Falcon delivery - Executive Jet has taken delivery of the first Dassault Falcon 2000 business jet for its Netjets fractional ownership programmes. The Woodbridge, New Jersey-based company has ordered 38 Falcon 2000s in total - 26 aircraft for the US programme and 12 for the European operation - and ranks as Dassault's largest single customer. Six more Falcon 2000s are due for delivery to Executive Jet by the end of the year. Crash Cause - The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says that singer John Denver was killed after failing to switch fuel tanks on his newly acquired Rutan Aircraft Factory homebuilt Long E-Z and inadvertently putting it into a roll. The NTSB recommends that the US Federal Aviation Administration develop a training programme for novice experimental aircraft pilots. It also urges the FAA to demand improved markings on fuel gauges and the fuel tank selector handle. Denver was killed on 12 October, 1997, after leaving Monterey Peninsula Airport for practice take-offs and landings. Piston Change - Textron Lycoming has changed the style of piston-pin retaining plugs installed in all models of new production engines and new replacement-cylinder kits, in response to a fault in engines damaged by failures of the old pins. The new parts will be of aluminium and bronze, designed to have a better life expectancy. The problems surfaced in November when Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University was forced to ground its 35 Cessna 172R Skyhawks following engine damage from excessive wear of the retaining plugs.
Source: Flight International
