Search Results for: Citation X

On March 4, 2008, a Citation 500 with five people aboard took off from Wiley Post Airport in Oklahoma City. Two minutes later, it lay a smoking wreckage in a wooded area four miles away. Many witnesses saw the crash. One reported hearing what “sounded like an engine compressor stall” — that is, a loud […]

Enhanced vision technology firm Max-Viz announced its EVS-1500 is now in service on a Cessna Citation S550 (Citation II) operated by Robertson Racing. In addition, Max-Viz announced an STC approval in association with One Sky Aviation to install EVS-1500 systems on Eurocopter AS-350s and EC-130s.

What a world. I had just landed the Dornier Seastar flying boat in the Gulf of Mexico a few miles off the Florida coast. We shut down the engines and were sitting on top of the Seastar cabin enjoying the view and wishing for a fishing pole when Dornier Seaplane Co. CEO Joe Walker called […]

Last week, Cessna has announced the resumption of production of its Sovereign twinjet. The company also announced it had hired back 60 workers, with 120 more to be reinstated in the coming weeks. Even with the announcement, Cessna now plans to build even fewer jets in 2010 than the 275 it delivered last year. That […]

Some pilots are, by nature, worriers. They worry about fuel, about engine failures, about hazardous weather, about midair collisions. Bluntly, pilots worry about things that can kill them. But do they worry about the right things? In other words, does the risk framework that most of us construct in our personal aviation universe reflect the reality of the serious killers in aircraft accidents? Our guess is that it does not, unless pilots are out there really sweating about stalls, spins and controlled flight into terrain. And even if the pilot population is wide awake about these hazards, it could do a better job of avoiding them. Stalls and CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) pop up as the two biggies in fatal accidents in general aviation to a degree that, frankly, startles us.

The flying public will never witness a white-haired captain shuffling a walker through the terminal, but the improbable image seems closer to reality now that airline pilots can fly to the age of 65. My colleagues who fought the new legislation are probably not laughing, however. Statistics indicate that medical issues, mostly cardiac, increase as […]

There used to be this guy on late-night television who would promote a home decorating store and would yell, “It ain’t just paint!” Wandering around Wittman Field at Oshkosh during AirVenture, I was reminded once again that, for me, the annual gathering “ain’t just planes!” Sure, on display there were more than 2,500 airplanes of […]

With typical Midwest pragmatism, Cessna addressed the clear problems it faces while also outlining its reasons for optimism. At his press conference during the NBAA convention, Cessna Chairman, President and CEO Jack Pelton acknowledged the grim reality of layoffs. The work force at Cessna has contracted to 10,000 employees from 18,000 at this time last […]

Anyone whos spent much time flying personal aircraft has been asked this question: Is it safe? As a rule, the answer is, “It depends.” Because safety is relative, sitting at home can be the safest course of action. But its usually not very rewarding, and sitting at home makes it much more difficult to travel in a personal aircraft. Beginning on page 24 of this issue, we look at a recent accident the NTSB attributed to low-level maneuvering. In critiquing that accident, we referred to the AOPA Air Safety Foundation (AOPA/ASF) and its most recent Nall Report, an annual in-depth look at GA accident trends. The data in those annual reports is very intriguing; so much so, we thought wed examine some of it more closely. We wanted to pose the question, “Is it safe to do X?” when X is some operation, maneuver or decision made by a GA pilot. While every operation and skill level is different, what we really wanted to do is highlight some of the areas in which GA pilots routinely bend metal, with the idea of using the 2007 Nall Report, the most recent available, and its findings to demonstrate why doing what youre about to do might not be a good idea.

This year’s NBAA convention fund raiser for the Corporate Angel Network (CAN) will consist of a silent auction and a live auction to be conducted during the NBAA/CAN Charity Benefit on the evening of Oct. 22. If you aren’t among the estimated 900 paid attendees for the closing event, you can still bid online the […]