, “we believe we will have the opti-mal resources to meet both our

flight test program needs and our certification schedule.”

While most of the HondaJet structure will be built at the Greensboro facility, UK-based Hampson is manufacturing the aluminum empennage. The composite fuselage, made of a honeycomb sandwich and stiff-ened panels, is built in two halves in molds cured in an autoclave.

Honda Aircraft earlier had planned to have wings built by a third party but will manufac-ture the first 30 to 40 wing sets in Greensboro, according to Fujino, then may move wing manufacturing to another com-pany. “We’ll do what’s best from a cost and quality standpoint.”

Fujino praised the Honda Aircraft employees in Greens-boro, noting that each new jet is being built better and faster as they climb the learning curve. The parts count of the produc-tion-conforming HondaJet is much lower than in the POC.

An unusual feature for a Part 23 light jet is bleed-air anti-/de-icing for the HondaJet wings; most light jets use pneumatic boots but, said Fujino, “it’s almost impossible to attain lam-inar flow with boots.” The hor-izontal stabilizer is protected with an electromechanical expulsion de-icing system.

So far, HondaJet F1 has flown about 650 unique test points. The four flight-test Hon-daJets will be flown about 1,500 hours during the certification program, and F1 has flown about 30 percent of the hours it will fly for certification. “We don’t have any big surprises,” said Fujino. “The aerodynamic characteristics are very close to our calculations and perfor-mance is slightly better than our conservative estimates.”

Testing of systems and components continues. The

two static test HondaJets will eventually be tested to the equivalent of three lifetimes, with each life being 20,000 flight hours. By the time the HondaJet is certified, test-ing to one lifetime should be completed.

The FAA is working closely with Honda Aircraft during the final phases of certifica-tion and is encouraging Fujino to obtain the production cer-tificate soon after receiving the HondaJet’s type certificate. This means more work up front to finalize and document man-ufacturing and quality control

processes, but that is work that needs to be done anyway. “It’s a very stringent process,” said Fujino. “We cannot compro-mise quality or safety.”

Honda Aircraft is using SAP software to help manage all of its IT systems and processes. The SAP system, he said, “is very difficult to implement, but once implemented, it’s a very strong tool. We can manage time, we can manage cost and we can manage each configura-tion of the aircraft. It’s probably the most advanced integration, even compared to the entire Honda [company].” o


Honda Aircraft president and CEO Michimasa Fujino chose bleed-air anti-icing because boots make it “almost impossible to attain laminar flow.”

The HondaJet program is well on its way toward the planned certification date, expected mid-year 2012. The large-scale production facility was completed last month and the customer delivery center is close to completion. Performance has exceeded expectations.

ABACE is the new EBACE as Shanghai show gels

Just as EBACE has proved to be a game-changer for Europe’s business aviation community over the past decade, the new ABACE show will provide a key catalyst for the long-awaited growth of the industry in Asia. This was the promise of NBAA president Ed Bolen when he con-firmed new dates for ABACE 2012 as March 27 to 29. The event will take place at Shang-hai’s Hongqiao International Airport, home to China’s flag-ship executive aviation terminal.

Firming up plans for what will be the annual Asian Busi-ness Aviation Conference & Exhibition, NBAA and the Asian Business Aviation Asso-ciation (AsBAA) have signed a “memo of cooperation” with the Shanghai Airport Author-ity (SAA) securing official Chi-nese government backing for the event.

“ABACE will be to Asia what EBACE is to Europe, a critical show to bring buyers

and sellers together,” Bolen said. “ABACE will become a fundamental event on the busi-ness aviation calendar.”

According to Bolen, the par-ties will work together for a minimum of five years, with potential extensions beyond, and the SAA would exclusively support ABACE. He did not rule out working with other for-profit organizations in China in the future.

In April the first edition of the Shanghai International Busi-ness Aviation Show (SIBAS) took place at Hongqiao Airport and attracted 6,000 attendees, 150 exhibitors and 35 aircraft. Organizer World Events Agency announced last week that it would be holding a second show in 2012 from April 11 to 13 at Shanghai International Hongq-iao Airport.

AIN will be publishing its award-winning daily edi-tions every day at ABACE in Shanghai. –L.M.

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Biggin Hill planning for OlympicsLondon Biggin Hill Airport

(Stand 759) will open its new 4,800-sq-ft hangar next month. Situated next to the main ter-minal building, it will also offer 54,000 sq ft of additional ramp space for aircraft parking, with

plenty of space to accommo-date widebody jets. Several fully serviced offices are available for rent in the hangar and also will be available on a short-term basis for operators.

As part of Biggin Hill’s

preparations for the 2012 Olympics in London, the air-port is making plans to estab-lish a temporary heliport next to Ebbsfleet International rail station in the southeast suburbs of the UK capital.

This will allow passengers to very quickly transfer to spe-cial trains that will provide a 10-minute connection into the Olympic Park at Stratford.

Biggin Hill has a new man-aging director in Jenny Munro, who recently succeeded the long-serving Peter Lonergan. “We have a lot of potential, not only in terms of available space,

but also in the business park next door and there is plenty we can do to capitalize on our existing facilities,” she told AIN.

A big part of Biggin Hill’s potential is that, unlike just about every other London-area airport, it has vast untapped capacity for business aviation activity since it currently is nowhere near its annual move-ment limit of 125,000.

The airport’s management is now seeking to secure a part-ner to build and operate the 75-room hotel, which it has clearance to build on a site next to the new Rizon Jet FBO (see page 26). –C.A.


OnAir keeps bizjets connected

OnAir (Stand 1635) is install-ing its Mobile OnAir connectiv-ity system in Comlux’s Airbus ACJ319. The system will allow passengers to use their mobile phones and smartphones in flight, when the aircraft enters service in January next year. The service enables calls, text messages, email and Internet surfing. Usage is billed by the passenger’s mobile operator.

The ACJ319 will be Comlux’s second equipped jet, as the oper-ator’s A320 Prestige entered into service with OnAir’s system this month. Based in Geneva, OnAir says it has more than 35 custom-ers for its connectivity systems.

Meanwhile, clients of local charter operator Dasnail will be able to stay connected in flight when Mobile OnAir is installed later this year in its Dassault Falcon 7X. –T.D.

Jenny Munro

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Skies now are bluer for Europe’s light jet survivorsby Mark Huber

Europe’s still-fledgling entry-level charter jet market is show-ing some positive signs of growth, according to leading operators and analysts. But turning a profit with the aircraft–to date, largely Cessna Citation Mustangs and Embraer Phenom 100s–will not be an easy task according to Michael Ricks, COO of UK-based Oriens Advisors, an avia-tion consultancy that specializes in the entry-level jet market.

Ricks said that firms already in and entering this market must have financial staying power. “If additional investment is needed it is best to do it sooner when you can evaluate several market alter-natives as opposed to having to hustle later when potential inves-tors sense mismanagement or creditors are getting ready to pull the plug,” he told AIN. In his view, there is a potential for turboprop clients to move to the light jets for charter, but developing a true air-taxi model for Europe with light jets is a long way off as there are not enough aircraft in the area to “achieve critical mass.”

Nevertheless, Ricks sees Euro-pean traffic congestion and the limited number of hub airports, about 200, as well as several eco-nomic factors driving the light jet market there. “In Europe, a num-ber of conditions speak to the acquisition of new aircraft now. Interest rates are very low, but beginning to increase. Financing is now available. Manufactur-ers have unsold white-tail inven-tories and there are [delivery]

positions available for new jets significantly below the list price,” he commented. “New jets from Honda, Piper and Pilatus will be coming onto the market in the next few years, and that is ani-mating Cessna and Embraer to offer favorable conditions now to solidify their market positions.”

Ricks also said the charter and air taxi operators flying these air-craft are confronting a dynamic and rapidly changing market-place that will mandate new marketing and operating tools. “Tomorrow’s winners are not just jet jockeys, but also nerds. It is all about market analyt-ics, search engine optimization, dynamic scheduling and algo-rithm evolution,” he explained.

Light Jets=Light ProfitsFor those flying light jets

in revenue operations now, “profitability is at the bottom of the curve,” admits Patrick Margetson-Rushmore, whose firm, London Executive Aviation (LEA), operates seven Cessna Citation Mustangs as part of a larger fleet that also includes Cita-tion Excels and Embraer Legacys. LEA owns five of the aircraft and manages the other two for owners.

The serial numbers range from 52 to 157 and the highest time aircraft has accumulated 1,156 hours. Most of the Mus-tangs fly at least once a week

and the average stage length is just under one hour; how-ever, the firm does book longer flights with the aircraft during the summer months to the south of France and Geneva. Those flights average approximately 2.5 hours. Margetson-Rushmore thinks LEA’s fleet will aver-age 300 hours per aircraft this year, a somewhat low figure but, according to him, “higher than anyone else in Europe.”

“Our potential customers for this aircraft are more price sensitive,” he told AIN. LEA operates seven different air-craft types, including Dassault Falcons and King Airs, and Margetson-Rushmore said the market last year was far more “buoyant” for the larger aircraft. LEA has not seen customers of midsize aircraft moving down market into the Mustang in the recession. Rather, those custom-ers stopped flying altogether. However, what LEA did see was an influx of Mustang customers who had been flying on Hawker Beechcraft Premiers and Cessna Citation CJs and Bravos at the firm’s competitors.

Margetson-Rushmore said that, overall, passengers found the Mustang’s interior “quite spacious once they are inside,” adding that mainte-nance squawks to date had been relatively minor. These included spurious crew alert-ing system (CAS) messages, a transpon-der problem with the G1000 avionics (since fixed) and an overtem-ping issue with one of the Pratt & Whitney Canada 615 engines. Overall, the firm lost an estimated 12 flights due to these problems, but Margetson-Rushmore clas-sified the aircraft’s reliability as “good” and Cessna’s support of it as “very good.”

Cabin Size a FactorDavid Fletcher, CEO of

FlairJet based at Oxford in the UK, is equally enthusias-tic about his firm’s trio of man-aged Embraer Phenom 100s that began revenue operations in January 2010. He said the 100s are averaging about 400 hours per year each, and that number could conceivably increase to 600 to 700 hours. Currently cus-tomers are equally split between business and leisure travel and the average flight is approxi-mately one hour. The company also operates a pair of the larger Phenom 300 light jets.

Customers are attracted to the Phenom 100 because of its

cabin size as well as its modern design, Fletcher said. He also noted that the aircraft’s faster speed (compared to the Mus-tang) is not much of a factor in customer chartering decisions. “On the average trip you only save five to ten minutes [with the Phenom],” he said, adding that the decision is more a function of cabin size. The Phenom has a 50-knot faster max cruise speed than the Mustang–390 knots versus 340 knots.

The Phenom weighs 1,000 pounds more than the Mustang and has five cubic feet of additional luggage space. The Phenom’s cabin is slightly more flexible that the Mus-tang’s in that it can be configured to seat four to six passengers, while the Mustang

can seat only four. In the four-seat configuration the Phenom also offers a true aft lavatory, while the Mustang offers a flip-up padded lid over a chemical bowl aft of the pilots’ seats.

Fletcher said his customers are a mix of those who used to fly on Cessna Citation CJs and turboprops, those who moved down from larger jets during the recession and first-time busi-ness fliers. For new customers, he also said the Phenom 100 is a good vehicle for eventually con-vincing them to transition into the firm’s two larger Phenom 300s. “You create trust with the customer. They enjoy travel-ing on the 100 and it is easy for them to see what the 300 can do for them in terms of increased speed and range,” he explained.

Overall, Fletcher said busi-ness is on the upswing, the best it has been in four or five years. “We’ve been very, very busy and we expect that will continue

through the summer,” he said. The FlairJet founder charac-

terized Embraer’s support of the Phenom 100 as very good. “There were some teething problems with the aircraft when we first got them, but they were pretty minor and the product support from Embraer was pretty good and we are seeing none of those problems now,” he said. That included fac-tory-provided adjustments to the aircraft’s brake-by-wire system.

Steady Growth EnvisionedFletcher thinks entry-level

jet growth in Europe will be “steady” in the coming years. “There won’t be any mass-pur-chases,” he said, doubtless with failed ventures such as JetBird in mind. Nonetheless, he expects demand to grow by 8 to 10 per-cent this year and FlairJet itself is currently negotiating to bring on two more managed 100s.

Oriens’ Ricks predicted that it would be a while before entry-level jets attain their potential in the European market. “There are certainly those who have found a way to operate and generate additional profits [with these air-planes],” he reflected. “That said, the greatest opportunity lies with achieving a critical mass that the industry has yet to achieve.” Ricks argued that achieving that critical mass “is not going to take forever. I see a huge opportunity in Central Europe that will build over time.”

For now Ricks sees contin-ued growth of entry-level jets in Europe over highly traveled city pairs such as London to Paris or London to Geneva. “These cities have overburdened hub airports combined with high-net-worth individuals and a high probabil-ity of business travel. For these people, sitting for a long time on the tarmac is very expensive,” he concluded. o

www.ainonline.com • May 19, 2011 • EBACE Convention News 11

London Executive Aviation CEO Patrick Margetson-Rushmore, right, said Mustang customers are more price sensitive than those for LEA’s larger aircraft.

Oriens COO Michael Ricks

Phenom 100s provide a step up for former turboprop customers or a cost-effective option for those who previously flew on larger jets, according to FlairJet CEO David Fletcher, top.

Olympic-bound flights need to reserve slots by Ian Goold

Business aircraft operators planning to fly to Britain for next summer’s Olympic Games are being encouraged to make early requests for mandatory land-ing and takeoff slots at airports in what will be heavily restricted airspace in the southeast of England. Britain’s Depart-ment for Transport (DfT) has said that for 31 days from July 16, 2012, private or chartered aircraft will present a challenge to airport capacity across the region, which lies under one of the world’s most crowded areas of airspace.

