AOPA gets new president

AOPA President Phil Boyer, who’s been hinting at retirement for several years, announced today that he’ll “get my life back” at the end of this year after 18 years as president of AOPA. Replacing him will be Craig Fuller, a former Washington heavyweight who is currently executive vice president at the Washington PR firm of APCO Worldwide. He came to Washington as President Ronald Reagan’s assistant for cabinet affairs and served as Vice President George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff. Fuller has been a pilot for 40 years and “is as comfortable with fellow pilots and ‘hangar talk’ as he is facing a Congressional committee,” said AOPA Chairman William C. Trimble III.

Read Phil’s email to the press

Cirrus Rolls Out ‘The Jet’

Well, we still don’t know its real name and we’re not sure if it got out of the massive former Northwest Airlines A320 maintenance hangar on its own power but it sure looks like Cirrus’s new family jet is ready to fly. Sporting a red-on-white paint scheme that gives it a sleeker look than the mock-up’s more sedate gold-on-white, the aircraft looks like a display airplane and that’s what those attending Cirrus’s annual Migration and the folks at EAA AirVenture are hoping for as the jet is obviously nearing first flight. The aircraft was formally introduced exactly a year ago at last year’s Cirrus Migration and more than 400 refundable deposits of $100,000 have been received.

Source: AVWeb

Revolutionary Hawker 4000 Receives FAA Approval to Begin Customer Deliveries

WICHITA, Kan. (June 12, 2008) – Hawker Beechcraft Corporation (HBC) received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Type Certification for the new flagship Hawker 4000 super-midsize business jet, allowing the company to begin delivering this revolutionary aircraft to customers this month. The Hawker 4000 is first in its class, first in the world and the world’s most advanced business jet based on its innovative composite construction. HBC concurrently received the FAA production certificate for the Hawker 4000.
“This is a historic step forward for Hawker Beechcraft, as our hard work and dedication on the Hawker 4000 program has resulted in the most luxurious, most innovative and most advanced super-midsize business jet in the world.” said Jim Schuster, HBC chairman and CEO. “We’ve put a tremendous amount of effort into the Hawker 4000 and are eager to fulfill our substantial backlog of worldwide customer orders.”

Read Hawker news release…

NATCA Endorses Obama for President

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association has given its endorsement for president to Senator Barack Obama, a champion of fair collective bargaining rights for controllers, a fierce advocate for aviation safety and holding the Federal Aviation Administration accountable, and a courageous, inspiring and devoted leader for working men and women nationwide.

“This has been a historic battle for the Democratic nomination and we feel extremely proud and excited to throw our complete support behind Senator Obama as we look ahead to the most important presidential election in the history of this nation’s aviation system and the most important for the air traffic controllers,” NATCA President Patrick Forrey said.

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New small jets spur concerns

new generation of small jets is threatening to clog congested airline routes and is raising safety concerns, according to air-traffic controllers and airline pilots.
By Alan Levin, USA TODAY

So-called very light jets (VLJs) began commercial service in the Southeast last year. Companies using them say they will revolutionize air travel by making it more practical and affordable.

However, the jets have created problems for controllers. The new planes are so much slower than larger airline jets that controllers must keep them out of the normal highways in the skies whenever traffic is heavy, said Steven Wallace, the local president of the National Air Traffic Controllers’ Association at Miami Center…

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Eclipse Goes Ahead With Single, Hikes Price Of Twin

Eclipse Aviation formally announced its intention to begin production of a $1.35 million single-engine jet called the Eclipse 400. The announcement was made earlier today at the company’s annual “E-rrival” event in Albuquerque. At the same time, Eclipse announced it was boosting the price of its twin-engine 500 model by more than $550,000 from $1.595 million to $2.15 million. The announcements came as Eclipse was celebrating the tenth anniversary of the company. In both cases, Eclipse founder and CEO Vern Raburn said they were ideas whose time had come.
Regarding the 400, Raburn said there was overwhelmingly positive response to the single-engine “Concept” jet unveiled at EAA AirVenture last year. The four-place aircraft is claimed by Eclipse to be the “world’s most fuel-efficient jet aircraft” and will be powered by a PW615F engine. Deliveries are planned for the end of 2011. Existing Eclipse 500 owners get first crack at one and a $125,000 discount if they order by July 25. It goes on the general market at EAA AirVenture. As for the price increase, Raburn said it costs more to build the Eclipse 500 than they thought it would and they aren’t able to build them in the kind of volume they thought they could so they had to increase the price. “Eclipse’s cost-driven pricing model requires Eclipse to re-examine aircraft pricing if actual costs change significantly from projections,” the company said in a news release.

Source: AVweb