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Aviation History
1998
1998 - 2046.PDF
GENERAL AVIATION NEWS IN BRIEF • CENTURY FALCON The 100th re-engined Das sault Falcon 2 OB has been handed over by AlliedSignal and Garrett Aviation Services to a South Carolina-based company. The business jet is fitted with the higher thrust TFE731-5BR turbofan which extends range and per formance. The two com panies anticipate "at least 20 more retrofits beyond our current bookings". • CHALLENGER WORK CSE Engineering has taken delivery of a Bombardier Challenger 601 business jet, which it will maintain for a UK-based company. The CSE subsidiary has enlarged the hangar on its Oxford Airport site to "...accommo date larger aircraft". • NORTHERN CONTRACT Northern Executive Aviation (NEA) has signed an agree ment with Air BP to provide fuel for business and light air craft at its Manchester Air port base. NEA, which operates four Bombardier Learjet 35As and a Dassault Falcon 900B, is due to com plete its £1.5 million ($2.5 million) business aviation terminal in October. • EUROPE UNDER ATTACK The International Council of Aircraft Owner and Pilot Associations has attacked Europe's new "ATM Strat egy for 2000+" airspace mod ernisation plan for extending air traffic management to previously "unmanaged air space" used by the general aviation and aerial work com munities, which requires them to add equipment. • SKY ARROW Initiziative Industriali (Me teor) has received Federal Aviation Administration night visual flight rules certi fication for its Rotax-pow- ered Sky Arrow 650 TCN light aircraft. Scaled Composites takes HALO up to 12,000ft on first flight GUY NORRIS/MOJAVE SCALED Composites' Proteus proof of concept, high-altitude, long operation (HALO) aircraft made a successful first flight from the company's Mojave base in California on 26July. The all-composite, canard con figured aircraft is one of the most bizarre to emerge from the Burt Rutan stable. Piloted by Mike Melvill, die Proteus was flown for Ih 40min, achieving an altitude of 12,000ft (3,600m) and a speed of I00kt(185km/h). I he Proteus is powered by two Williams-Rolls FJ44-2 turbofans and is designed to be flown at alti tudes of between 51,000ft and 60,000ft. Although aimed initially at a communications relay role, the aircraft is also being considered for possible evaluation as an unman ned high-altitude reconnaissance platform, says the manufacturer. In its role as a relay aircraft, the Proteus would orbit at high alti tudes over a citv for between 12h andl8h. The aircraft has a maximum take-off weight of 5,700kg (12,5001b), of which 910kg is the payload. This consists of a 6.1m- diameter pod, suspended beneath •""^B ^H M^i~. PBOTt-l^ ^. --^M^ *^^^ The first flight of the all-composite canard-configured Proteus lasted for lb 40m hi the tube-like fuselage, which hous es a communications antenna. To maintain accurate pointing, the antenna will be mechanically sta bilised in pitch and roll. The anhedral wingtips are also dielectric, rendering them trans- parent to electromagnetic signals and therefore preventing them from interfering with the antenna when the Proteus is turning, or flying wing down to maintain sta tion in a cross wind. Although funded by Scaled Composite parent company Wy- man-Gordon, the Proteus is aimed at companies such as St Louis, Missouri-based Angel Tech nologies, which would use the air craft to provide cellular telephone and broadband data services. At least three aircraft would be required to maintain a 24h service, two for sequential flights and a third as a "hot spare". Each aircraft would carry two crew, with one crew at a time resting. • Low-cost fractional ownership scheme launched in USA ANEW FRACTIONAL own ership scheme has been set up in the USA, providing business air craft at less than half the cost of existing programmes. AVLink, a College Station, Texas-based management com pany, has started operating one Cessna Citation 1 and has plans to add more to the fleet. "We have signed two customers and are talking to a number of interested parties," says AVLink president Dewayne Eidson. A sec ond Citation 1 is scheduled for delivery in September and a third by the end of 1998. "In five years time we plan to have a fleet of about 22 Citation Is. We are also explor ing the possibility of adding a Raytheon Hawker 800 in around 2002," he adds. AVLink is aimed at first time aircraft buyers and small US-based companies that produce an annual turnover of around S10 million. "We are appealing to a more economical and cost con scious market," says Eidson. AVlink sells shares in a "corpora tion", the only asset of which is the aircraft, unlike the situation in existing programmes, where shares are sold in an aircraft. "This not only provides the customer with liability protection against a poten tial law suit in the event of an acci dent, and the obvious tax deduction, depreciation and expense privileges, but it offers complete security," says Eidson. AVlink also claims to sell its shares at prices much below those of rivals like Bombardier's Flexjet and Executive Jet's Netjets frac tional ownership programmes. "A one-eighth share [lOOh annual utilisation] in a Citation 1 costs $265,000. Flexjet's lowest available price is for a Learjet 31 A, which costs S773,000 for an equiv alent share. Of course the customer has to sacrifice an extra seat and cruise speed is slower, but it depends what they consider to be more important," says Eidson. The client will pay a monthly management fee of $3,400 and a charge of $989 per in-use hour - "significantly less than existing programmes", he adds. • 28 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 5 - 11 August 1998
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