A European team is using an ancient business jet to try and beat a world record set in a high-tech effort by the late Steve Fossett. In 2005 Fossett flew nonstop around the world in a well-financed effort that set the circumnavigation record at 67 hours and two minutes. Riccardo Mortara, owner of a Swiss-based charter company called Sonnig, thinks he and his three fellow crew members can beat that time in a 1980 Sabreliner 65 and will launch from Geneva March 19. "We've had a great response to the announcement of our mission," Mortara said on his Facebook wall.
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Business aircraft activity is up considerably, bucking a trend that saw an overall decline in general aviation activity (it's down 3 percent overall) in the U.S. according to FlightAware. In its monthly analysis of aircraft movements, the popular online tracking and data site says private jet traffic is up a whopping 8.8 percent in February, compared to the same month in 2009. Turboprop was up 2.2 percent but the tale of the tape was in charter and fractional operations. Charters were up 16.5 percent and fractional traffic 6.5 percent, perhaps reflecting a shift from ownership to charters for economic and public relations reasons. Every other sector of GA activity measured by FlightAware was down.
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The helicopter market never seems to be as volatile as other sectors of GA and Rolls-Royce's annual forecast for turbine helicopters seems to bear that out. The civilian market has been down a bit, but the military market has been rock steady, and the resurgence in civilian orders will give manufacturers a boost in the next 10 years. Helicopters are a necessity and new ways to use them are being exploited all the time so Ken Roberts, president of Rolls-Royce helicopter engines said in a presentation at Heli-Expo 2010 he's expecting strong demand to continue. Rolls-Royce is predicting worldwide demand for civilian helicopters at 10,300 units through 2019 and 6,100 for the military.
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Robinson Helicopters has set the price for its new R66 turbine-powered helicopter at $770,000 and founder Frank Robinson told Rotorhub.com he expects the aircraft's introduction to help the company recover from a tough year. Speaking at Heli-Expo 2010 in Houston, Robinson said the turbine version of his popular design is "a little bit smoother, a little bit quieter and a little bit faster than the [piston] R44." He said certification is imminent and an early production rate of two helicopters a week is planned. Robinson, never one to mince words, placed blame for the industry's troubles directly on the banking industry. "The problem was those damn bankers – rather than provide loans to people like they were supposed to, they used the $700 billion bail-out money to make acquisitions, to buy other companies, and give themselves bonuses," he said. Although they chose less colorful language, other top helicopter executives mentioned the availability of capital as critical to the recovery of the industry and there were some signs that the market is starting to loosen.
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