Tag: BACE

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An SFAR Signed at NBAA BACE 2024

The machinations of rulemaking crank through on often mysterious schedules…and we’ve collectively as an industry both suffered and been rewarded as of late with the timeliness of FAA process.

But the stars aligned for NBAA’s team in particular on Tuesday at BACE in Las Vegas, as the FAA released the SFAR (special federal aviation regulation) governing the new powered lift category just in time for administrator Mike Whitaker to sign it into action after his appearance with NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen at the morning keynote. You could practically hear them popping corks in the D.C. offices all the way to Vegas.

This was the big news I’d alluded to in yesterday’s post. Yes, we have witnessed a milestone in the aviation story.

Mike Whitaker, FAA Administrator, delivers the great news on the SFAR on VTOL aircraft to Ed Bolen, president and CEO of NBAA at BACE 2024 Tuesday morning. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

The SFAR on Powered Lift

The ruling and its amendments outline the parameters for pilot certification, operating rules for powered-lift ops, and give guidance on how those aircraft will integrate into the national airspace system (NAS) with fixed- and rotor-wing aircraft. The rules are performance-based, for the most part, which means they generally tell OEMs and operators the metrics they need to achieve rather than prescribing strictly how they will achieve them.

That’s fantastic news for contenders in the market such as Joby, Archer, Lilium, and others who are well on their way into flight testing conforming (or near-conforming) initial production models, standing up the lines to make them, and building out training and support infrastructure.

JP Stewart and B.Marc Allen deliver the latest updates on the E9 hybrid electric STOL aircraft program at NBAA BACE 2024. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

Electra Aero and eSTOL

But wait… there was more in store yesterday in terms of truly new aircraft program updates. Though their big reveal of the E9 “G0” test article won’t take place til November 13, Electra Aero’s J.P. Stewart and B. Marc Allen walked the media through the progress of the two-seat demonstrator and its test campaign underway in northern Virginia.

As a fan of short takeoff and landing (STOL) airplanes, I love this concept, which uses blown and distributed lift to enable super-slow takeoff and landing speeds, bringing those distances reliably under 150 feet. Stewart reported that they had the airplane down to 22 knots in flight—and they haven’t found the stall speed yet.

Think about that for a second. I can’t wait to witness the 9-seat version flying, likely next year.

Bombardier founder Laurent Beaudoin and chairman Pierre Beaudoin of Bombardier with Lisa Stark receiving the Meritorious Service Award at NBAA BACE. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
In a conversation with Joby Aviation’s Bonny Simi, Neil de Grasse Tyson shows a letter from Orville Wright in highlighting the exponential nature of progress in the aerospace industry. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

Inspiration… in Great Leaders

The other keynotes also touched the SRO audience at the morning session. First, Laurent and Pierre Beaudoin, the father-and-son leaders of Bombardier, received the Meritorious Service Award from NBAA for their dedication to building a benchmark airframe OEM out of a company that manufactured snowmobiles in Quebec in the 1960s.

And Joby’s Bonny Simi—riding a serious high with the SFAR now enabling her to press forward in defining ops and training for the eVTOL OEM—delighted in her conversation with astrophysicist/personality Neil deGrasse Tyson. We all did. Tyson managed to paint with words the picture of his 9-year-old self first seeing the stars inside a planetarium, and feeling so moved that he would make astrophysics his life’s work. I’m putting his book, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, on my reading list. It’s one of Bonny’s faves, she says. Good enough for me.

The Bombardier Challenger 3500 at NBAA BACE 2024. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
Wiglets form one key part of the wing design on the Challenger 3500 that enable its legendary smooth ride. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
The Nuage seating highlights the updated interior on the Bombardier Challenger 3500. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

Inspiration… in Great Airplanes

In the afternoon, I made it out to the static display at Henderson airport (KHND), to meet up with Bombardier’s comms team for an introduction to the Challenger 3500. With this update to the legendary CL-30 type, Bombardier has made a workhorse of the corporate fleet into a thoroughbred. I don’t usually turn right upon entering a business jet, but I needed to try out the Nuage seats that line the bright, well-windowed cabin.

But I didn’t get too comfortable, because demo pilot Mark Ohlau had a tour ready for me of the Collins Pro Line 21 Advanced integrated flight deck. I nestled into the left seat behind the significant and traditional leather-covered yoke, and he walked me through the pilot-centered “dark cockpit,” so well organized that it doesn’t need an overhead panel. Ohlau especially likes the MultiScan weather radar, which has enabled his trips all around the globe in the airplane—including a recent bucket-list approach into Paro, Bhutan.

Stay tuned for a full pilot report to come…

The Arrivée Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet on the static display at NBAA BACE 2024. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
The Multi-Mission Daher Kodiak 900 Apex on the static display at NBAA BACE 2024. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

I visited other favorite airplanes on the display, in particular the latest Cirrus SR G7 launch edition, and the SF50 Vision Jet Microsoft Flight Sim edition, in honor of its inclusion in the latest release of that software. I also took some time to admire the latest Daher Kodiak 900, the multi-mission APEX version, with a digital camo paint scheme to suit its Swiss-Army-knife capabilities in the field.

Looking forward to my Day Three at the show…prepping for the Climbing.Fast panel with business aviation leaders who champion the sustainability cause. That facet of BACE kicked off Tuesday morning (early…yawn!) with a panel update co-hosted by GAMA.

I get up that early just to see what stylish (and sustainable?) ensemble Embraer’s Michael Amalfitano has pulled together… always check the socks.

The media breakfast on Tuesday championed the Climbing.Fast. program and progress made on various pillars of the push to net-zero emissions by 2025. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
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Media Day at NBAA BACE 2024

In times of uncertainty, what do people tend to do? Nothing.