Traffic levels are expected to exceed currently available peak-period capacity and, without temporarily modified air-space, could result in widespread delays, says the DfT.

Altogether, the DfT has identi-fied almost 30 airfields and airports

(including some in the west of England) that lie within an approximate 120-min-ute road- or rail-journey time of the main Olympic Games site in east London and which have capacity for additional pri-vate or nonscheduled commercial air-craft. “Slots at peak times are expected to be in heavy demand,” predicts the DfT. “Early contact [with airports] is recom-mended, especially for those with par-ticular needs or preferences for location, types of aircraft, or timings.”

Fourteen principal airports have been allocated specific numbers of additional Olympic-related movements (beyond their usual traffic levels), including provi-sion for more than 3,000 general aviation (GA) arrivals and departures (see charts).

The UK National Air Traffic Services (NATS), which is coordinating the pub-lic consultation on temporary changes to controlled airspace, proposes the intro-duction of recommended helicopter routes between London and the Olympic

sailing center at Weymouth and Port-land, both to the west of Southampton on the English Channel. The DfT says there will be limited possibility for heli-copter transfer flights to and from central London during the Olympic period.

NATS says any previously unconsid-ered matters raised by public feedback may lead to modified proposals and fur-ther consultation before the plan is pre-sented to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which regulates UK airspace. NATS and the CAA have agreed that the “exceptional circumstances” and tempo-rary nature of proposed airspace changes mean the plan does not need consultation with environmental “stakeholders.”

Numbers of additional GA move-ments allocated to the 14 airfields range from 669 slots at Biggin Hill, more than 500 each at Cambridge and Southend, and 340 at Stansted, to just eight at the small London City docklands airport. In addition, Stansted and Luton air-ports together are expected to handle 130 Olympics-generated positioning flights. There is no provision for extra GA move-ments at London’s Heathrow and Gat-wick hubs, nor at the regional airports at Bournemouth and Manston, or at the Northolt military air base.

More than 200 head-of-state air-craft movements and attendant security requirements have been shared among eight of the airports, but 34 such move-ments–involving aircraft of Boeing 767 to 747 size–have not been placed. DfT consultant Atkins has predicted that “only 17 aircraft over the whole Olympic period cannot be allocated a stand within the current modelled airport system.”

The greatest number of additional movements–driven largely by GA and head of state requirements–will occur on July 26, the day before the Olym-pics opening ceremony, with the larg-est demand for aircraft parking on July 27. Including normal levels of traffic, the 14 airports are expected to handle more than 110,000 movements during the 31-day Olympics peak period. o


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AircrAft MoveMents (projected) during olyMpic peAk 31-dAy period–by service type

Airport Charter Genav/Bizav Freight Head of State Scheduled Position Military Total

Heathrow 32 0 148 0 41,951 24 0 42,255

Gatwick 4,383 128 0 18 22,732 96 0 27,357

Stansted 961 1,226 704 36 15,678 172 0 18,777

Luton 679 3,121 160 6 6,914 51 0 10,931

London City 0 112 0 0 6,561 0 2 6,675

Farnborough 145 1,958 0 86 0 0 17 2,206

Biggin Hill 668 1,147 0 14 4 0 4 1,837

Southend 0 828 0 0 0 4 0 832

Cambridge 129 624 0 0 56 0 19 828

Oxford 213 569 0 0 0 0 0 782

Bournemouth 181 0 8 4 416 54 0 663

Northolt 422 126 0 26 0 0 87 661

Lydd 0 292 0 0 0 0 0 292

Manston 73 29 0 14 46 0 4 166

Fairoaks 4 97 0 0 0 0 0 101

AdditionAl olyMpic-generAted flights in the 2012 schedule–by Airport

Airport Commercial Positioning Genav/Bizav Head of State Total

Stansted 420 86 340 36 882

Biggin Hill 0 0 669 14 683

Luton 280 44 264 6 594

Cambridge 0 0 520 0 520

Southend 0 0 510 0 510

Oxford 0 0 382 0 382

Lydd 0 0 238 0 238

Farnborough 0 0 82 86 168

Unallocated 0 0 0 34 34

Northolt 0 0 0 26 26

Gatwick 0 0 0 18 18

Manston 0 0 0 14 14

London City 0 0 8 0 8

Bournemouth 0 0 0 4 4

Heathrow 0 0 0 0 0

Total 114,363

Military 133

HoS 204

Position 401

Freight 1,120

Charter 7,890

Genav/Bizav 10,257

Scheduled 94,358

Britain’s Department for Transport has identified 14 UK airports that will handle flights destined for 2012’s Olympics. The agency estimates they will marshall more than 110,000 movements during the 31-day peak period.

Source: Atkins Ltd., London 2012 Airport Capacity Study Report FOTO

LIA

Satcom giant offers a tiny handsetby Matt Thurber

Thrane & Thrane is demon-strating its new Aviator wireless handset here at EBACE (Stand 979) as well as the company’s full range of Aviator satcom sys-tems, which oper-ate on the Inmarsat S w i f t B ro a d b a n d service and pro-vide airborne Inter-net access and voice call capability.

The new light-weight (177 g) Avia-tor handset features noise and echo can-cellation and comes in a compact pack-age with a 2.2-inch color display and tac-tile controls that will be familiar to any mobile phone user. The handset’s lithium-ion battery allows for 24 hours of standby time. Up to six handsets can be installed on any Aviator

satcom system. A 28-VDC cra-dle, available for handset charg-ing, is expected to receive FAA certification shortly, followed by EASA certification.

Thrane & Thrane is celebrating its 30th year in business this year. Twin brothers Lars and Per Thrane, who launched the business by manufac-turing maritime sat-com products, founded the Danish company in 1981. Twenty years ago Lars learned to fly and saw an op-portunity to develop satcom products for

the aviation market. A big part of Thrane & Thrane’s business is building ground infra-structure, such as receivers, trans-mitters and radio management systems for Inmarsat, which

operates the satellite network. “In parallel we started building satellite equipment for ships and aircraft,” Lars Thrane said. “We have intimate knowledge of the equipment. It’s been a big bene-fit for us.”

Thrane & Thrane’s Avia-tor satcom comes in three main configurations: systems that work with low-gain, medium-gain and high-gain antennas on the Inmarsat SwiftBroadband service. SwiftBroadband pro-vides global satcom coverage.

The smallest system is the Aviator 200, which offers a sin-gle voice channel and connec-tivity speed of up to 200 kbps, which allows emails with attach-ments. The Aviator 300 uses an intermediate-gain antenna and allows speeds of up to 332 kbps, with video streaming and VOIP connectivity. Larger aircraft that can accommodate a high-gain

antenna can be fitted with the Aviator 350 and 700 systems, although many large aircraft use the Aviator 200 and 300, according to Thrane.

The 350 and 700 deliver speeds up to 432 kbps, and the 700 can handle up to four channels of voice and da-ta simultaneous-ly. All the systems include Wi-Fi ca-pability so passen-gers can easily log on to the Internet using laptops and mobile devices.

For aircraft that have old-er Thrane & Thrane Aero-M or Aero-I systems installed, the company is offering a simple up-grade path to the Aviator 300. The upgrade allows the Aero-M or Aero-I TT-5006A intermedi-ate-gain an tenna to be retained, mak ing for a much simpler and lower cost installation. Taking the installation cost into account, the upgrade can save owners

about 50 percent when switching from Aero-M or Aero-I to the Aviator 300, Thrane said. “Just re-place two boxes and

keep the antenna.”Thrane, who flew his

King Air 200 equipped with an Aviator 200

to Geneva on Mon-day, sees most users opt-ing to fill airborne satcom

pipelines with data, with infrequent use of voice ser vices. “We’re used to being connected all the time,” he said. “I cannot believe any-

body buys an expensive air-craft and no Internet. There’s an immediate benefit from Inter- net [connectivity].”

Aviator systems are certi-fied for installation on a variety of aircraft, and more are being added to the list. The Aviator 200 has received supplemental type certification on the King Air 200 and Cessna Citation 500, 525, 525A, 550, S550, 552, 560 and 560XL. o


Air Works is now DFJ’s approved MRO in Indiaby Bill Carey

Air Works India Engineering (Stand 1869) has been appointed a Dassault Falcon Jet authorized service center (ASC), offering Falcon operators a maintenance capability in India eventually leading to heavy maintenance.

Established in 1951, Air Works lays claim to being India’s oldest MRO. It oper-ates base maintenance facili-ties in Mumbai, Delhi and the Bangalore suburb of Hosur, as well as nine additional line main-tenance locations. The Hosur facility is an EASA-approved

airline MRO with approvals for ATR42/72, Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 aircraft.

The Air Works facility in Mumbai, a CAR 145 repair sta-tion approved by the DGCA Indian National Authority, ini-tially will act as a line service center, providing 24-hour trou-bleshooting, line maintenance and inspections for Falcon 900EX and 900 EASy series air-craft. The company will invest in the tooling and training neces-sary to perform B checks in a first phase, followed by C checks in the

third quarter of 2012. “Anticipat-ing future support needs of oper-ators in the region,” Air Works also plans to add technicians and avionics specialists trained in Fal-con 7X maintenance.

The company has worked on Falcons for some 15 years, start-ing with the Falcon 200. “What the ASC certification does is improve the synergies that have existed thus far,” said Ravi Menon, Air Works director of business development.

Falcon Fleet on the RiseThe Falcon jet fleet in India

is currently numbered at 20 and is expected to grow significantly in the next five years. Menon said Air Works looks to support that fleet, plus Falcon jets tran-siting India.

In addition to Dassault Falcon, Air Works is an authorized service center for AgustaWestland, Bell Helicopter, Bombardier, Embraer, Garmin, Hawker Beechcraft, Honeywell, Rockwell Collins and Superjet International.

The 47,000-sq-ft Mumbai service center has 10 techni-cians dedicated to Falcon air-craft. Given the company’s other OEM relationships, Menon said Air Works can serve as a “one-stop” Falcon shop.

For example, it can ser-vice the flight deck of the Fal-con 900EX EASy, based on Honeywell Primus Epic avi-onics, as well as the aircraft’s Honeywell TFE731-60 turbo-fans and APU. o

Lars Thrane

DC AviAtion Gets Wyvern ApprovAl

At EBACE yesterday DC Aviation (Stand 2039) received safety authorization from Wyvern (Stand 843). Wyvern sales director Fredrik Artursson, left, awarded the plaque to DC Aviation CEO Michael Kuhn. Trenton, New Jersey-based Wyvern provides aviation safety audit-ing, consulting and information services. Germany-based DC Aviation provides aircraft charter, management and maintenance services. � n

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Thrane & Thrane’s latest feature-packed handset weighs in at a scant 177 grams.

Air Works India Engineering is now an authorized Falcon service center. Here at EBACE are (l-r) Air Works’ managing director Vivek Gour; director and group head of business development Ravi Menon; and v-p of general aviation maintenance Nick White.

Comlux siGns on for 2012 BAhrAin AirshoW

Comlux Middle East is one of the latest companies to commit to participate in the Bahrain Airshow, scheduled for January 19 to 21 next year. At EBACE on May 17, Richard Gaona, president of Comlux The Aviation Group (Stand 142), announced the participation of subsidiary Comlux Middle East. Organizers report that 75 percent of the chalet space at the Bahrain Airshow is already booked and said, “We are look-ing at new ways of accommodating those companies that wish to have a representation” at the event. � n

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Oxford boosts radar and comms coverageby Charles Alcock

Oxford Airport has an-nounced a fresh wave of invest-ment that will start with instal-lation of a new primary and secondary radar, hopefully in time for next year’s London Olympics. In spending totaling almost $7.4 million, the UK air-port will also upgrade commu-nications systems.

The new Thales STAR 2000 radar will feed data into the Eurocat-C radar display sys-tem. Among other benefits will be improved visibility of local obstacles such as wind turbines.

In the three years since the air-port was acquired by the Reu-ben property development group, around $16 million has already been invested to develop the air-port as a business aviation hub. “The Reubens have made a strong commitment to enhancing the

safety, efficiency and operational integrity of the airport,” said Oxford’s new managing director Chris Orphanou.

Over the past year, Oxford has boosted its overall move-ments by 18 percent, while, on average, business aviation traf-fic across Europe has increased by 5 percent. In fact, the num-

ber of business jets using Oxford has risen by as much as 31 percent–totaling 7,250 last year, an average of around 20 per day. Jet fuel sales are also up by 19 percent.

Other development work has seen all the necessary steps com-pleted to get approval for oper-ators make full use of Oxford’s 5,222-foot runway. A 150-meter strip has been established either side of the runway to clear obsta-cles, giving it a 3C categorization.

Having access to the full landing distance has made the airport a more viable option for transat-lantic commercial flights.

About 48,000 sq ft of han-gar space has been added and the apron area expanded to 4.4 acres to accommodate about 40 more aircraft. The airport also has taken delivery of a new fire tender this month.

Here at the EBACE show (Stand 1642), Oxford Airport is seeking to lure new operators from outside Europe with pref-erential rates. It wants oper-ators from the Middle East, Commonwealth of Indepen-dent States, Asia and the Amer-icas to sign up for its new “150 Deal,” which is valid through the end of the year. The deal provides the each of the follow-ing services and amenities for $150 per item: landing fees (for aircraft weighing between 16 and 45 metric tons), handling, parking, a night’s crew accom-modation at Oxford’s exclusive Randolph hotel, crew car hire for a week, and VIP chauffer-driven car to/from London. A 23-minute helicopter shut-tle to London is also available for £1,500 ($2,400). It also has rooms at London’s Flemings Hotel for £150 per night.

