News

Sino Swearingen Aircraft Corporation (SSAC) last week announced completion of another major milestone before starting deliveries of its SJ30-2 business jet: completion of airframe icing tests. According to the company, the final flight test was completed on March 1 and included simulating a 45-minute hold in maximum continuous icing conditions. The flight was crewed by […]

Raytheon Aircraft Company last week said it had received FAA certification of the newest member in its Hawker business jet family, the Hawker 850XP, a growth version of the venerable marque. The 850XP’s major innovation is the addition of winglets to the basic and highly successful Hawker 800 series, which Raytheon says is part of […]

It’s relatively easy for even casual observers to conclude that the reason for the ATA’s keen interest in user fees is to somehow reduce competition from the general and business aviation industry. Of course, it’s no great secret that non-scheduled aircraft operations have consistently increased in the past few years as airline delays have increased […]

Are the various proposals calling for new user fees to be imposed on some types of general aviation operations — turbine aircraft, for instance, but not piston-powered ones — designed to weaken opposition to them from among the non-scheduled portion of the aviation industry? Is all of this designed to drive a wedge between certain […]

…the next issue of AVweb‘s BizAVflash will be e-mailed to you on Mar. 15. See you then…

AVweb‘s sister publications Aviation Consumer and IFR want to hear pilot’s experiences with non-jet fractional ownership companies. If you own, or have owned, a share in a piston-powered aircraft through a fractional ownership company and are interested in sharing your experiences, drop a note to ifr.editor@gmail.com.

Signature Flight Support last week said it named Mike Conrad as general manager of its FBO at McCarran International Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas. Conrad had been with the Aircraft Service International Group (ASIG), a “sister” company of Signature’s owned by parent BBA Aviation Services Group, where he served as regional vice president. Conrad has […]

Flexjet, the fractional operation run by Canadian airframer Bombardier, said this week it is expanding its services into its home country. In essence, Flexjet is diverting three aircraft in its corporate fleet — two Learjet 45s and a Challenger 604 — to dedicated domestic service out of Montreal. Initially, ten pilots will crew the three […]

If the fractional industry’s 800-lb. gorilla is bulking up by hiring new pilots, is that good or bad for the rest of the industry? No, we don’t have the answer — yet — but we might by the end of the year. NetJets Aviation said last week that it plans to hire some 450 additional […]

We’re fairly certain last week’s failure of an Airbus A380 wing during a static load test conducted in France will have little impact on the type’s certification and service entry. Still, it was an embarrassment for Airbus and its Wichita-based unit, Airbus North America Engineering, may have a little more work to do before placing […]