Last week, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) praised the EASA Committee’s vote on EASA Opinion 06/2015, which contains a regulatory framework for Commercial Air Transport (CAT) operations using Single-Engine Turbine aeroplanes at night or in Instrument Meteorological Conditions (SET-IMC).

The vote on the regulation is a key milestone in completing two decades of technical work between industry and regulators, and places Europe on a path to align with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) standards for CAT operations. The Committee is compromised of the European Commission and national experts from each EU country.

“This new regulation will help expand the market for passenger transport to underserved markets and improve overnight cargo delivery not only in central Europe, but in the remote regions of the continent as well,” GAMA Vice President of Operations Jens Hennig said. “EASA has led the way to establish a safety framework for these operations, and we applaud their leadership on this long-standing policy issue. It is a welcome development for manufacturers, operators, and service providers.”

The endorsement will please Textron which is preparing to name its new clean sheet Single Engined Turboprop at Oshkosh Air Venture later this month, along with established players including Pilatus, Daher and Piper Aircraft.

JetFly runs a fractional ownership with PC-12s and has a base at Denham, UK.

Single-Engined IRC will open up a new category in bizav, help widen the customer pool, introduce more people to the value of charter and create more business for smaller airfields like Goodwood, Fairoaks and Cranfield in the UK.

There are six principal single engine models in service today. These include the unpressurised, but rugged, Cessna Caravan - with a range of 1,071nm; Daher’s high speed TBM 900/950 with a max range of 1,585 nm; One Aviation’s Kestrel (popular in the US) with a range of 1,300nm; the Pilatus PC-12NG with its 1,830 nm, 285 knots performance; The Piper Meridian Piper PA46-500TP with a range of 1,300nm and the Quest Kodiak with a range of 1,132nm.

SETOps 2016 Conference announced

Seizing the potential and acknowledging growing interest in this sector, Emerald Media, in collaboration with BlueSky, plan to hold a one day SETOps 2016 Conference at London Oxford Airport on 18th October at the CAE Oxford Aviation Authority. The one day conference will take a similar format to the highly successful HeliOps Conference they ran in June last year at the London Heliport.

At this stage we are interested to hear from operators, suppliers and owners as we plan this event. Speakers, programme and sponsors will be confirmed shortly.