According to business devel-opment director James Dil-lon-Godfray, Oxford is a good alternative to more congested London-area airports. It is located 60 miles northwest of central London and standard operating hours are from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. o


z GE Rebrands ‘TechX’ Turbofan as ‘Passport’ GE Aircraft (Stand 358), whose TechX engine Bombardier

selected to power its under-development Global 7000 and Global 8000 ultra-long-range business jets, has rebranded the big turbofan as the “Passport.”

The first model in what Cincinnati, Ohio-based GE hopes will be a series of turbofans in the 10,000- to 20,000-pound-thrust class will produce up to 16,500 pounds of thrust for the new Global jets. It will be called the Passport 20, according to Shawn O’Day, GE Aviation marketing director.

The “integrated propulsion system” is expected to provide at least 8-percent lower specific fuel consumption than current turbofans in the same class, more than a 50-percent margin to the CAEP/6 regulations on emissions and operate some 13 EPNdb under Stage 4 noise requirements. Certification of the Passport 20 is planned in 2016.

z LBAS Approved for Qatar-registered Challenger Lufthansa Bombardier Aviation Services (Stand 43) has secured

Part 145 approval to perform maintenance services for Bombardier Challenger 604/605s registered in Qatar. An undisclosed customer has signed a maintenance agreement with LBAS and plans to use the company’s services when flying in Europe. In addition to aircraft maintenance services, LBAS provides interior modifications as well as service for engines and avionics.

z Amac To Perform ACJ Completion for Rizon JetMaintenance and completion specialist Amac Aerospace (Stand

1079) has signed a contract with Rizon Jet, a Qatar-based operator, for the completion of an Airbus ACJ319. The aircraft is scheduled to arrive at Amac’s Basel, Switzerland facility in January 2012 and to be delivered one year later. Rizon Jet will manage the aircraft on behalf of one of its customers in the Gulf region. The cabin interior has been designed by Andrew Winch Design.

z CEPA Promotes Prague’s Business Aviation ShowCentral European Private Aviation, the lobbying association that

organizes CEPA Expo, a business aviation show in Prague, Czech Republic, has representatives at EBACE to promote the show and “initiate closer cooperation with partner associations in Europe.” CEPA founder Dagmar Grossman and chairman Jirí Matoušek are recruiting speakers for the next CEPA Expo, which is to take place September 29 to 30 at Prague’s downtown Congress Center. Bombardier has recently joined the association, which now has about 150 members from eight countries.

z Universal Offers Partnership with MedAireBusiness aircraft operators using Universal Weather and

Aviation (Stand 7091) for flight planning now have access to integrated, remote medical services via a referral partnership with MedAire of Tempe, Arizona.

MedAire provides medical support for flight departments, with 8,000 staff and 68,000 credentialed medical, security and logistics providers located worldwide.

Working through trip support services teams, Universal clients can arrange MedAire services including remote medical care, management of in-flight illness and injury, an aircraft first-aid kit and automated external defibrillator with on-demand CPR coaching.

z Online Training Available for EASA RulesJoel Hencks, managing director of AeroEx (Stand 1556) of

Buchs, Switzerland, an aviation consultancy, training firm and independent audit organization, has announced two online products–eTraining and eProduction–designed to educate operators about the EASA regulations.

EASA will implement new rules for operations in Europe in April 2012. EASA-OPS will replace current EU-OPS, JAR-OPS and national rules. The new rules apply to the 31 EASA member states, including the 27 European Union members and Switzerland, Norway, Lichtenstein and Iceland, as well as third-country operators flying to Europe.

news clips

Important technology upgrades are on tap for Oxford Airport in the UK.

Uni Air Enterprise wins Falcon service OKs

Jet Services Group (Stand 643) announced at EBACE that Uni Air Enterprise, a Part 145 service center and one of the holding group’s firms, has obtained three more mainte-nance approvals. The approvals are for Dassault’s Falcon 50EX, 2000EX and 900EX. The com-pany is now qualified to carry out line and base maintenance on these aircraft, as well as on a dozen other jet types and Piaggio and Beechcraft turboprops.

Uni Air will also install a cam-era pod on sister company Aero-vision’s Falcon 50. It has been commissioned to reconfigure the

Falcon 50, which is to replace an Aerospatiale Corvette in the cam-era platform role. The gyro-stabi-lized camera pod will be removable. The aircraft will be able to convert from the filming role to a more conventional executive business

transport role. The work is to be completed this year.

Jet Services, which is also a business jet charter opera-tor, now has bases in Paris Le Bourget and Toulouse Blagnac airports. –T.D.

This dynamic overhead photograph of three Dassault Falcon 7Xs was taken with a belly-mounted camera pod installed by Aerovision in its Falcon 50.

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After a brief hiatus, jet set returns to Franceby Jeff Apter

When the global financial crisis took much of the fizz out of the champagne lifestyle in France’s millionaire’s play-ground along the Côte-d’Azur it was not surprising that the main private aviation airports there took a big hit in terms of traffic levels. But now the recov-ery is in full swing, according to the management of the region’s main business aviation gateways Nice and Cannes-Mandelieu.

Last year, traffic at these two airports, owned collectively by the local chamber of com-merce, jumped an average of 9.3 percent to revert to its pre-cri-sis level of activity. Nice, which accommodates aircraft weigh-ing more than 22 metric tons (48,500 pounds), accounts for 73 percent of business aviation traffic. It recorded growth of 11.7 percent to reach 31,067 movements last year. Cannes, which cannot accept aircraft in the 22-ton-and-above bracket, showed growth of 3.1 percent to 10,950 movements–illustrat-ing the widely held perception that times have been harder for operators of smaller aircraft in the recent downturn.

These figures compare with an overall year-on-year traffic decrease of 16.2 percent in 2009 when Nice traffic fell by 16.9

percent and traffic at Cannes dropped by 14.4 percent. The airports’ joint level of activity ranks the two Côte-d’Azur air-ports third in Europe after Paris and Geneva.

It is on this basis that invest-ment programs at both airports have continued, with the inau-guration last year of a dedicated business terminal in Nice, a $2.9-million makeover of the former “Corsica” facility adjoin-ing Terminal 2. The completely refurbished building includes VIP and crew areas, as well as luxury goods outlets.

Growth at Cannes and NiceCannes-Mandelieu (Stand 368)

is bound by its own “environ-mental charter” to reduce noise, air and water pollution. This has resulted in a strict ban on night flights and prohibits length-ening the runway, as well as imposing a movement ceiling of just four takeoffs and four land-ings an hour. In reality, the main problem is not aircraft weight, but rather noise.

Nonetheless, traffic is expected to remain steady and the air-port’s modernization program includes the construction of four hangars–three of them for busi-ness aviation and the fourth for the airport’s intense general avi-ation activity. These buildings

will incorporate technical and maintenance facilities, offices and dedicated crew areas. They are earmarked for inauguration in 2012.

While Nice benefits from around-the-clock operation, Cannes is restricted to opening hours of 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in win-ter and 8 a.m. to sundown plus 30 minutes in summer (in prac-tice, up to 9:45 p.m. in June). Nice boasts runways of up to 9,711 feet and has no limit on air-craft weight, while Cannes’ lon-gest runway is 5,280 feet. Both airports have had to introduce a slot-coordination system be-tween April 23 and October 23 to control the risk of traffic sat-uration in these peak periods and guarantee flight punctuality.

Farther west along the Cote-d’Azur, Le Castellet, (Stand 267) the region’s first privately owned airport, has gained from the underdevelopment of business aviation at Marseille, France’s second-largest city, just 34 nm

away. It has become a popular alternative to Nice and Cannes for the jet set.

The airport recently opened a fifth hangar capable of accommodating two Boeing Business Jets, four Falcon 7Xs or four Gulfstream G550s. To increase its appeal to business and private aircraft operators, the airport, with its 5,741-foot runway, can be open 24/7 on request and it has made sub-stantial investments in facili-ties to accommodate VIPs. But these advantages are somewhat countered by its geographical location, which leaves it suscep-tible to the strong southeasterly Mistral winds.

Le Castellet is never bus-ier than for the annual Monaco Grand Prix Formula 1 race and for the Cannes Film Festival–both of which are held in May. In fact, since 1999, the airport has been owned by Formula 1 auto racing tycoon Bernie Ecclestone, who also owns the

nearby Paul Ricard High Tech Test Track racing circuit.

Le Castellet re-opened early in 2002, after having to close temporarily to be extensively redeveloped after asbestos was found in its hangars. It is now believed to be the only airport in Europe that can offer a com-pletely hermetically sealed han-gar–necessary to protect aircraft from the corrosive effect of the high quantities of salt in the local atmosphere. With its adja-cent ramp area, the 59,000-sq-ft Hangar Five offers a total of 172,230 sq ft of parking space and direct access to the runway. Office accommodation also is available on site.

Four other hangars with parking ramps are able to accommodate aircraft up to the size of an Airbus Corpo-rate Jetliner. Its full-service FBO terminal has a boarding area, customs services and a business center. The immediate area of Le Castellet also boasts several fine restaurants and three- and four-star hotels.

Third Busiest AirportInland Lyon Bron Airport

(Stand 267) provides a conve-nient business aircraft access point for this major city and the surrounding industrial Rhône-Alpes region. It is France’s third busiest bizav airport and move-ments have grown significantly since the inauguration of its purpose-built FBO in 2005.

The terminal is open from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. all year, but the hours can be extended on request. Traffic last year was steady at 6,750 movements, representing a 1.2-percent rise over 2009.

Lyon Bron marked its cente-nary last year with the inaugu-ration of a 32,000-sq-ft hangar used mainly for business avi-ation passengers. The $4.7 million investment included 15,000-sq-ft of solar cells that produce 90-megawatt hours of electricity per year. On April 1, operations manager Philippe Treillet retired after 25 years on the job. o


Airports such as Cannes-Mandelieu saw a dramatic decline in traffic over the past few years, but business is returning as the economic rebound gains traction.

With 13 hangars totaling 18,000 sq m, there is plenty of covered parking for aircraft flying in to Cannes.

Flying Group focuses on core opsby Jeff Apter

Business aviation is still on a roller-coaster ride that could lead to feast or famine, accord-ing to Flying Group chief exec-utive Bernard van Milders. “The crisis is not over, fuel prices are

high and there could even be a double-dip recession, but [on the other hand] we could see ten-percent growth,” he told AIN.

Whatever this year may bring to the Belgium business

aviation services group, there is no doubting the growth it has enjoyed since it was formed 20 years ago. Since 1991, Flying Group’s fleet has grown from just a single aircraft to 28 as of

the end of April, with this num-ber set to rise to 31 next month. In addition to aircraft manage-ment and charter, the company also provides maintenance–as an approved Cessna Citation service center–and various con-sultancy services.

The aircraft are mainly based at its Antwerp headquarters, where it acquired the main air-port building and adjacent han-gar last year. It also has bases at Cannes in the south of France, at Luxembourg and at Rotter-dam in the Netherlands.

Like much of the indus-try, Flying Group (Stand 282) took a sudden hit in business in the second half of 2008, which was followed by further decline in revenues of around 25 per-cent in 2009. But last year saw gradual recovery, with the com-pany winning new aircraft man-agement clients in markets such as Russia, Hungary and other parts of Eastern Europe.

Flying Group’s fleet is very

diverse, spanning from the Cessna Citation Mustang light jet to the Dassault Falcon 7X at the top end. In between is a mix of Cessna Citation CJ2s, Bravos, CJ3s, Excels, Sovereigns, Xs and XLS+s, as well as a Falcon 20F-5 and various examples of the 900 family. Next month, it is due to receive its fourth Fal-con 7X, along with a 900EX and 2000LX.

Two years after selling the Flying Group FBO at Paris Le Bourget Airport to the Dubai-based JetEx Flight Sup-port group, van Milders has no regrets that he opted to walk away from this highly competi-tive handling market.

“The financial crisis was only part of the reason for the sale, which fitted into our ambition to concentrate on our basic activ-ity operating private and busi-ness aircraft and the opportunity arose to sell something that was never a core business for us,” he explained to AIN. “FBO activity in Paris is not good for indepen-dent companies, only for chains.” He added that the sale gener-ated new cash that strengthened investment and the operator con-tinued to expand its fleet. o


Flying Group is seeing a recovery in its charter and management business, and recently added clients across Eastern Europe. The company expects to add three aircraft next month, bringing its total to 31.

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Challenges ahead for EBAAWith its partners at NBAA, the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA) this

week stages its 11th annual EBACE show here in Geneva. The event already is 16 per-

cent up in size on last year and is the biggest yet in terms of the amount of exhibit space

booked. And the association itself is back on growth mode, with almost 500 members and

around four or five more joining each week.

All of EBAA’s share of the profits raised by the EBACE show are plowed back into

the association to help it to represent the industry’s interests. This is just as well, because

EBAA’s lobbying work is never done, with a growing list of battles to be fought and com-

plex issues to be navigated, as EBAA president and chief executive Brian Humphries

explained to AIN International Editor Charles Alcock ahead of EBACE 2011.

What is the current state of the Euro-pean business aviation community going into the 2011 EBACE show? Is the industry now achieving a lasting and sustainable recovery?

Well, if we look at the Eurocontrol traffic figures, we have seen continuous growth, with some ups and downs, since April 2010. We were very pleased to see the 2010 report. Eurocontrol now pro-duces not only monthly figures but also an annual report, which is very helpful and all of that stems from visits [by Euro-control officials] to EBACE over the years and their acceptance that they needed to know more about business aviation.

The 2010 report showed that growth last year was 5.5 percent in business avi-ation and this took us back to being the fastest growing sector after the low-cost carriers. Business aviation is now 7.3 per-cent of IFR traffic in Europe, which is not that far short of where we were in 2008 when we were 7.8 percent. We had fallen to 5.9 percent since then.

So people are flying again, but behind these traffic figures what can we say about the top end of the market?

