Here’s a rundown of some of the press day news here in Atlanta:

• Piaggio upbeat at show despite halving of deliveries from 2009
• Universal launches Android navigation app
• EMS Aspire offers rich connectivity for small aircraft
• VIDEO & PICTURES – Inside the new Gulfstream flagship
• BizJet International hands over second BBJ to Boeing
• Cessna reboots its flagship Citation
  Turboprop royalty: Beechcraft 350i King Air
• Aircell broadband gets EASA approval for Challenger
• Embraer’s Legacy 650 and Lineage 1000 make show debuts
• Heritage Aviation to offer BLR winglets
• Aerion gets supersonic test results
• Large-cabin aircraft to drive business aviation industry recovery

Gulfstream’s G250 is making its show debut here in Atlanta after a 14h 31min, 6,192nm from Tel Aviv, with station stops in Shannon, Bangor and Savannah.

Ronen Shapira, chief pilot for Israel Aerospace Industries and the G250 was accompanied on the transatlantic crossing by Captains Ravi Palter and pilot Dov Davidor on the trip from Tel Aviv, along with technicians Uzi Mizrahi and Amir Levi.

The longest of three legs for Serial Number 2003 (4X-WBJ) clocked in at 5h 49m, between Israel to Shannon, Ireland, was stretched to 6h 12min and included avionics testing in Ireland. The testing included a full approach, missed approach testing of the aircraft’s Rockwell Collins Pro Line Fusion avionics, for which the G250 is the launch customer.

As it transited through Europe, Shapira says air traffic control frequently called up to the new jet to ask what type of aircraft the crew as flying. Prior to its flight, the aircraft had received reduce vertical separation mimumums (RVSM) approval, enabling its 41,000ft initial cruise and later climb to 43,000ft on the first leg to Ireland.

Shapira says this was not the aircraft longest flight for the G250 since its first flight, 2003’s second flight topped out at 7h 1m.

As part of the first over-water crossing, the super mid-size Honeywell HTF7250G-powered twin flew no more than about 400nm from land at any time during the transatlantic leg.

The aircraft touched down on US soil for the first time on October 15 in Bangor, Maine after another 5h and 56min leg, landing in dreadful weather conditions, prompting a 30 degree, 20 gusting to 29kt crosswind approach in heavy rain.

“We had landed previous with a higher crosswind component in Israel,” says Shapira, a former IAF F-15 pilot. “It was quite uneventful. When you consider the integration between the airplane, the auto-pilot, the auto-throttles and the new wing, you have and airplane with flying qualities very similar to the G550.”

The aircraft departed Bangor on 16 October with 8,600lbs of fuel – below maximum – and climbed directly to 43,000ft at Mach .80 in 18m and flew to Savannah, Georgia, home to the head office of Gulfstream Aerospace, touching down at 11:25 local time.

The aircraft, serial number 2003 transitioned to Atlanta and Peachtree DeKalb Airport on Sunday marking the types show debut along side the large-cabin high-speed Gulfstream G650.

Following its visit to NBAA, G250 will continue its flight test campaign in the US, heading to Bakersfield, California for far-field noise testing and high altitude takeoff performance in Alamosa, Colorado. The aircraft will visit Savannah once again before returning to Tel Aviv. Shapira says the aircraft plans to return to the US in January for natural icing tests.

For the G250, 2011 will be spent accomplishing its certification campaign as it aims for joint certification from European, American and Israeli regulators, with first delivery to follow by the end of that year.

Two additional airframes, S1 and F1, are part of the static and fatigue ground test campaigns. Limit load testing has already been completed and ultimate load testing is under way.

Further more, the G250 integration test facility has also completed more than 1,400h of testing on software version 2.1, which is currently flying on the test fleet.

As of October 12, the G250 had completed more than 214h over 73 flights since first flying in December.  The three aircraft flight test program includes dedicated aircraft for aircraft performance, systems, and avionics testing.

Map Credit Gulfstream

On the other end of the aviation spectrum from the A380s and 787s of the world lies a flying squirrel suit and an unhealthy addition to adrenaline. Jeb Corliss, my new personal hero, zips along at unimaginable speeds across mountain ridges all over the planet. This was just too darn impressive not to share. Special thanks to Andrew Stroman for passing it along.

Bombardier kicked off NBAA 2010 with by preempting its own Monday announcement by unveiling its new Global 7000 and 8000 large-cabin business jets. There has been significant Industry buzz around the new jets, which were first believe to have prompted the Canadian airframer to reveal the details around its largest business aircraft two days ahead of its planned October 18 press conference in Atlanta.

Bombardier says its October 16 release was not moved up due to any outside speculation, rather it was “always the plan to issue the news and start an interaction with journalists.”

The family of aircraft, the Global 7000 and 8000, grows the company’s existing Global Express XRS and Global 5000 products with a new high-speed transonic wing. The Global 7000, which is the larger of the two aircraft features a high-speed mach .90 cruise or a 7,300nm range at mach .85. The aircraft, Bombardier claims, features a 20% larger cabin than the “current market leader”, which Bombardier says is its Global Express XRS. The Global 7000 will be the first of new pair to enter service in 2016.

