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Aviation History
1997
1997 - 0442.PDF
GENERAL AVIATION NEWS IN BRIEF • CORPORATE CHINESE The Chinese Government has ordered five Canadair Corporate JetLiners from Bombardier in a deal valued at $116 million. The aircraft, a corporate version of the 50- seat Canadair Regional Jet, will be operated by the mili tary-run China United Air lines and used as government VIP transports. The first three are due for delivery this year, and the rest in 1998. • AEROSPORT AGENT DM Aerospace of Man chester has been appointed exclusive UK importer of the Thorp T-211 Aerosport two- seat single-engined trainer. The aircraft is manufactured in the USA by Venture Light Aircraft Resources and has been unavailable in the UK since the early 1990s. JAA alarms GA operators with proposal for new ETOPS limit RAMON LOPEZ/WASHINGTON DC GENERAL-AVIATION (GA) industry officials believe that a European Joint Aviation Au thorities (JAA) proposal to impose a 120min extended-range-twin- engine-operation (ETOPS) limit on twin-engined business aircraft would severely hamper their oper ations. Late in 1996, a JA\ Operations Committee issued a Notice of Proposed Amendment which would set a 120min ETOPS threshold for business aircraft in commercial operations. It is the first move by an aviation authority to set the maximum distance which a twin-engined business aircraft may be flown from a suitable air field. The move would initially affect European-registered air craft, but ultimately other business aircraft might be hit. The US General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) opposes the proposal and, as a compromise, it urges adoption of a 18()min limit, which would exempt virtually all long- range twin-engined business air craft from the planned ETOPS requirement. Ron Swanda, GAVIA's vice- president for operations, fears that the measure would harm business- aviation sales. He says that there is no safety justification for a 120min rule since there have been no ETOPS-related accidents in more than 30 years of extended-range operations of twin-engined busi ness aircraft. If an ETOPS requirement is to be imposed, then business aircraft and airline-operated aircraft should both be eligible for 180min ETOPS, he argues. He says that the US Federal Aviation Administration backs GAVlAs position, and manufactur ers estimate that non-recurring costs to the industry for ETOPS certification could alone exceed S200 million. "The logical solution would be to adopt a 180min ETOPS thresh old, which would maintain the margin of safety while averting unnecessary certification costs," says Swanda. Interested parties have until 31 March to comment on the pro posed rule, which could go into effect 12 months later. J CAN YOU AFFORD THE TIME TO SOLVE THE GPS PUZZLE? Scheduling your airline's operations around the holes in GPS coverage can cost your company valuable time. And money. If you use GPS and RAIM, you have holes. Integrating your GPS and RAIM with Inertial still leaves gaps. Even adding WAAS, LAAS and EGNOS doesn't solve the problem. Worse yet, as GPS satellite failures occur the holes get bigger, sometimes causing costly flight delays that can last for hours. In fact, with only three satellites failed, the ability of RAIM to detect a failed satellite, exclude it and achieve Non Precision Approach integrity is down to 56%. Is your airline willing to buy a system with only 56% coverage when it could have 99.999%? AIME'M technology is a new development from Litton. AIME integrates GPS and Inertial into a Sole Means of Navigation, worldwide, 24 hours a day. With no holes in geographic or temporal coverage. To fill in the missing pieces, call (818) 226-AIME. A E R 0 PROD U C T S Litton AIME@msgate.littonapd.com 24 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 29 January - 4 February 1997
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