It is the top end of the market that is doing most of the flying, with the Gulfstreams and the Falcons, and aircraft like this that are busiest. They saw less of a downturn anyway during the recession. The fastest growing sector is the VLJs, so at last they are starting to do some busi-ness. It is the middle of the market that has suffered the most. But even with these activity levels going up, there is no doubt that charter margins are still very tight, so our members are still suffering.

It’s good to get the aircraft flying again but they are certainly not making the sort of return on capital they did in the boom years. The evidence is that we are in sus-tained recovery but let’s not pretend there will a quick return to how things were in the heydays of 2005 to 2008, because the national economies are still suffering. Aircraft at the top end, like Gulfstreams, are now back with long lead times for deliveries. In the midsized category it is probably the Citations and the Hawkers that have suffered the most.

We’ve still got an overhang of used aircraft for sale, so prices are very com-petitive. If you are buying, there are some great deals to be had out there. But, quite

understandably, if people have a loss on their books they don’t realize this until they sell the aircraft. So, they don’t par-ticularly want to sell the aircraft and make a thumping loss against the book value. Sales are going through. Values are definitely better at the top end but it’s at the bottom end where there is still a big overhang of aircraft for sale.

Given what happened in the boom years –with high-octane growth fueled in part by easy credit and speculation over air-craft prices–maybe the industry now has an opportunity to grow in a more sus-tainable way this time?

People were buying aircraft with no intention of using them but hoping to make $1 million or more on the deal by selling them on. If you look at the busi-ness aviation sector over the last few decades there have always been peaks and troughs. When I was with Shell [the Shell Aircraft flight department] in 2003 we were able to buy some white-tail aircraft at incredibly attractive prices because we were in a slump then.

You could go back to the mid-1990s and there were very competitive prices back then too. But in fact, probably for reasons that are beyond our control–such as the state of national economies–we are not going to see that sort of silly boom this time. I am very encouraged by these traf-fic figures. Growth of five percent a year is

fine and it is sustainable. It shows that it is not going to start getting politicians wor-ried that we are booming and ballooning.

At EBAA you are now trying to focus on this whole issue of the lack of harmoniza-tion for rules impacting business aviation. So what are the core factors? In what areas do we see the most serious lack of harmo-nization of rules?

Let’s start with operations. Here flight-time limitations are a big issue because we have had huge variations in what is allowed. One of things we did was to set up a flight time limitations work-ing group led by Dannys Famin of Uni-jet. We’ve looked at all the rules in the six main European countries and found huge variations. What we then did was to assemble what we thought were the best-practice rules for business aviation from these various regulations and we have been working with EASA on this.

They said that if we want variations in rules we will have to come up with sci-entific evidence. So we asked Alertness Solutions to do a study for us. We were delighted with the response, with 770 pilots responding, and we are now just finalizing the findings and pointing out where we think variations should apply.

The good news is that EASA listened

to us and they have agreed to form a sepa-rate working group, called 071, to develop specific rules for business aviation, night cargo flights and helicopters. This will not work to the frenetic timetable for other categories of traffic, so there is now more time to get this right. That was very encouraging because it was the regulator accepting that one size does not fit all and that we need our own regulations.

Our immediate concern was that the hard rules mainly being developed for airlines did not upset what we wanted to achieve downstream. Probably the big-gest concern was the issue of “standby at home,” because if this were to be defined as duty time it would be crippling for business aviation. Standby in the context of business aviation is very different from what it means to the airlines.

Split duty is another big issue. A typ-ical business aircraft pilot is out in the morning and back in the evening, with most of the day off. They need proper rest but they don’t need the next day off to compensate them for much of the day off they’ve had the day before.

And what about the inconsistency in rules relating to how much runway length is available to different categories of aircraft?

Another issue where we don’t yet have a result but that EASA has agreed to look at it is runway performance. It can’t be right that a private Falcon 900 can use 100 percent of the runway and the same aircraft operated under commercial rules gets just 60 percent. Nor can it be right that an N-registered aircraft can use 80 percent of the runway and we [in Europe] have to use 60 percent.

We probably don’t need 100 percent, but having 80 percent of the runway sub-ject to risk assessment would be a better rule. There should be an EASA working group formed to look at this after 2012. At one stage EASA was very keen to achieve harmonization with FAA rules and now gradually this seems to have slipped down the order of priority.

The EBAA goal here is that we want to promote best-in-class standards with safety as our key and final goal. But we also want fair competition and it can’t be right that some countries in Europe can use their pilots for longer hours and can operate to different rules than others. We want performance-based rules rather than prescription.

Aren’t there also problems stemming from the inconsistencies in the rules gov-erning private and commercial operation of business aircraft?

The other issue to be tackled is so-called “flip-flopping.” Does it really mat-ter who is operating the aircraft? What it comes down to is whether an owner who has chosen to have the aircraft pro-fessionally managed [under a commer-cial AOC] should be penalized compared with someone who has the aircraft flown by a couple of pilots on their own payroll [under private rules].

We want to see a common interpre-tation for commercial and non-com-mercial and recognition that an aircraft


Aircraft manufacturers are seeing orders for new aircraft, after a long period during which–in some cases–cancellations outpaced orders. However, it is likely that manufacturers won’t see the flood of new orders they would like until the pre-owned inventory thins considerably.

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being operated professionally should not be penalized by having constraints such as flight-time limits, runway length and rights of access. We are waiting for a paper being prepared by Clark Rick-etts [the UK aviation law firm] to clar-ify these issues.

In the end it should be quite simple in terms of who is on the aircraft and whether it is being put out for charter or used by the owner. Does it really matter if the aircraft is operated by some com-pany created by the owner [for reasons that might include tax considerations] or whether it is being operated profession-ally by an operator with a commercial AOC? It’s who is on board that counts and whether the aircraft is being used for hire and reward.

We are less than a year away from full implementation of ETS. Despite the ETS Support Facility, this seems to be as bur-densome as expected for business aviation operators. What is your assessment of the situation? How can business aviation make the best of a bad situation?

In principle, we support the need for the aviation industry to participate in measures, including ETS, which help us meet our environmental responsibilities. However, EU ETS as it is currently leg-islated needs numerous critical improve-ments. We are therefore tackling this issue in several phases and the first is to make

sure that thousands of operators are meeting legal compliance.

There is now a clearer understand-ing among operators that they will have to comply. Clearly the list [assigning spe-cific operators to different EU national authorities for ETS compliance] has been incredibly inaccurate. The UK alone now has over 1,000 operators on its list, and it had expected to oversee only about 30 airlines. There are nearly 3,500 operators subject to ETS in Europe and it’s a mas-sive problem.

In fact, it’s a classic case of a huge bureaucracy being required to deliver very little. This is probably one of the worst laws we have ever seen. If there had been a de minimis threshold of 10,000 tons [of carbon emissions] across the sec-tor, then the ETS would have been much more manageable. But, for now, thou-sands of flight departments making very occasional flights to Europe are brought into the system.

The second phase has been to work with Eurocontrol to develop the ETS Support Facility. There have been politi-cal and technical problems but it has now launched and has been designed for small operators almost as a one-stop shop. Eurocontrol, for a small fee of €400, will deliver all the data you need to submit. But there have been some serious prob-lems. For aircraft for which they have good data it is pretty accurate to the

extent that over 100 flights it is accurate to within one percent [in terms of calcu-lating emissions].

But where there is bad data, and this has mainly been the case for Bombar-dier aircraft, it is accurate only within 20 percent, which is no good at all. Also, it all got very behind and wasn’t launched until February, when it should have been launched a lot earlier. We are now encouraging as many people as possible

to sign up to the ETS Support Facility for €400 and play with the system this year to see how it works. If it doesn’t work well, then they can, in the future, submit actual fuel-burn data for their aircraft, although operators tell us that the collection of such data costs at least twice as much as the carbon generated!

We continue to meet with Eurocon-trol to give them more accurate data, and


Continued on next page u

EBACE has provided some encouragement to an industry badly in need of a reason for optimism. This year the show opened as a sell-out, with 65 aircraft booked for the static park, and 436 exhibitors in the halls.

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service providers have agreed to give them more of this. So over the course of this year we will be improving the performance of the model. We also had hoped that the ETS Support Facility

would provide verified data. It is independently sourced data, so why would operators have to use a verifier?

At the moment this doesn’t happen, but what Eurocon-trol has said is, if we can get 800 to 1,000 people to sign up for the ETS Support Facility then it is optimistic that it can get the Commission to agree to

single-point verification. That would be a huge benefit, because we are finding among our mem-bers that even small operators have to pay fees of $1,500 or more. In some cases the fees are as high as $5,000, which is out-rageous because all we are doing is lining the pockets of verifiers for doing very little.

If we can get a more accurate

tool and single-point verifica-tion by April 1 next year then we think we will have done a huge amount to help the small opera-tor. All they will then have to do is pay Eurocontrol €400 to get the data, submit the reports and then buy the carbon.

This year we are pushing Eurocontrol to make progress in getting operators signed up. My

message to operators is, “Sign up for the ETS Support Facility and try to make the tool work for you so that by next year we have a system that works with-out, we hope, the need for verification.”

It is disappointing that the Commission hasn’t approved other tools, but even if it did there would still be a need for a verifier [since the data for these wouldn’t come directly from Eurocontrol]. If you can get a tool that works to within five-percent accuracy, then that is a good deal. We feel that the ETS Support Facility is the best chance the industry has of avoiding nugatory and unrea-sonable verification costs.

In the UK, there is now the threat of a new tax on private aviation? What is the right response to this? Is there concern that other states might follow suit?

This is very worrying. The first thing to point out is that it goes against ICAO policy because a member state should not introduce a new tax without at least informing ICAO. The UK government’s consultation document is very poor and has been produced from meetings with stakeholders that included only the airlines and not all those [for example, business avi-ation and helicopters] who will be affected by it.

Not surprisingly, therefore, it includes a lot of incorrect infor-mation and false conclusions. The BBGA [British Business and General Aviation Associ-ation] and BHA [British Heli-copter Association] are having meetings with the UK Treasury to set the record straight and we are optimistic that we should be able to work together to deliver a result acceptable to all.

As currently proposed, the tax would impose a rate of £186 per flight in any aircraft weigh-ing more than 5,700 kg. That’s equivalent to the top rate for the current airline passenger duty for a first-class seat on a long-haul flight from London to Hong Kong. So you could pay a tax of £186 per passen-ger for a 20-minute helicopter flight from Farnborough to the London heliport in Battersea. It could also apply to flights carry-ing workers to offshore oil plat-forms or to flights connecting the UK’s Scilly Islands to the mainland at rates that would kill these services dead. In fact, tech-nically, the tax could apply even to people being rescued at sea by helicopters.

The government has said it wants to apply the tax in a way


EBAA ready for new challengesuContinued from preceding page

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that will not impact economic growth, but if it’s going to apply to 100,000 offshore workers how is that not going to hit growth in that sector? We recognize that passengers on business air-craft should not be exempt from the airline passenger duty at the point of sale [that is, for com-mercial flights] but the rates need to be equitable and we need to clearly identify those flights that should not be subject to the tax.

Another issue is that the

consultation document openly says it expects the tax to induce passengers to transfer from business aviation to the airlines, so that is clearly anticompeti-tive [in favoring one category of air transport over another]. Yet, in reality, the great majority of business aviation flights involve flights between city pairs that are not served by airlines.

So we will be very busy between now and June 17 in get-ting our message across. One

part of this message is that we are committed to playing our part [in reducing aviation’s impact on the environment]. In Europe, business aviation accounts for more than seven percent of all air traffic and yet accounts for just one percent of emissions, and we are already working through an ambitious program to reduce this further.

What is the latest on the imple-mentation of new security regula-tions (EC300) in Europe?

We were very pleased that when we got the EC1254 der-ogation for business aviation, which said that aircraft in our sector weighing up to 15 tons, or up to 45 tons if carrying com-pany employees, can derogate where appropriate from the air-line rules. However, because this is a directive rather than a law it has to be implemented through the 27 member states and so far we have really had any progress on this only with Germany.

We got off to a good start with the UK but there has been no progress in the past year, mainly because there have been changes in the personnel involved. The derogations are very important

and we want to see them imple-mented across the 27 mem-ber states. This will have to be pushed harder and harder by the national [business aviation] associations. Without the dero-gations, the way the rules have to be applied is just completely impractical for smaller FBOs.

Security is a prime reason for using business aviation but, as the Commission has recognized, it is best achieved in a way that is different from the airlines. To this end, we have developed EBAA guidelines on best prac-tice for security which we share with members. We have to show we deliver at least equivalent security through risk assessment and the application of best prac-tices tailored to our sector and that’s what we have done.

How have EBAA initiatives, such as the response planning manual and work on safety management sys-tems, strengthened the industry’s hand in raising safety standards?

We have been working very closely with IBAC on the role of industry standards. In this age of performance-based rules we believe industry standards have an increasingly important role to

play and we in the business avia-tion associations have an impor-tant role to play in ensuring the highest industry standards for safety. This is our number-one commitment at EBAA–to help our members operate safely.

We have always been strong supporters of IS-BAO and this is available at cost to our mem-bers. We have pioneered safety management systems working with IBAC, and have produced an SMS plan for those who don’t want to run the full gamut of IS-BAO. In parallel, we have been running SMS training courses.

We did an emergency response plan survey two years ago. Of the 70 operators who responded, 30 had no emergency response plan at all and more than 50 percent of those who did have one had never had a training exercise for this. We decided that this is clearly an anomaly. An SMS requires you to have an emergency response plan. So we worked with Gates & Partners to develop emergency response plan documents, which give operators a specimen plan that they can populate with their own information.