The Global 8000, a designation that appears to correspond to its 7,900nm range at mach .85 and features a similar high-speed cruise. The cabin of the 8000 is around 19% larger than the Global 5000, which will remain as a product offering along with the Global Express XRS. The aircraft is set for entry into service in 2017.

The aircraft also sport windows that have 80% more surface area than the current Global family. Bombardier says the General Electric TechX engine with 16,500 lbs of thrust and is the first aircraft to be powered by GE’s new family of engines.

Photo Credit Bombardier

With four days to go before the world gets its first look at Bombardier’s M170 at NBAA, there are indications the Canadian airframer’s new design is a stretch of its Global 5000 and Global Express XRS family. Bombardier appears to have opted for the same 106in (8ft 10in) cross section for the M170 family, keeping the aircraft within 2in of the Gulfstream G650.

BUSAN & SACHEON — The striking topography of Busan draws immediate comparisons to San Francisco with its ivory Gwangan suspension bridge connecting the popular tourist beaches of Haeundae to the Suyeong, where the city’s massive port moves everything from cars and ships to semiconductors and consumer electronics. Busan is the world’s fifth largest port and South Korea’s second most populous city on the southeastern tip of the Korean peninsula, with lush rolling green hills dotted with clusters of near-identical high-capacity apartment buildings.

On this side of the planet, Boeing’s 787’s supply chain operates away from the western spotlight shined on Everett, Charleston, Foggia and Derby. The Dreamliner’s Asian supply chain has largely been hidden from view since 2006, when empty factories were filled with nothing but promise. Today, Boeing holds its Asian partners up as exemplary members of its global supply chain, underscoring the quality, reliability and completion level of structures coming to final assembly.

Tucked back from the taxiways of Busan’s Gimhae International Airport at Korean Airlines Aerospace Division (KAL-ASD), a factory is in a state of perpetual movement as it builds composite components for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner. With nearly five years of 787 production under its belt, the company is already building parts for the 62nd 787, which will be the fourth for Doha-based Gulf carrier Qatar Airways next year.

To walk around KAL-ASD, you can see the story of the 787 on display. As they ready for shipment to Fuji Heavy Industries, the upper panel stringers for the Section 11 center wing box display a question-mark shaped bite removed from the once flat edge. That bite taken out of the the stringer serves as the basis for the side-of-body modification that curtailed 787’s first flight in June 2009.

Once performed at final assembly in Everett, and later in Charleston, the side-of-body stringer cutout was done in a cramped, confined phone booth-sized working space that required artificial light and a respirator. That fix, now a simple cut from the stringer at the beginning of production is a healed scar once apparent on the surface, now driven deep into the supply chain far from final assembly.

While a telling sign of the 787’s maturation, the innocuous cutouts are a reminder of how challenging it has been for Boeing to get to this point for the program. As two nodes on a network of suppliers, KAL-ASD and nearby Korean Aerospace Industries (KAI) will have to flow information and parts around the globe three times faster than they do today to meet Boeing’s 787 ramp up by 2013, a daunting task that may be even more challenging than those already vanquished.

What happened on the week of June 26, 2007?

Apple released its iPhone and Boeing rolled out its 787.

This is not the first time the fortunes of Boeing and Apple have overlapped. Their respective design and global supply chain philosophies draw from the same inspiration.

Both the iPhone and
787 would carry their company’s branding on the side, though under the skin is an
integrated piece of technology brought together by a myriad of global
suppliers guided by the OEM’s design philosophy.

“Apple invented the iPod, markets it, sells it, supports it, and
integrated the whole concept. But they don’t care about building it,”
Aboulafia wrote in a letter to clients. “With the 787, Boeing is moving
in Apple’s direction.”

Though, as history as shown, that
model has worked better for Apple than it did for Boeing.

The similarities go even deeper with the foundational technologies that
drive these products. Apple built scalable technologies like multi-touch and iOS starting with the iPhone. For Boeing, the 787’s
more-electric architecture and common core computing system are cut
from the same cloth; technologies intended to scale up or down to a 737
or 777 replacement. For Apple we see this today in the iPods Nano and Touch and
iPad. Just think of the Dreamliner Gallery as Boeing’s version of the App Store.

Today, Boeing released a new 787 video advertisement on its newairplane.com site today incorporating air to air footage shot during flight test along with a group of very pleased business class passengers. The ad was part of a new campaign by Boeing to publicize the Dreamliner, which is also appearing in print form in the pages of Flight International and Aviation Week at the moment.

When I first watched the ad, what immediately stuck out was not the visuals, but the music. It seemed very familiar. Where had I heard something similar before? And it hit me, Boeing’s 787 was channeling the Apple’s iPhone once again. Listen for yourself:

During San Francisco Fleet Week, which took place this past weekend, United Airlines flew a 747-400 (N173UA) in an aerial display over the city’s bay allowing for some specular images. This shot almost reminds me of the old Kai Tak approach. Special thanks to Brad Waler for allowing me to share this image.

Photo Credit Brad Waler