By: Chad Trautvetter
Business Aviation The fourth annual Future of Business Jets conference will be staged in London from November 10 to 11 at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel. It will address prospects in emerging markets such as the Middle East, Brazil, India and China.
Also on the program are issues such as environmental impact, security restrictions, financial challenges, future business aviation airports, legislative and insurance issues. Notable scheduled speakers include EBAA president and CEO Brian Humphries and TSA general aviation manager Brian Delauter.
View the original article here
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
UK club welcomes VFR helicopter operations
By: Charles Alcock
Heliports Helicopter operators wanting to fly into London now have a less costly alternative to the London Heliport at Battersea. Aircraft charter broker Jet Booking Direct is offering the use of a temporary landing site at The Ham Polo Club for VFR movements only.
Operators wanting to land at Ham will have to be pre-approved as meeting the UK Civil Aviation Authority’s rule five congestion clearance requirements and carry at least $5 million in liability insurance. Then they need to give at least 24 hours’ notice to Jet Booking Direct, which arranges the landing with the club.
A landing fee of £180 ($275) is charged for helicopters of any size and this includes one hour of parking. Additional parking is charged at £60 ($92) per hour. These rates are significantly less than those at the London Heliport, where landing fees range from around £350 ($535) to £1,500 ($2,295) and parking is charged at £300 ($460) per hour (or less for longer stays booked in advance).
The London Heliport is still the UK capital’s only fully licensed public heliport. It can handle IFR operations between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., while the Ham site is strictly limited to daylight operations.
Both facilities are on the south bank of the Thames River. The driving distance from Hyde Park Corner in central London is just under 9 miles from Ham and only 3.5 miles from Battersea. Jet Booking Direct envisions that some operators might opt to drop passengers at the London Heliport and then use Ham for less expensive parking.
London Heliport owners the Von Essen hotel group recently updated the facility, which now features a new terminal and adjoining five-star hotel. The facility is operated by Von Essen group company PremiAir.
View the original article here
Heliports Helicopter operators wanting to fly into London now have a less costly alternative to the London Heliport at Battersea. Aircraft charter broker Jet Booking Direct is offering the use of a temporary landing site at The Ham Polo Club for VFR movements only.
Operators wanting to land at Ham will have to be pre-approved as meeting the UK Civil Aviation Authority’s rule five congestion clearance requirements and carry at least $5 million in liability insurance. Then they need to give at least 24 hours’ notice to Jet Booking Direct, which arranges the landing with the club.
A landing fee of £180 ($275) is charged for helicopters of any size and this includes one hour of parking. Additional parking is charged at £60 ($92) per hour. These rates are significantly less than those at the London Heliport, where landing fees range from around £350 ($535) to £1,500 ($2,295) and parking is charged at £300 ($460) per hour (or less for longer stays booked in advance).
The London Heliport is still the UK capital’s only fully licensed public heliport. It can handle IFR operations between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., while the Ham site is strictly limited to daylight operations.
Both facilities are on the south bank of the Thames River. The driving distance from Hyde Park Corner in central London is just under 9 miles from Ham and only 3.5 miles from Battersea. Jet Booking Direct envisions that some operators might opt to drop passengers at the London Heliport and then use Ham for less expensive parking.
London Heliport owners the Von Essen hotel group recently updated the facility, which now features a new terminal and adjoining five-star hotel. The facility is operated by Von Essen group company PremiAir.
View the original article here
Simulator tech just keeps evolving
By: Andrew Wood
Training Just when we might have thought that flight simulators are about as “leading edge” as they can get, it turns out that the engineers have been busy developing new concepts.
Training Just when we might have thought that flight simulators are about as “leading edge” as they can get, it turns out that the engineers have been busy developing new concepts.
At the UK’s Farnborough airshow in July, European flight simulator manufacturer Thales introduced a fixed-wing simulator in which the flight-deck module for one aircraft type could be lifted out of the simulator–leaving the visual system behind–and replaced by that of a different type. The company’s initial offering is an Airbus A320/Boeing 737 combination, and is aimed at smaller airlines that operate both types. The company has not indicated whether it has its eye on such things as a GV/Global Express combo.
But while Thales has introduced the first fixed-wing convertible machine, its Canadian competitor, CAE, did a similar thing with an Indian partner some years ago with a moving-base helicopter simulator, offering a selection of four separate cockpits. After the exchange, the removed cockpit is placed into a docking station that has its own visual system, and becomes a fixed-base simulator. Peter Jarvis, the company’s chief technical officer, said CAE’s fixed-wing simulator line could be adapted to dual-cab operation, but questioned the market demand as well as the cost and efficiency benefits. On the other hand, he pointed out that in-situ cockpits of “family” pairs such as the GIV/GV and Embraer E170/190 are routinely converted at training centers by changing some control panels and software programs.