It costs just €300 for EBAA


When the emissions trading scheme takes effect next year, operators–even small operators–will have to pay for the CO2 their engines

Continued on next page u

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members and we run training courses to help them with this. In short, a small operator can put together a basic SMS in two days, although they then need to pop-ulate it for their own circumstances. When operators join EBAA they get help to operate more safely at an affordable cost.

Another new development is that we have been sponsoring the creation of an IS-BAO for helicopters. The first draft

has already been produced. This will raise the safety bar for helicopters.

Finally, at EBACE, this year EBAA and NBAA are running our own Safety Standdown event, which is more specif-ically focused on big issues in Europe, such as level busts, SMS, tire safety, run-way incursions and fatigue.

Illegal charter has emerged as a big con-cern over the past year or so. What needs to be done to confront this problem and ensure more effective policing?

Firstly, we are not setting up EBAA as policemen. We know that illegal charter happens and indeed there have been some quite high-profile accidents that clearly involved illegal charter. It is not fair that our members who hold commercial AOCs and operate to best-in-class stan-dards are competing with someone who does not have the expense of the same regulatory oversight and doesn’t need to meet all the same requirements.

When we look around we have seen in some countries a high proportion of illegal operations. We got together with our mem-bers and we’ve produced leaflets that get the information out to passengers so that they can make an informed choice. We’ve had requests for more than 5,000 leaflets already. A lot of people just assume that all aircraft are well regulated to a high stan-dard. Well, most are, but it’s important for charter customers to check that their air-craft is cleared to operate for charter in every respect, including insurance.

Also Avinode [the online charter por-tal] is very strongly on board and hopes soon to be able to flag up on its site where a permit is required and hasn’t been granted so that buyers can make an informed choice. Avinode will also be

more active in monitoring whether or not the AOCs are current.

We are also working with some author-ities like Isle of Man so that if we do have information on a particular aircraft that might be suspect, we feed it in for inves-tigation. We have had a very positive response from the Isle of Man. We leave it to the authorities to do the policing.

At the same time, the fact is that it is dif-ficult to get permits because of complex rules on fifth- or seventh-freedom rules, which drives people to switch to private operations. This is another reason com-mon standards of safety and regulation are

so important. The new issues further com-plicate the issue with confused VAT ratings in the UK. We are working with BBGA to help the authorities to define this.

What is the latest in your work with the Single European Sky program?

Through our EBAA consortium, we are very active in the Single European Sky work, and had about 300 man-days of work on this last year. In April, we agreed to second two helicopter experts to the SESAR consortium because previously there had been no helicopter input because no one from that sector had bid for work.

So we will soon have not only two EBAA experts involved–one from Dassault, one from NetJets–but also one from Eurocopter and one from CHC. We need to ensure that the technology, such as all-weather opera-tions and steep approaches, can be exploited by business aviation so that we can take advantage of all the opportunities presented by Single European Sky.

And is it true that access to airports contin-ues to pose a challenge to business aviation?

On airport capacity, it is still impor-tant to get the status of business aviation recognized by the Commission because we have to get established our historical rights to access slot-controlled airports.

We want grandfather rights at places, such as Luton, where business aviation should be able to have collective rights. We would manage this within the indus-try and it has been favorably received by the Commission.

Business aviation should enjoy fair and equitable rights, because as things stand, we can invest millions in an airport and have no right of tenure. That clearly is neither fair nor equitable. o


EBAA ready to meet regulatory challengesuContinued from preceding page

EBAA has seen continuous growth in business aviation since April 2010, with large aircraft such as Gulfstreams and Falcons accounting for a signifcant portion of the traffic.

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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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Rizon Jet opens FBOs in London and Dohaby Charles Alcock

Rizon Jet has opened its long-planned FBOs at London’s Biggin Hill Airport and Doha International Airport. Both the UK and Qatar facilities will pro-vide full handling support and plan to extend their mainte-nance portfolios.

The Doha-based company is owned by Qatar’s GSSG Holdings and has ambitions to become a major business avia-tion services group. In Qatar, its aircraft management and char-ter division operates a pair of Bombardier Challenger 605s and a Hawker 900XP. Through a partnership with UK operator Oryx Jet, the fleet also includes another 900XP and a Premier 1,

which is due to be supplemented by a Dassault Falcon 50.

Back in January 2009, Rizon placed an order for four of Bom-bardier’s new Learjet 85s, which are still set for delivery by 2015. However, an earlier order for a Global 5000 due for 2011 delivery appears to have been abandoned.

Rizon Jet was formed by Qatar’s GSSG Holdings group in 2006 and has spent more than five years developing its plans to establish a business avi-ation services group spanning the Middle East and Europe. The growth of its charter/man-agement fleet has been slow, but it should be better placed to expand its portfolio now that it

has secured initial maintenance approvals in Qatar and the UK. The group expects to employ 160 people by year-end.

The Biggin Hill facility now holds both EASA and Qatari Part 145 approvals, and in the UK its continuous airworthi-ness management organiza-tion (CAMO) clearance is held by Oryx Jet. Rizon has its own CAMO approval in Qatar, and its Doha base is now applying for authorization to work on Saudi Arabian aircraft. Both facilities are seeking mainte-nance clearance from the Cay-man Islands and Bermuda.

The Biggin Hill complex, with a total size of some 130,000 sq ft, is roughly the same size as its counterpart in Doha. The 62,538-sq-ft hangar can accom-modate up to five Bombardier Global XRS aircraft or nine Challenger 605s. It features adjoining offices and workshops.

The impressively decorated terminal has a modern Middle Eastern feel, with five separate seating areas split over two lev-els, plus a children’s area, prayer room and business center.

Catering is provided through a partnership with Cuisine Air International. They also run a café on the other side of the building for visiting crews. o


z API To Distribute Sentinel 100L Security System France’s Oviv Security Technologies (Stand 1859) has

announced a worldwide distribution agreement with Aerospace Products International (API) whereby the Memphis company will distribute Oviv’s Sentinel 100L on-ground aircraft security system. API will cover the Canadian, Asia Pacific and Central South American markets exclusively and the U.S., Europe and Middle East on a nonexclusive basis.

Sentinel 100L is a ruggedized, self-contained system secured to an aircraft’s landing gear and requiring no retrofit or modification. According to Oviv, Sentinel is the only security system to protect aircraft from multiple threats, including damage on the ramp, tampering, vandalism or stolen fuel.

z FlyingGroup Building New Hangar in AntwerpBelgium business aviation services group FlyingGroup (Stand

282) plans to open a new $3.5 million hangar at its Antwerp airport headquarters. The 56,000-sq-ft, frost-free facility will be able to

accommodate almost every type of business jet. It will feature an automatic “carousel,” enabling parked business

aircraft to be quickly moved indoors. The hangar is to be ready this summer. FlyingGroup will use it for its 28-strong fleet but will also offer space to other operators.

z Flying Colours OK’d for List Stone Floor InstallationsList Components of Austria (Stand 165) has selected

Ontario, Canada-based Flying Colours (Stand 1935) as its preferred completion center in North America for its stone flooring and countertops in all aircraft types. Flying Colours recently installed a List stone floor in a Bombardier Global 5000 and has been chosen to install a similar floor in a Bombardier Challenger 601.

z Vibro-Air Adds Citation CJ3 To FleetGerman operator Vibro-Air (Stand 843) recently added a

Cessna Citation CJ3 to its charter fleet. The company now operates an Embraer Legacy 600, two Hawker Beechcraft Premier Is and an IAI Astra SP from Dusseldorf International Airport. It plans to add two Embraer Phenom 300s and a Legacy 500 (scheduled for certification in 2012). Vibro-Air CEO Ammr Shaladi said the company is also expanding its aircraft management division.

z Argentine Police Take Socata TBMDaher-Socata has delivered a TMA-MMA, a multi-mission

version of the TBM850 turboprop single, to Argentina’s airport security agency. The airplane will be operated by the Policía de Seguridad, which is tasked with guarding the nation’s public airports. The agency’s airplane can be quickly converted to medical evacuation use.

z Dubai Airshow on Track To Be the Biggest YetThe biennial Dubai Airshow, to be held from November 13

to 17 at the Dubai Airport Expo, is expected to draw as many as 1,000 exhibitors from more than 50 countries and attract more than 55,000 trade visitors. At the 2009 event, business aircraft accounted for roughly a quarter of all the aircraft on display, and the organizers expect similar numbers this year, with business aircraft accounting for 40 of the expected 140 on static display. Alison Weller, managing director of show organizer F&E Aerospace (Stand 1751), acknowledged the importance of business aviation at the event.

The Middle East Business Aviation show, which runs alternate years from the Dubai Airshow, is planned for December 11 to 13, 2012.

Representatives from F&E Aerospace are here at EBACE taking bookings for the various events.

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Rizon’s new FBO at London Biggin Hill Airport has five meeting areas on two levels, some enclosed and some open. The company has also opened an FBO in Doha.

HBC’s CEO puts ‘right-now’ plan to workby R. Randall Padfield

“Cautious optimism” for the current business aviation market likely describes the consensus of opinion of the business aviation industry here at EBACE. It is, at least, the view of Bill Boisture, chairman and CEO, Hawker Beechcraft Corp., who told AIN that his plans for transforming the Wichita, Kansas OEM into “a smaller, more agile company” are progressing.

“It’s a right-now plan,” he said. “We spent most of 2010 planning what we would do and then started implementing parts of that with the [planned early 2012] closure of the plant in Salina [Kansas], and in October announcing the closure of sev-eral major facilities on the Wich-ita footprint. So by year-end, we will be about a million square feet smaller, in terms of occupied real estate, than we had been.”

The majority of the iconic airplane manufacturer’s work has been shifted to third-party suppliers, he explained, and to its new manufacturing facility in Chihuahua, Mexico, which by the end of this year will have

about 500,000 sq ft and employ about 1,000 people.

The changes in the footprint, Boisture explained, are a physi-cal manifestation “that matches changes to our manufacturing process with the aggressive appli-cation of lean principles.” The company has seen “some real progress in reducing cycle times and increasing the capacity of our engineering team,” he said, adding that Hawker Beechcraft has also seen “a good rational-ization of our supply chain.” All of these are in progress and expected to be completed by the end of next year.

The company’s first quarter 2011 financial report notes that Hawker Beechcraft received $10 million in January from Kansas to develop new products and enhance existing aircraft, that 250 employ-ees are benefiting from tuition reimbursement and that the com-pany is hiring in key areas, such as engineering and marketing.

“We are investing heavily in the workforce we need to be that smaller, more agile company,” Boisture said. “Our approach is

we will employ the number of people we need to do the work that is required to fulfill the mar-ket demand for our products. But we intend to do that with a much higher educated and trained workforce. I think that in 24 to 36 months we’ll have the most com-petent workforce in the industry.”

Hawker Beechcraft’s first quarter 2011 financial results, while mixed, do show signs that the company’s transformation strategy is beginning to work. At 45, the number of business and general aviation aircraft deliv-ered in 1Q/2011 was 11 higher than those delivered in 1Q/2010 (34 units). However, sales reve-nue for this segment decreased quarter over quarter from $335.1 million to $286.2 million. The reason was the higher per-centage of lower priced aircraft delivered in 1Q/2011. Of the 45 1Q/2011 deliveries, King Airs accounted for 24 units and pis-ton airplanes another 10, com-pared to 15 and five, respectively, in 1Q/2010. Revenue from the Global Customer Support seg-ment also increased slightly. o

CIVIL DEFENCE FUTURESSPACE UAS SECURITY

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Smart new Mx software keeps crews in the loop

Keitas Systems (Stand 1026), a start-up company based in Gex, France, not far from Geneva, is here introducing its Tempeus software program, de-signed to give exhaustive main-tenance information to pilots via a simple Internet-connected lap-top computer. Keitas Systems’ founders, sisters Lahou and Fa-tou Keita, began working on the program six months ago so it would be ready for EBACE.

For AOG (aircraft on the ground) issues, the system can start by finding the closest ser-vice station available for the air-craft type. It gives a possible cause of the problem and sug-gests corrective action, provid-ing such details as part numbers and serial numbers.

Once the program finds a service station, it gives the crew an estimated downtime, calcu-lated based on downtime aver-ages measured at various service stations, CEO Lahou Keita told

AIN. Tempeus uses OEM data provided by the customer, who is also the aircraft operator.

The pilot can contact his or her base through the program. The base then can confirm it has sent the work order to the service station. Also available is a mean-time-between-failure

figure for every piece of equip-ment aboard the aircraft.

The Keitas’ philosophy is to allow operators to “regain some control over unpredictable mis-haps.” They said such software did not exist on the market before Tempeus. The program is available for any aircraft and costs €30,000 ($42,000) per aircraft–“the equiva-lent of one day of AOG,” Lahou Keita pointed out.

Her company would be happy to enroll its first aircraft here at EBACE 2011 and to hire its first employees. –T.D.


Lahou Keita, CEO (right), and sister Dr. Fatou Keita, deputy CEO, are promoting their start-up company. Keitas Systems has developed a maintenance software product.

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king air 250 finds a home in south africa

Aviation broker and counsultancy firm Absolute Aviation, based Lanseria International Airport in South Africa, has signed on the dotted line for the latest Hawker Beechcraft King Air, the Model 250. Pictured here at EBACE are (l-r) Chris Hancock, HBC regional sales director for Africa; Peter Walker, HBC v-p Beechcraft sales Europe, the Middle East and Africa; Absolute Aviation managing director Ricky Dos Santos and CEO Neil Howard.

z Scimitar-tip Blended Winglets for Hawker 800Aviation Partners (Stand 674) of Seattle, Washington, said the first

certified scimitar-tip blended winglets are now flying on a Hawker 800. The patented scimitar tip is an aerodynamic change to the tip cap of the existing blended winglet, providing an additional 0.5-percent drag reduction over the existing 7.3 percent at long-range cruise.

