Search Results for: general aviation inc

Russell Meyer, Jr., current chairman emeritus and past chairman and CEO of Cessna, which he led from 1975 to 2003, will be inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. Russ Meyer is largely credited with promoting product liability legislation in 1994, which became known as the General Aviation Revitalization Act. Following passage of that […]

U.S. Representative Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.) didn’t mince words when assessing the TSA’s Large Aircraft Security Program (LASP). After a meeting with the TSA on March 10th, the congressman said, “This is a prime example of a stupid rule. Simply put, the threat does not warrant this level of regulation.” Under provisions of LASP, passengers on […]

Build A Plane is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity that aims to promote aviation by allowing young people to help rebuild existing aircraft. The organization solicits donations of aircraft and then regifts them to schools across the country for students to build or refurbish real airplanes. Build A Plane operates in formal partnership with the […]

With worldwide panic over the economic crisis and cautious euphoria over the presidential election, aviation can expect to assume back burner status for the foreseeable future. There are no hot button issues affecting the general public, and that means concerns of pilots and others who are neck-deep in this industry will just have to wait. […]

Speaking at a National Journal policy breakfast last week, representatives from both competing presidential campaigns were not very illuminating when it came to the subject of where their bosses stood on general aviation issues. Senator Barack Obama’s transportation advisor noted the need for greater investment in aviation infrastructure, including “getting an ATC system that works.” […]

Decades ago, aviation gasoline contributed a tiny percentage of the overall lead pollution in the United States. But after EPA standards were installed in 1978, other sources-most profoundly, leaded auto fuel-were outlawed, leaving aviation fuel as one of the top lead polluters. Though avgas today still represents a tiny fraction of what was emitted 30 […]

Hows this for an aviation truism? “The best pilots possess the superior judgment to avoid situations requiring their superior skills to survive.” While arguably more true than a whole wealth of aeronautical truisms, it doesnt provide much guidance in our quest to become one of those wiser and more-capable aviators. Which raises an obvious question: How does one develop such profound judgment? Old, no-longer-bold, aviators (another truism) generally know the answer: by surviving unwanted experiences. Which reminds us that experience is hands-down the best teacher, something we hear repeatedly. Were not saying that experience is the safest teacher; obviously, the learning pilot faces elevated risks in the course of gaining the experience from which wisdom grows. A safer approach, of course, is absorbing tribal knowledge from those sobering hangar-flying tales of others experiences we hear and read. Another approach is to sample risky situations from safely within the confines of a full-motion cockpit simulator capable of providing exposure to palm-sweating situations without the, you know, danger. In the end, however, we have to emerge from the sim, leave the comfort of our fellow hangar flyers, and actually put on an airplane and fly it.

European private equity firm Permira agreed last month to sell business aviation service company Jet Aviation for a reported $2.25 billion. Permira bought the Swiss-based general aviation conglomerate in 2005 for an estimated $700 million from an ownership group led by the Hirschmann family. The late Carl Hirschmann founded Jet Aviation decades ago. With its […]

For the first time the total value of general aviation airplanes delivered in 2007 broke through the $20 billion mark. Thanks to a 28 percent increase in business jet shipments, and an 11 percent growth in the numbers of turboprops, total billings by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association were $21.9 billion worldwide, up a whopping […]

Fortunately for those of us who fly, runway incursions that cause accidents are relatively rare. But thats not to say incursions themselves are rare: Runway blunders have become an everyday thing, so much so that NASAs Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) has thousands of incident reports best described as coulda-beens. We recently reviewed an intriguing report on this subject delivered to the [IMGCAP(1)]International Symposium on Aviation Psychology in Dayton, Ohio, last April by Dr. Ed Wischmeyer, an aviation researcher and contributor to our sister publication, KITPLANES. Wischmeyer mined some 2000-plus ASRS reports collected between January 2003 and January 2006. His search criteria sought out reports on ground conflict and ground incursion incidents. This search yielded 1049 relevant reports, 723 of which were from turbine operators and 326 from smaller piston aircraft on personal or instructional flights.