FlightSafety sees little benefit in interchangeable cockpits although, like CAE, it also converts “family pairs” of aircraft. “The question we always ask about any new concept,” said v-p for simulation Rick Armstrong, “is how does it train a pilot better than what we already have?” That, he said, was what drove FlightSafety’s pioneering investment in replacing hydraulics with electric-powered motion five years ago, and is what is now driving the company’s research into higher-accuracy and distortion-free visual systems. Work is also going on in improving icing models, weather simulation and upset training.
Sim Experiences To Rival the Real World
But more things are going on behind the closed doors of research laboratories. Ideally, for simulation to be totally effective, a pilot with experience on a certain aircraft type should never feel that the simulator environment is a “close, but no cigar” copy of the real thing, since such feelings distract from the training experience. We can therefore expect that cockpit noise effects–including even subtle avionics noise–will become even more realistic, from start-up to shutdown.
Motion, too, will more precisely mirror the cockpit environment, clearly differentiating, for example, between a heavy landing and a smooth “greaser,” and accurately representing changes in cockpit vibrations.
And the most difficult simulation of all, the full simulation of positive and negative g, is getting closer, although it seems unlikely to be able to reproduce an equivalent slightly heavy sensation in one’s arms as the simulation presses the seat into one’s back in a positive-g event.
At ICAO, in partnership with the UK’s Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) and the flight-training industry, a concerted effort is now under way to both advance and internationally standardize computer-based and flight simulator training, under the aegis of the Next Generation of Aviation Professionals. Designed specifically for the airline industry, where many overseas training departments are noticing a slightly deteriorating quality in new hires, the objective is to introduce “performance-based” (sometimes called “competency-based”) standards. The idea–although over-simplified here–is to produce young pilots who not only have the basic motor skills to fly straight and level and land the aircraft in an emergency, but who can also fully appreciate what’s going on throughout the flight, along with an understanding of what today’s complex systems are actually doing, plus their inter-relationships with each other, rather than merely pushing buttons. Also, it clearly establishes the roles and responsibilities of captain and copilot.
This is the Multi Crew Pilot License (MCPL) training formula, and extensive studies have shown that this type of training–coupled, of course, with actual flight training–develops a level of capabilities four times more quickly than the traditional ways of accumulating experience. It certainly appears to be based on sounder principles than the recent Congressional view that 1,500 hours (even when spent in small piston singles) makes for an acceptable copilot in an advanced turbine aircraft. The MCPL concept is now fairly widely accepted overseas, but it is unclear whether U.S. authorities will consider it equal to the 1,500 hours Congress requires.
Phenom 100 Brakes Face Scrutiny
By: Chad Trautvetter
Business Aviation, Accidents The NTSB is investigating a September 10 incident in which an Embraer Phenom 100 suffered minor damage upon landing in Brenham, Texas. The light twinjet experienced a runway excursion at Brenham Municipal Airport after its brakes failed and both main gear tires blew.
Business Aviation, Accidents The NTSB is investigating a September 10 incident in which an Embraer Phenom 100 suffered minor damage upon landing in Brenham, Texas. The light twinjet experienced a runway excursion at Brenham Municipal Airport after its brakes failed and both main gear tires blew.
According to the pilot’s statement, the crew received a brake fail warning soon after takeoff from Tucson International Airport, but continued to their destination. After touchdown, the pilot noted “zero” braking and applied the emergency brakes.
As the tires blew, the crew lost directional control of the aircraft and it skidded off the left side of the runway, causing the right main gear to collapse when it reached muddy turf on the east side of Runway 16. The pilot and copilot were uninjured.
The incident bears similarities to another dual tire blowout on a Phenom 100 landing at Mammoth Yosemite Airport in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., in March, though the NTSB told has not investigated that incident.
Spectrum Air Starting Bizjet Flights
By: Chad Trautvetter
Charter and Fractional Charter broker Spectrum Air is launching scheduled nonstop business jet flights between Van Nuys, Calif., and Teterboro, N.J., on October 10. Travelers will be able to make per-seat reservations on the flights, at a cost of $3,950 each way, including all fees and catering.
Charter and Fractional Charter broker Spectrum Air is launching scheduled nonstop business jet flights between Van Nuys, Calif., and Teterboro, N.J., on October 10. Travelers will be able to make per-seat reservations on the flights, at a cost of $3,950 each way, including all fees and catering.
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