The Hawker 800 series is the first business jet to receive the scimitar-tip technology, with customer deliveries to follow this year. Aviation Partners said it is reviewing the feasibility of offering scimitar tips as an upgrade for existing Hawker 800-series blended winglet customers.

Blended winglets currently can be retrofitted to the Hawker 800 and 800XP as an FAA and EASA STC. Aviation Partners blended winglets also are certified for the Dassault Falcon 2000 family. The company said it anticipates winglet certification for the Falcon 900 family this summer.

z ACJC Delivers Charter ACJ to Deer JetBeijing-based charter operator Deer Jet has taken delivery

of Airbus Corporate Jet Centre’s first VIP cabin completion for a Chinese customer, which is also the first ACJ operated by a Chinese company for dedicated charter.

The Deer Jet ACJ features a three-cabin layout capable of accommodating up to 28 passengers. The forward cabin is outfitted as a private office with its own lavatory and shower and foldout sofabed. In the middle cabin, two club-four seating areas, each with tables, facilitate meetings. And the aft section of the ACJ is fitted with 20 flatbed, electrically operated cocoon seats, each with its own video display.

ACJC now offers a high-definition, 1080p-format entertainment system using the HDMI wiring network. Full high-def quality is available on up to four screens simultaneously, either from an HD source, such as a Blu-ray player, or external devices, including laptops and gaming devices

z Jet Aviation Spotlights New Terminal in Jeddah Jet Aviation’s expansion in the Middle East continues, highlighted

by the recent grand opening of its new terminal in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where the company has had an FBO since 1983. The opening ceremony, held earlier this month, brought guests from 10 countries to the 32,292-sq-ft facility, which was developed as a joint venture with Saudi partners under the Jet Aviation Saudi Arabia banner.

Peter Edwards, chairman Jet Aviation Saudi Arabia, called the new facility “a tribute to our past and future success,” noting that the company executed almost 12,400 movements last year and is committed to “growing these numbers in coming years.” Jet Aviation Saudi Arabia also operates an FBO in Riyadh. Jet Aviation was the first foreign business aviation services company to have an FBO in Saudi Arabia, having established its Riyadh facility in 1979.

At EBACE, Jet Aviation also announced the appointment of Hardy Butschi as vice president and general manager of Jet Aviation Saudi Arabia, in charge of line maintenance at the company’s facilities in both Jeddah and Riyadh. Jet Aviation Dubai also announced at EBACE a “substantial” increase in base maintenance certificates of return to service issued for the growing fleet of Embraer Legacy aircraft it maintains.

z Gama Group Companies Highlight New ProductsAirops Software, a subsidiary of UK-based Gama Group

(Stand 354), is here at EBACE showing its new ProCharter aviation management software. ProCharter provides an aircraft and route-cost calculator, monitors and records crew duty records and offers certificate administration. Of particular importance to European operators when the emissions trading scheme is instituted in 2012, ProCharter can provide emissions reports already verified for EU ETS reporting. The progam has multi-lingual capability, is Web-server based and can be accessed easily from PCs, laptops and mobile devices.

Meanwhile, sister company Avialogistics is here to showcase its aircraft cleaning services. The company recently added equipment at its Luton site to clean parts of the aircraft that are hard to reach, and it will be hosting an open house this month.

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STC for Pro Line FusionThe FAA issued the first

supplemental type certificate (STC) for the Pro Line Fusion avionics system, for installation on Rockwell Collins’s flight test Challenger 601. The issuance of the STC came a few weeks after the FAA approved the final of 50 hardware and soft-ware technical standard orders

for Pro Line Fusion. “The certification affirms the

flexibility and adaptability of the Pro Line Fusion system,” said Greg Irmen, vice president and general manager, business and regional systems. “We con-tinue to progress toward Pro Line Fusion’s entry into service and are working with customers

to achieve more certifications in the coming months.”

Pro Line Fusion features synthetic vision on the head-up display, new “airport dome” and target runway highlight-ing, synthetic-vision symbol-ogy (to help pilots stay oriented before descent) and the abil-ity to synchronize aircraft and ground systems and update air-craft databases using new net-worked capability. –M.T.

We do everything you’d expect the world’s largest FBO network to do. We compete on fuel prices. We provide a comfortable

environment for customers and crews. Our line and customer service go all out. But do you know what our customers tell us has

increased their loyalty to the Signature network? Friendly service. So, we start with a handshake. But the smile. That’s the clincher.

The smile is a deal maker.

Visit us at BBA Aviation Booth #7030, Hall 7SignatureFlight.com

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11-SIGFLI-3526 Service Focused Ad_AIN_03.indd 1 5/3/11 2:36 PM


Under special circumstances, several European countries–including Norway, where BenAir operates this Cessna 208 Caravan I–permit domestic commercial SE-IMC/night flights by air operator’s certificate holders carrying cargo only. A Europe-wide rule on such ops is years away.

Europe continues crawl toward commercial, single-engine IMCby Ian Goold

Operators pushing for clearance to fly commercial single-engine flights in IFR conditions, which are not allowed under European Union (EU) legislation, will be encouraged that regulators have brought forward by a year the start and end dates for rulemaking. That is the good news. The bad news–almost 25 years after the initial proposals–is that it will be well after the middle of this decade before reg-ulations could permit such operations.

Formal consideration of single-engine commercial air transport in IMC or at night (SE-IMC/night, equivalent to U.S. single-engine IFR), appears in the 2011-14 European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) rulemaking program. This shows that development of imple-menting rules (IR) for airworthiness and operational approval for SE-IMC/night flying is scheduled to begin early next year, assuming that budget and resources are available. It should lead to an EASA “opinion” on proposals in four years’ time. [In European legislative proce-dures, opinions are draft rules sent to the European Commission for further pro-cessing before enactment. New laws are proposed as amendments to the IRs cov-ering a basic regulation; in this case, that covering commercial air transport.–Ed.]

A Unified ApproachA year after the opinion is issued,

guidance materials should appear in the first quarter of 2016 to support a formal EASA recommendation to the European Commission (EC), assuming regula-tory priorities have not changed. But the industry will not be holding its collective breath, having long grown used to such changes. Eighteen months ago it was reported at the U.S. NBAA Convention that European approval for commercial single-engine flights could be recom-mended during 2014–and that only after years of earlier delay.

Under so-called “derogation” prin-ciples that permit EU member states to deviate from overall regulations, several countries–including Finland, France, Greece, Norway and Spain–have permit-ted domestic commercial SE-IMC flights by air-operator’s certificate holders car-rying only cargo under specific circum-stances. Globally, the International Civil Aviation Organization has issued appro-priate operating standards. After several years of discussion, the European Joint

Aviation Authorities (JAA)–EASA’s pre-decessor–failed to establish a consen-sus among the region’s national aviation authorities (NAAs).

Commercial SE-IMC/night flights might have been possible from last year had EASA accepted and adopted JAA safety data, but officials did not consider information included in data from out-side Europe to be representative of Euro-pean operating conditions. EASA had said in 2008 that SE-IMC/night work would require separate rulemaking after its “opinion” on the EASA operations IR. It was thought then that SE-IMC/night operations could be included with other changes in an expected first amend-ment to EASA ops legislation in 2010/11.

Risk MitigationIndividual European NAAs have

taken differing views on the safety of commercial SE-IMC/night operations over the years. Some have allowed flights while applying conditions; others have resisted any temptation to allow fare-paying travelers to be exposed to the total loss of thrust that would follow an engine failure. In 2007, EASA set up an independent assessment that aimed “to identify the risks and possible mitigating factors [to assure] that SE-IMC oper-ations do not involve more risks than multi-engine IMC operations.”

Conducted by consultants Qinetiq, that study concluded that accident rates involving fatal SE-IMC/night events from all causes should be “more remote than 4 x 10-6/flight hour (fh),” a perfor-mance slightly better than twin-engine safety in comparable categories. Qinetiq also concluded that fatal SE-IMC/night engine-failure rates should be less than 1.3 x 10-6/fh and made rec-ommendations on aircraft-certification testing, training and the need for a sec-ond flight-crew member.

The report offered a theoretical risk assessment that, depending on “realis-tic assumptions,” concluded there was a hypothetical possibility that the target engine-failure fatal accident rate could be shown to be achievable. Permitted SE-IMC/night operations would need to be covered by “appropriate limitations on cloud ceiling and visibility, [operations] from and to suitable airfields, [and on] duration of risk periods when no landing site is within gliding range.” o

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Where aerospace leaders get down to business

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Bizav crowd can satisfy its impulse at Payerne Airportby Olivia Saucier

Switzerland is well established as a veritable hive of business aviation activ-ity and now a quiet corner in the west of the country wants a piece of this action. COREB is the acronym for Commu-nauté régionale de la Broye and repre-sentatives of the La Broye district of this French-speaking Swiss region are here at the EBACE show (Stand 1254) to pro-mote its plans to develop the airfield at Payerne as Aéropole, a business park spe-cializing in aeronautics and aviation.

Payerne Airport made international headlines last year when the Solar Impulse, the world’s first solar-powered aircraft, took off from there and completed a 26-hour flight. Payerne is also home to Switzerland’s largest air force base, which officially opened its runway to civilian flights in 2007. Since then COREB has acted as the link between the military author-ities and the developing aviation park.

“Our relationship with the military is excellent,” COREB director Pierre-André Arm told AIN. “We collaborate in a way that is very harmonious in regards to civil flights currently in operation

and especially our plans for the future. The military base is an integral part of the project’s expansion.”

In 2008, Swiss private jet company Speedwings joined the ranks of the Solar Impulse project and the Swiss aviation investigation bureau (BEAA– Bureau fédéral d’enquêtes sur les accidents d’aviation) and opened offices there. The business park plans to extend the current, mostly military, airfield to cover almost 100 acres. According to Arm, “discussions are ongoing with numerous organizations and companies that wish to collaborate.”

Aviation Park DevelopmentCOREB is offering interested partners

two plots on which to settle and develop their businesses. The first area, known as Aéropole I, covers 37 acres and bene-fits from direct access to the runway, and is intended for aviation and aeronautical companies. The runway, which is 9,500 feet long, can accommodate most types of business aircraft. It also has the potential to serve up to 10,000 passengers a year.

“We are finalizing the regulation of

civil operations, in collaboration with the Federal Office of Civil Aviation,” said Arm. “A few issues still need to be decided upon, and we hope to hand in our final plans for approval at the begin-ning of the summer.”

The second business park covers 62 acres and is intended for companies working in other industries and ser-vices that don’t necessarily require direct access to the runway, such as construc-tion, maintenance, research and devel-opment and catering, as well as general business centers.

According to Arm, the Aéropole proj-ect’s strengths also lie in its ties to leading academic institutions. COREB is devel-oping partnerships with the prestigious Lausanne Polytechnic School, as well as some of the region’s engineering schools (located in the towns of Neuchâtel, Yver-don, Fribourg, Berne and Lausanne). o

00 EBACE Convention News • May 19, 2011 • www.ainonline.com32 EBACE Convention News • May 19, 2011 • www.ainonline.com

Payerne Airport is already home to the team that designed the solar-powered Solar Impulse, and the airport has set its sights on developing the field as a business park for aeronautics-related companies.

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.

Radiation References

Contact www.aimsinternational.us

Primus Apex upgrade adds attractive options by James Wynbrandt

Honeywell’s latest version of its Primus Apex integrated flight deck–Build 7–offers new functions and options for oper-ators, which the company dem-onstrated at EBACE in a flight on a Pilatus PC-12NG, one of the aircraft models featuring the avionics suite. The Primus Apex is a derivative of the Primus Epic fight deck that Morristown, New Jersey-based Honeywell developed for large cabin busi-ness jets, but optimized for sin-gle-pilot operations.

“We spent a lot of time work-ing on simplifying this, and reduc-ing the number of [required] button pushes,” Victor Valente, Honeywell’s vice president, Busi-ness & General Aviation for Europe, Africa, Middle East & India, said before the flight.

Apex system components in-clude a primary flight display (PFD) and two center-panel multifunction displays (PFDs), a flight management system (FMS) and control panel, and a cursor control device (CCD). The CCD controls the movement of a cursor among and within the dis-play screens and fields, enabling quick data input and selection.

The new features of Build 7 include a sunset and sunrise table, a vertical situation display (VSD)

of flight plan and terrain and a display of airspace constraints on iNAV, along with software fixes and improvements. The upgrade is free to operators and, in the PC-12NG fleet, is installed during this aircraft’s required 100-hour inspections.

What further separates Build 7 from its predecessor are its optional upgrades: dual charts and maps enable charts and maps to be displayed on both or either MFDs; a second FMS, automatically synchronized in a master/slave configuration, pro-vides redundancy in the event of primary FMS failure; coupled Vnav provides vertical guidance to a profile or flight path in all phases of flight; and video input enables video images–for exam-ple, from an enhanced vision sys-tem–to be shown, and can be displayed on either MFD.

Flying the Primus ApexThe complex airspace and

high terrain surrounding Geneva make this an ideal environment for seeing this latest Apex ver-sion in action. Pilatus test pilot Theddy Spichtig in the right seat quickly loaded a flight plan to Les Eplatures Airport at La Chaux de Fonde, some 60 nm distant, into the FMS. One of the MFDs

displayed the crazy quilt of con-trolled airspace above and around us and showed their upper and lower limits numerically (Build 7’s airspace constraints on iNav function), a big assist when plan-ning or making a VFR flight.

With the input of the weight of passengers and luggage, the Apex accounted for fuel onboard and calculated the optimum ascent profile (the coupled Vnav option), which was translated to the command bars on the flight director after takeoff from Runway 5 on our IFR flight.

Terrain AwarenessLeveling at 11,000 feet, a

solid overcast to the east was broken only by the Alps’ snow-covered peaks, but the new VSD function showed our ver-tical separation from the terrain along our flight path on one of the MFDs. The Apex also gave us the option of display-ing satellite weather, radar and stormscope data in any combi-nation on the PFD. Meanwhile, its TCAS I displayed surround-ing traffic and our vertical and horizontal separation.

