Flight Training - January 2014 - 15

NEWS

Spirit of innovation alive and
well at Redbird Migration

BY IAN J. TWOMBLY

"ARE WE AVIATORS or are we
Gregoire defended the role
accountants?" That rhetoriof motion in flight training.
cal question from Redbird's
Redbird has spent the past
Jerry Gregoire summed up
year studying students who
the attitude and much of the
learned maneuvers first in
focus at the 2013 Redbird
the simulator and then tranMigration in October.
sitioned to the airplane. "The
As Redbird moves fortotal training time didn't
ward, it's clear the company
decrease, but the airplane
is focused on controlling
time did," he said. Gregoire
the costs associated with
also introduced Redbird's
FLIGHT TRAINING magazine
all facets of aviation-from
helicopter motion training
was featured at the Redbird
Migration.
learning to fly to owning
device, a platform he said
an airplane. And Gregoire
can save rotorcraft students
answered his own question. "We're aviathousands of dollars in training. The comtors and we're going to fix it," he said.
pany is expected to officially release the
In its third year, the Redbird Migration
simulator at Sun 'n Fun 2014.
is a variation on a traditional conference,
Craig Fuller, chairman of the Redbird
bringing together flight training profesboard of directors and former AOPA
sionals and industry executives quick to
president, presented the findings of the
confirm their commitment to this imporSkyport's $1-per-gallon avgas experiment.
tant end of the aviation market. Most
Much to Gregoire's relief, they found that
presentations had the energy of an induscheaper fuel did increase activity. Over the
try more focused on innovation, big ideas,
period of a few weeks, Redbird pumped
and the need to take risks to increase the
90,000 gallons into 1,016 unique aircraft
pilot community and flying activity.
that came from 300 different airports.

Cessna CEO says Skycatcher has 'no future'
BY ALTON K. MARSH

CESSNA AIRCRAFT PRESIDENT and CEO Scott Ernest gave updates on nearly the

complete lineup of Cessna products during the National Business Aviation Association
convention in October-but made it clear there are issues he doesn't want to talk about.
Those issues include the Skycatcher and the incident involving the Cessna 182 JT-A
equipped with an SMA diesel engine that had an off-airport landing August 21 after an
engine failure. Ernest spoke to reporters at a press conference held at NBAA.
The diesel-engine Cessna 182 JT-A is moving along the certification track. Asked
if the cause of an engine failure has been determined that occurred during testing 30
miles west of Wichita, Ernest deferred, pointing out certification is continuing. Ernest
referred further questions to Senior Vice President for Engineering Michael Thacker,
who said after the press conference that he could not discuss the type of testing in progress at the time of the engine failure.
Asked about the Light Sport Skycatcher by another reporter during the press conference, Ernest summed up the aircraft by simply saying, "No future." After the press
conference, Jodi Noah, who heads up the propeller-driven product line at Cessna, said
the company had Skycatchers available for delivery and that it was still in their product
line. A recent check of FAA records suggests that about 87 of the light sport airplanes are
still owned by Cessna. None are currently in production, she said. Ernest said after the
news conference that the airplane simply failed to find a home in the marketplace.

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Flight Training - January 2014

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