Or perhaps more appropriately, they wait and see. They make incremental changes at most, staying a conservative course until some trigger releases them from this holding pattern.

Though the week will tell if this bears out, that sense of anticipation pervaded on the Monday before opening day of the National Business Aviation Association’s Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition 2024.

“‘I’d say uncertainty is the word right now,” said Rollie Vincent, founder of JetNet, in its annual state of the market briefing on October 21. “Whether it’s geopolitical, whether it’s political, election oriented, whether it’s ‘are we still going to like each other after a certain date on the calendar’…all these sorts of silly things, which aren’t so silly, because they create policy impacts that can drive our industry down, sideways, or in directions we don’t know.”

JetNet hosts the launch of WingX’s Global Insight Professional driving data into a concrete snapshot of business jet activity. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
Blackhawk Group’s Chad Cundiff introduces a series of new programs that the Blackhawk/Avex/Finnoff association will bring to the market. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
Nicolas Chabbert, CEO of Daher Aircraft, describes the customer service approach that has led to top scores in the segment in Professional Pilot surveys for 4 years running. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

Textron Aviation Puts Garmin G3000 Prime in CJ4 Gen3

Under the umbrella of that uncertainty, we still have innovation quietly laboring along, with tried-and-true platforms gaining from those evolutionary efforts. The news from Media Day—when the reporting pool and other associates move from press conference to luncheon to reception in hopes of gleaning stories from that access—bore out that observation.

Lannie O’Bannion, SVP of Sales and Flight Ops for TextAV, presents the CJ4 Gen3 model to owner Ryan Samples. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
Textron Aviation introduced the Citation CJ4 Gen3 as the launch platform for the new Garmin G3000 Prime flight deck, including Emergency Autoland, a first into the Citation line. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
Bombardier’s Éric Martel (center left) and flight test team receive NAA speed records from NAA CEO Amy Spowart at NBAA-BACE. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
  • Textron Aviation announced the latest upgrades to its 2,600-unit fleet of Citation CJs (the 525 series), with the CJ4 Gen3 as launch platform for Garmin’s G3000 Prime all-touch flight deck, complete with emergency Autoland.
  • Blackhawk Aerospace Group walked through its turboprop-forward portfolio, including enticing ways to improve the very proven King Air 350, Pilatus PC-12, and TBM 700 series, each with a higher-horsepower flavor of the also-proven Pratt & Whitney PT6A.
  • Bombardier celebrated its NAA speed-record-setting Global 7500, and the progress on the evolution to the “faster, further, smoother” Global 8000, which has topped Mach 1 in flight test. When certified, the 8000 upgrades can be applied to 7500s in the field—keeping that order book solid for sure.
  • Daher noted the EASA approval of the 5-blade Hartzell prop on the Kodiak 100, as well as its implementation on float-equipped aircraft. The lower rpm (2,000) of the new prop reduces the noise footprint enough (~6.6dBa) to meet European flyover standards.
In the Newsmakers luncheon, NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen brings together partners from across the aisle, Sam Graves and Rick Larsen to celebrate the passage of the FAA Reauthorization Bill. [Credit: Julie Boatman]

FAA Reauthorization Celebrated Too

At the Newsmakers Lunch, NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen hosted congressmen Sam Graves (R-Mo.) and Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), partners on the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee as chair and ranking member, in a recap of the FAA Authorization Bill and all of the wins tucked inside of it. There should be no uncertainty here… the bill passed with very little opposition. “I feel strong that we have the basis, regardless of which administration is the place, to say we’re very clear about what we want to get done,” said Larsen. “And so, it’s a matter of implementation. It’s not a matter of ‘do you want to do it or not do it?’ You do it—we made that clear.”

And while we’re waiting for the door to crack open on bigger news this week at the show, at least we have that message in place regardless of the election’s outcome next month. And maybe there is more to each of these nuggets of progress to discover—we’ll be diving into each one more deeply in the coming weeks.

A quiet space can be found in Vegas. [Credit: Julie Boatman]
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Heli-Expo Takes: a First for VAI

The biggest one yet? Perhaps not—but guaranteed there’s never been a Heli-Expo as widely ranging. It’s part of the reason the 70-year-plus organization went through a serious rebranding, to Vertical Aviation International, to encompass all types of vertical lift. Now that VTOLs (electric and otherwise) claw towards certification, VAI feels like a necessary pivot for an association that used to wear “helicopter” in its title and DNA.

My other key takeaways?

  1. This is a big-money show. It now approaches NBAA’s annual BACE in size and spend. Record crowds hovered into the last Heli-Expo (the 35th, before its rebranding to Verticon next year in 2025), bringing the total to 15,000. Last year’s BACE in Vegas hosted 20,000. For folks focused on fixed-wing lift, the numbers may surprise you—but they make sense to anyone watching this space take off.
  2. Women now take on more visible roles, since Karen Gebhart’s leadership a few years back. Now we have the dynamite Nicole Battjes serving as chairman of VAI’s board of directors this year. We caught up at lunch on day two, and her company, Rainbow Helicopters, plans significant growth in the years to come—even as the team garnered well deserved recognition for its efforts following the Lahaina fires.
  3. State of the art lift still centers on traditional rotorcraft designs, like the upcoming Bell 525, and the Leonardo AW09, both coming into TC later this year, perhaps. Fly-by-wire and envelope protection rule the immediate future, as these protocols enter maturity ahead of their incorporation into eVTOLs.
  4. Powerplants evolve too—witnessed by Safran, Airbus, GE, and Pratt & Whitney with carbon-based thrust as well as each OEM’s forays into electric, hybrid, and hydrogen power. Watch this space for the weekly reports coming out as each model enters or continues flight test on various platforms—on rotor, powered lift, and fixed-wing aircraft.