With the autopilot engaged the Apex took us over our waypoints, culminating in a cou-pled NDB Rwy 24 approach to Les Eplatures (LSCG). The only inputs required were throttle adjustments. With overlay capa-bility, we could see the aircraft’s position on the approach chart displayed on one MFD.

The coupled Vnav handled

our descent, continuing through the procedure turn inbound until the final approach fix, Bomec, became active, at which point the Apex automatically switched to vertical guidance path (VGP) mode. As we broke out well above the valley floor, the run-way was directly ahead, nes-tled into the surrounding town. Executing the missed approach slightly above the minimum descent altitude (MDA) of 4,380 feet, all we had to do was push the go-around button on the throttle and advance it full for-ward and the Apex started flying us back to Geneva.

Pilatus will provide custom-ers with pricing information on the Build 7 upgrade options. The Primus Apex is also fac-tory installed in China’s Harbin Y-12 twin turboprop and the Viking Twin Otter, but upgrades to Build 7 for those aircraft have not yet commenced.

Buyers purchasing new PC-12NGs have two flight-deck packages available. The Premi-um package combines the ba-sic Apex with additional options most requested by U.S. and in-ternational customers, and is priced at $345,285 (U.S.). The Elite package is similar to the premium but eliminates options that European customers may not need, such as the capability to receive satellite weather, which is currently unavailable in Eu-rope, and is priced at $319,831 (U.S.). The purchase price of the Pilatus PC-12NG includes ground at flight training (provid-ed by SimCom in the U.S.).

As the flight to Geneva and back amply demonstrated, the Apex provides commercial air-craft level safety and redundancy to aircraft certified for single- pilot operations, and the Pilatus PC-12NG makes an ideal plat-form for its capabilities. o


Honeywell’s Primus Apex Build 7 software upgrade is now available. Some features have been added and some glitches resolved. The upgrade is free to Apex customers.

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refined elegance, on the wing

The interior of the Boeing Business Jet in the static display area here at EBACE wouldn’t look out of place in an elite interior design brochure. The warm wood finishes of the tables and bookcase dividers blend with the matching window treatments. Upholstery and furnishings bring to mind an elegant home-away-from-home.

Customers speak out on JSSI’s advisory boardby Bill Carey

Chicago-based JSSI (Stand 455), an independent provider of hourly cost maintenance pro-grams for aircraft engines, air-frames and APUs, convened its second European customer advi-sory board here in Geneva this week and came away with better knowledge of what it can do to help them contain their costs.

For example, Susan Marr, JSSI chief administrative officer, offered the following takeaway from Monday’s meeting. JSSI was asked: what about some-one who doesn’t use his APU as much? Is there a lesser cov-erage; is there a lesser price; are there different levels of coverage? “What a great idea. Instead of just one-size-fits-all APU cover-age, maybe we can provide a dif-ferent smorgasbord of coverage.”

“We like to think we’ve learned a whole lot about providing hourly cost maintenance pro-grams here in Europe,” Marr said. “We know our clients have good ideas. They come up with things that we would never think of.”

Louis Seno, JSSI chairman, president and CEO, told AIN that business relationships in Europe differ from those in the U.S., where maintenance pro-grams are driven predominantly by flight departments. In Europe, JSSI interfaces more with man-agement companies, which are focused on hourly costs ver-sus overall budgets. “With these management companies, we’ve really become a strategic partner,” he said. “We’re a very critical ele-ment in controlling the cost for that operator to their client.” o

Al Bateen team recruits rival MRO operators by James Wynbrandt

In the continuing develop-ment of Al Bateen Executive Airport into a dedicated business aviation hub, the Abu Dhabi Air-ports Company (ADAC), owner of the airport, and Jet Aviation Group signed a lease agreement at EBACE yesterday that will make the aviation services com-pany the first independent MRO provider on the field.

Jet Aviation has been provid-ing MRO services at Dubai Inter-national Airport, just across the border from Abu Dhabi, since 2005 through its Jet Aviation Dubai affiliate. Under the terms of the agreement signed yester-day, Jet Aviation will provide line maintenance at Al Bateen through a newly formed branch of Jet Aviation Dubai named Jet Aviation Abu Dhabi.

“We have often provided

aircraft-on-the-ground (AOG) services to all types of aircraft at Al Bateen for the past few years, and it makes perfect sense for us to expand our service delivery to Abu Dhabi,” said Michael Rucker,

senior vice president and general manager of Jet Aviation Dubai.

Steve Jones, general manager of Al Bateen Airport, cited Jet Aviation’s “excellent reputation for quality and business exper-tise” at the signing. “We are very happy to have such a globally rec-ognized brand” delivering FBO services at the airport, he said.

Jet Aviation Abu Dhabi plans to commence operations once all trade licenses are in hand.

While Jet Aviation may be the first MRO provider on the field, it may soon have company. ADAC also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) at EBACE yesterday with New Delhi-based Air Works, which provides MRO services as well as aircraft painting and refinishing.

Air Works currently has 14 locations across India and is an authorized service center for AgustaWestland, Bell Helicopter, Bombardier, Embraer, Garmin, Gulfstream, Hawker Beechcraft, Honeywell, Rockwell Collins and Superjet International. Under the MOU, ADAC and Air Works will enter discussions aimed at having the company open a facil-ity at the airport.

“Air Works and Al Bateen are a natural fit,” Jones said, and Air Works general manager Vivek Gour agreed, calling the proposed arrangement “highly beneficial for both parties. It provides Air Works access to world-class infrastruc-ture at the airport to provide high-quality MRO services to business aircraft in the region. In turn, Al Bateen will be able to add a critical element to its portfolio in its quest to offer a full suite of products and services to its customers.” o


Al Bateen Airport general manager Stephen Jones, seated left, signed a memorandum of understanding with Vivek Gour, seated right, general manager of MRO provider Air Works of India. Standing are (l-r) Yousif Al Hammadi, deputy general manager of Al Bateen; Ravi Menon,director, Al Bateen and Ashley Calaz senior manager, Al Bateen.

z Jetcraft’s Sales Approach Highest Level EverU.S.-based Jetcraft’s sales this year are heading toward the

company’s busiest ever as it nears its golden anniversary. Year-to-date, Jetcraft has sold 19 aircraft valued at $378 million; 60 percent of those sales were outside the U.S. Long-range jets are the dominant type sold, especially to key emerging markets in China, India, Russia and Africa, but the total also includes VVIP jets and helicopters. Pending deals through the end of the second quarter are expected to add another $200 million to the sales total for the year. Here at EBACE, Jetcraft has two Bombardier Challenger 604s on display. Jetcraft also has offices in Basel, Dubai and Moscow, and offices or representatives in five U.S. cities.

z EMS Introduces Aspire In-Flight ConnectivityEMS Aviation (Stand 443) is debuting its Aspire family of

satellite-based, in-flight connectivity systems at EBACE. The family includes the company’s new AirMail portable e-mail product and a color, touch-screen handset.

The recently certified Aspire 200 system began shipping in North America this spring and the first installation is under way on a Hawker 4000. Future installations on a Cessna Citation Sovereign and several other platforms are slated for completion by the end of the summer.

Aspire delivers voice and data connectivity to owners and operators of small- and medium-sized business aircraft, using standard wiring configurations and interfaces to support either Inmarsat or Iridium components. Users can easily change or upgrade systems without rewiring the aircraft or changing the avionics racks.

EMS Aviation intends to expand Aspire in phases and is pursuing additional supplemental type certifications for several other aircraft, including the Bombardier Challenger 300, Cessna Citation XLS/XLS+ and Dassault Falcon 2000.

z MAZ Aviation and Aerocon Quiet an ACJSaudi Arabian business aviation services group MAZ Aviation

Consulting joined forces with Van Nuys, California’s Aerocon Engineering to successfully solve a cabin-noise problem in an Airbus ACJ. Apparently, an ACJ owner, after taking delivery of his aircraft from the completion center, flew it for just a year before stopping operations “due to the high cabin noise.”

MAZ and Aerocon worked together for four weeks to solve the problem. They eventually managed to cut noise to an average 50 dB in the overall cabin, and even 46 dB in some areas, they said. As an added benefit, they also managed to reduce aircraft weight by 1,650 pounds.

z Air Support and Aviovision Team UpAir Support (Stand 842) of Billund, Denmark, and Aviovision

(Stand 859) of Leuven, Belgium, have partnered in providing two-way data connectivity between Air Support’s flight planning and crew briefing software and Aviovision’s Aviobook electronic flight bag (EFB) software.

Flight crews have a “one-chain” IT solution linking their present booking, scheduling and crew system with the PPS flight planning system exported to their EFB. Users who do not subscribe to the PPS flight planning and crew briefing system but use Aviobook EFB software can still receive aeronautical data services from Air Support PPS through Aviobook, because the two companies have a bilateral supply agreement.

z New Caribbean FBO Alliance FormedA new FBO group brought a ray of sunshine into EBACE this week.

The Caribbean FBO Alliance (CFBOA, Stand 957) chose Geneva as its launch venue as it wishes to attract more European private aviation business to the region. Interim president Deborah Aharon explained, “The key difference between us and existing [FBO] chains is that we are not a chain; we are an alliance of nine unique companies. We are all strong players who have been in the industry for a long time.”

The nine members are Lloyd’s Aviation, Anguilla; FBO2000, Antigua; Odyssey Aviation, the Bahamas; IslandAir, Grand Cayman; MN Aviation, Puerto Rico; Bohike International Airways, St. Croix; Arindell Aviation, St. Maarten; St. Thomas Jet Center, St. Thomas; and Provo Air Center in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

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Stephen Jones, left, general manager of Al Bateen Executive Airport in Abu Dhabi, signed a lease agreement here at EBACE with Peter Edwards, Group CEO of Jet Aviation, to provide MRO services.

Blackhawk rejuvenates older t-propsby Bill Carey

Turboprop engine special-ist Blackhawk of Waco, Texas, is celebrating its 300th engine upgrade at this year’s EBACE. The customer in question is Ger-many’s Reinhardt Michel, who owns and flies a Piper PA-31T Cheyenne, purchased in 2004.

Faced with the TBO limit on his existing PT6A-28 engines, Michel considered overhauling the existing engines or upgrad-ing with new engines. He opted for the Blackhawk XP135A con-version, including Hawkeye engine monitoring gauges, and also upgraded to new five-blade propellers from MT-Propeller of Atting, Germany.

The Blackhawk XP135A upgrades Cheyenne I, IA, II and IIXL models with no required

airframe modifications. It replaces original, early-generation engines with new Pratt & Whitney Can-ada PT6A-135As with full warran-ties. The new engines significantly increase climb and cruise perfor-mance, as well as resale value, while reducing total operating costs. Blackhawk is offering special pric-ing on the program this year.

Blackhawk was founded in 1999 and has facilities in Waco and Elizabethtown, North Car-olina. The company claims the largest installed fleet of STC twin-engine turboprop engine upgrades, making it the larg-est non-OEM buyer of new Pratt & Whitney Canada turbo-prop engines, with 1,250 units on order over a six-year period.

According to Blackhawk

president and CEO Jim Allmon, the option of completely replac-ing the powerplant represents far greater value than doing an over-haul. While the initial cost of an overhaul can seem lower, it is all too common for the process to lead to subsequent additional costs from the need to replace parts and potentially rent engines to keep fly-ing while the work is being done.

The Blackhawk upgrade costs between $875,000 and $915,000; a fixed, known cost. It delivers significantly better performance (40 to 50 knots more speed), and lower fuel and maintenance costs.

The company’s latest upgrade package is for the Cessna Car-avan. It is to be FAA-approved next month, with EASA likely to follow by November. o

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TAG Aviation inspires ‘passion’ from top downby R. Randall Padfield

Mansour Ojjeh, head of the privately owned TAG Group, said he had stepped off an air-plane less than a half an hour before he sat down in the con-ference room of TAG’s impres-sive EBACE chalet to talk to AIN. The chalet (Stand 7020), as AIN’s EBACE Convention News reported yesterday, contains a spectacular collection of original art presented by Opera Gallery in Geneva, in association with Art-liner, a company owned by Ojj-eh’s niece, Tatiana Ojjeh.

While aviation is only part of TAG Group’s businesses, which include a hotel (the Avia-tor in Farnborough, UK), com-mercial real estate, motorsport (McClaren Group) and agricul-ture, Ojjeh said he stays in touch with TAG Aviation Holding’s CEO Robert Wells and others in management “almost on a daily basis. I keep a close eye on our avi-ation business,” he said, “because it is my creation, my idea. It has the name of TAG on it, which is a symbol of excellence and success. We have a passion for aviation, which began when Azziz [Ojjeh’s brother] became interested in it.”

Azziz Ojjeh is also a prin-cipal of the TAG Group and involved in its leadership. The brothers inherited TAG after the death of their father, Akram Ojjeh, in 1991.

Mansour Ojjeh explained it is important for everyone at TAG Aviation to maintain the com-pany’s image for quality service. “I believe in the future and in TAG’s business case to do things

differently and consistently bet-ter than the competition. We can be competitive, but we can’t lose our focus on quality service. This has to come from the top down,” he said, “from the top management to the managers, to the pilots and flight attendants and maintenance technicians.”

Looking toward the future,

Ojjeh sees Europe and Asia as TAG’s main growth areas, with a continued focus on aircraft man-agement, charter and maintenance. “There’s still room for growth in these businesses in Europe and obviously in Asia,” he said.

“We have the FBO at Farnborough, because we own the airport, and the FBO here in Geneva,” he said, “but becom-ing a big FBO chain is not our intention.” However, Ojjeh said

he’s always looking for oppor-tunities, and AIN observed that TAG Asia in Hong Kong just added an Airbus A319 Corpo-rate Jet. Could his mention of “opportunities” mean a TAG FBO in Hong Kong or else-where in Asia? “It depends,” he answered, though not with much enthusiasm, and added that TAG Asia now has 24 man-aged airplanes after only two years of operation.

Overall, TAG Aviation man-ages more than 100 business jets, Ojjeh said, and only two of these are company owned. When TAG began its charter

operations, it owned a core fleet of 14 aircraft, he said.

Regarding expansion to other parts of the world, such as Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, Ojjeh said, he’s interested, but that the company “has only so much resources,” and he wants to maintain TAG’s reputation for quality. He said he does not think TAG will go back into the U.S. market. o

36 EBACE Convention News • May 19, 2011 • www.ainonline.

Mansour Ojjeh and niece Tatiana Ojjeh stand in front of “Les Quatre Acrobates” by Fernand Léger. TAG plans to use the chalet at other aviation events.

z Jet Aviation Basel To Use Ovation Select in BBJJet Aviation Basel will install Honeywell’s Ovation Select cabin

management system in a BBJ currently undergoing completion at the facility. The system provides total control of the cabin environment–lighting, seat, temperature, galley and window shade controls–through icon-based, touchscreen passenger interface devices, all with a similar look and feel, whether it’s a drink-rail-mounted personal control unit or wireless handheld remote. Jet Aviation Basel has in-house design and engineering departments, along with on-site cabinetry, upholstery, fiberglass and paint shops. It can outfit jets as large as an Airbus ACJ380 or Boeing 747-8.

z Fokker Touts New Cabin Surveillance SystemFokker Aircraft Services (Stand 1338) is here promoting its

Direct View cabin surveillance system for VIP aircraft. Devised for flight attendants, it has a positive knock-on effect on the cabin design. The first example of Direct View was installed in a converted Airbus A320 delivered in April at Fokker’s facility in Woensdrecht, Netherlands.

The product is intended as a way for flight attendants to have a direct view of every passenger during takeoff and landing. To permit this, cabin designers often have to include glass windows and other see-through arrangements in the dividing walls, Stephen Hands, Fokker Aircraft Services’ v-p for marketing and sales, told AIN. Therefore the aircraft’s owner has to choose between such layout arrangements or adding flight attendants.

Geneva-based operator Masterjet took possession of the A320 fitted with Direct View. The aircraft also features a five-section cabin layout, including a private suite with bedroom, bathroom and office. Soundproofing brings down cabin noise to 52 to 53 dB “in the main private and lounge areas.”

z Al Jaber Positions Airbus A318 Elite Plus in SaudiAbu Dhabi-based charter operator Al Jaber Aviation has

positioned an Airbus ACJ318 Elite Plus in Saudi Arabia, the company announced here at EBACE. By being closer to “some key clients,” as head of sales Ivan Tehaghapsao said, Al Jaber will be “more responsive,” saving them time and offering lower costs than foreign-based aircraft. Saudi Arabia is still the Middle East’s largest private aviation market.

Al Jaber also has launched aircraft management, sales, consultancy and acquisition activities.

z Honeywell Offers Mechanical Protection PlansHoneywell (Stand 7044/7052) has introduced its mechanical

protection plan, an extended repair and replacement program, for select Gulfstream and Pilatus models. The program provides coverage for mechanical parts for the environmental control systems and cabin pressure control systems of the Gulfstream G350/400/450/500/550/GIV/GIV-SP/V and the Pilatus PC-12 and PC-12NG. The protection plan also offers full coverage on exchange and repair services at a fixed price as well as 24/7 AOG service and loaner parts at no charge.

z ExecuJet Germany Wins Shell Gold FuelingBritish fuel supplier Shell Aviation (Stand 1343) has awarded

ExecuJet Germany’s Berlin Schönefeld Airport FBO its Gold Fueling Award. The award acknowledges health, safety, security and environmental performance. ExecuJet Aviation Group (Stand 242) won the tender to operate the general aviation terminal at the airport in January 2010. There are about 1,000 movements a month at the facility.

ExecuJet’s Zurich facility celebrated its 10th anniversary in March. Back in 2001 the company managed just 15 aircraft, some of which are still in its fleet today. Revenues are still strong for the Zurich-headquartered group.

Other aspects of the company’s business are also flourishing. Worldwide ExecuJet’s fuel sales have increased 65 percent over the last year, a substantial leap when compared to 2008/9.

ExecuJet has also launched an in-flight magazine, due to go live in September, which it will place in its chain of FBOs and on board its managed aircraft.

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Absolute Taste Caters to the TAG Group and Expands In-Flight Catering to Geneva

The breathtaking artworks by Picasso, Chagall and oth-er masters gracing the TAG Group’s chalet (Stand 7020) are garnering lots of attention among EBACE attendees. But that’s not the only display of fine taste admired by guests at the pavilion–so is the food prepared by London-based caterer Absolute Taste.

The catering company was started in 1997 by chef Lyn-dy Redding and Ron Dennis, chairman and CEO of the Mc-Claren Group, to provide catering for the McClaren Group’s racing team. With the founders’ passion for fresh ingredi-ents, stylish presentation and bespoke service, the compa-ny soon became exclusive caterer for the TAG Group, and has grown from its initial staff of two to 300.

“We call ourselves cousins,” Redding said of the rela-tionship the company enjoys with the McClaren and TAG Groups. “It’s like working with family.”

Today Absolute Taste operates a restaurant and cafés, caters grand events worldwide, and handles all catering for

the TAG Group at EBACE as well as the Farnborough, Par-is and Dubai airshows. But business aviation users can also enjoy the company’s tasteful services though its air-craft catering division, Absolute Taste Inflight. Available at seven London airports and other select locations, menus range from fine dining featuring some of the world’s rar-est wines to the lighter fare of its Squairmeals service, de-signed for smaller aircraft where standards are high but space for food preparation is limited.

The company also offers training for cabin crews in in-flight food presentation, etiquette, food safety and menu planning. If you came to EBACE on a business aircraft, you can try their air fare for yourself. Absolute Taste estab-lished a catering facility in Geneva last November.

“We’ve assembled a great local Swiss and French staff and a great kitchen ten minutes from the airport,” Redding said. “We can provide catering for anyone going home on a flight from here.” –J.W.

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Ruag flexes its muscle as a top MRO centerby Mark Phelps

Swiss-based aerospace tech-nology group Ruag is justifiably proud of a recent blitz project. A Bombardier Global Express entered its hangar in Munich and rolled out just 12 weeks later after a complete (10-year) 8C-check, with a landing gear overhaul, fresh paint job and interior refurbishment for good measure. The challenge was met through expert coordination and planning. For example, the exte-rior paint was stripped and the old interior removed before the

aircraft rolled into the mainte-nance hangar for the 8-C check. Ruag project manager Dr. Felix Pütz reports the customer was pleased, not only with the result but also with the transparent communication before and dur-ing the work, and Ruag’s adher-ence to the agreed timetable.

Ruag (Stand 150) also has the systems expertise to apply custom-ized integration of cockpit avionics and cabin electronics. For exam-ple, the company holds an EASA supplemental type certificate for

its Hi-Speed Satcom solution for the Citation CJ product line and the Embraer Legacy 600/650. The package includes the high-speed broadband Aviator 200 for the Citations and Aviator 300 for the Embraer models. Passengers enjoy an Internet connection for iPads, mobile smartphones and laptop computers.

For emergency AOG (air-craft on the ground) situa-tions, Ruag recently launched its AOG Support Center. Cen-tered in Munich, the AOG net-work is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Emer-gency maintenance crews are standing by at Ruag’s Geneva, Lugano, Bern and Munich locations to come to the assis-tance of crews stranded by maintenance issues. o

Ruag has performed an 8C-check, landing gear overhaul and paint/interior refurb on this Global in just 12 weeks.

Comlux. The contracts they signed this week largely vali-dated the commonly held view that demand for larger models is firmer than at the light end. But there have also been a smattering of deals involving smaller aircraft, too, suggesting that the lifeblood of new orders may once again be reaching bizav’s extremities.

At a show where manufactur-ers once fell over each other in the scramble to announce new air-craft, Dassault threw down a new gauntlet to the super-midsized sector by unveiling plans for the new Falcon 2000S. It is a jet very much of its time, being con-sciously designed with an eco-nomic price tag and judiciously pared-back performance.

As usual, there has been inno-vation aplenty on the show floor with a wealth of new cockpit technology to enhance safety and efficiency, and yet more elegance at the client end of the aircraft in the cabin. Meanwhile, exhibitors–drawn from an increasingly wide radius now spanning the Middle East, Africa and Asia–have been

feverishly forging new alliances with each other, providing further proof that opportunity is once again out there to be grasped by the bold and the resourceful.

Plenty then to inspire and encourage the 12,673 regis-tered visitors logged as of close of business last night. That’s an impressive footfall that takes us back to the glory years of this great show, around the middle of the last decade, and yet now the EBACE crowd seems so much wiser for all it has endured these past few years. Here’s hoping that come EBACE 2012, they will be wiser still, and also wealthier. o

More than a feeling?uContinued from page 1

intercontinental ambitions could mean that a London-Mumbai city pair would be just the sort of reach being targeted for Piaggio’s first jet. At a distance of 3,900 nm, this would mean a 2,440-nm range increase over the P.180 Avanti II, which can fly for 1,450 nm. To achieve this extension, the OEM would have to either increase the cabin and engine sizes, which would come into the large-cabin, 7,000-pound-thrust category, or add fuel capacity.

Piaggio will be ready to present its designs for the P1XX, plus sup-plier selection suggestions, to its shareholders by this summer. This potentially clears the way for a program launch at this October’s NBAA convention in Las Vegas.

Trombetta said the jet would not be “much bigger” than the com-pany’s twin-pusher turboprop, so increased fuel capacity is the likelier option. Either way, the aircraft will probably be substantially differ-ent from the Avanti, but he stressed that it not compete with the P.180.

The Avanti is also due for some upgrades by 2012, namely a 200- to 300-nm increase in range and a new braking system,

as well as a lower external noise footprint and cabin connectivity.

Piaggio (Stand 2143) is also working on improving customer support. “We have an impor-tant customer base, and will make more equipment available,” Trombetta said. After a million flight hours there is enough data on the P.180 for Piaggio to ascer-tain which components are most useful for its dealers to stock.

The new boss has spent some of his time at EBACE meeting his team of sales agents, which he is expanding worldwide, par-ticularly into emerging markets. The P.180 has now been STC’d for Brazil, Australia and India and is to achieve its Russian ticket this June. The company is also working with the Chinese Civil Aviation Authority on a Chinese certification. o

Piaggio jet grows legsuContinued from page 1

Eligio Trombetta

z EVO Jet Introduces New JetPay CardAircraft ground services provider EVO Jet

Services (Stand 583) is promoting its new JetPay Card here at EBACE. “Our JetPay Card earns revenue via administration fees and contract fuel, so we do not need to make money on landing permit fees, flight plans, briefing packages or handling set-ups,” said Ryan Blair, the Hong Kong-based group’s manager of card services. “If a client uses JetPay Card, we provide support at no extra cost.”

According to EVO, the card offers complete transparency, requires no deposits and also offers handling discounts.

Ground handlers benefit because EVO Jet aims to have JetPay become a primary credit facilitator, promising a payment system with no built-in credit charges. Additionally, merchants are paid within 10 days and are not dependent on getting a contract with a large flight-support company that controls a pool of operators.

EVO Jet specializes in selling fuel worldwide either directly or via strategic partners. The company offers contract fuel at more than 2,500 locations and ground support at more than 250 airports in Europe and Asia.

z Zenith Jet Posts 10-year ForecastSome 11,103 business jets worth $240 billion will

be delivered over the next 10 years, according to the second annual industry forecast published last Wednesday by Montreal-based business aviation services firm Zenith Jet. The exhaustive 40-page “bottom up” forecast estimates compounded annual growth of 15 percent for new business jet

shipments from now until 2016, the predicted peak year with 1,468 delivered jets worth $31.6 billion.

Based on a historical six-year business cycle, George Tsopeis, author of the Zenith Jet forecast, foresees a trough in 2018, although at 985 aircraft worth $21.7 billion this still bests the 730 jets valued at $16.7 billion he forecasts for this year and the 870 jets valued at $19.9 billion for next year. “There is no way for the industry to grow continuously over 10 years,” he told AIN, referring to other forecasts that trend the top line continuously over the forecast horizon. “So we looked at the historical cycles to forecast a trough, not just a peak.”

Though the main focus these days are large-cabin jets, the light jet segment is predicted to lead in terms of volume, with 4,111 aircraft expected to be delivered between this year and the end of 2020.

z Ocean Sky, MedAire Agree On CoverageOcean Sky’s VIP charter passengers and crews

will have ’round-the-clock access to specialized medical care on a global basis, based on a new agreement between London-based Ocean Sky (Stand 1251) and MedAire (Stand 627) of Tempe, Ariz.

Effective July 1, Ocean Sky will offer a standard, fleetwide MedAire safety management program, including access to emergency care doctors, onboard medical kits and aviation medical training for all pilots and flight attendants. On the ground, Ocean Sky crew and VIP travelers will have access to MedAire’s medical, security and travel advice via a co-branded Ocean Sky/MedAire membership card.

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Goodrich (Stand 1755) is showing its Platinum HD cabin management system for business jets. Monitors are available in sizes from 12 to 42 inches. The system, which fea-tures two Blu-ray players on Goodrich’s demo here at the show, offers 1080p definition. Mike Hammers, in charge of Goodrich Cabin Electronic Sys-tems’ business development, told AIN the first customer BBJ equipped with Platinum HD is to be delivered in the third quarter of this year. n

News Note

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