50th Paris Internationa Air Show Le Bourget

From Monday 17 June to Sunday 23 JUne 2013.

Welcome to the 50th International Paris Air Show. This event is the occasion to discouver with your family and frends the aeronatics industry and its most beautiful and inventive novelties. The International Paris Air Show also offers the oppotunity to promote the companies that are producing, investing and innovating in Seine-Sant-Denis.

A Gulfstream G200 business jet set two city-pair speed records this year, connecting Savannah, Ga., to Keflavik, Iceland, and Keflavik to Vnukovo, Russia. The large-cabin, mid-range G200 flew 2,915 nautical miles from Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport to Keflavik International Airport with an average speed of Mach 0.75. It also flew 1,827 nautical miles from Keflavik to Vnukovo, near Moscow at Mach 0.80.

Flexjet 25 Jet Card offers Napa holiday bonus

The Flexjet 25 Jet Card offers the luxury gift of private flight, and includes a Napa Valley bonus if purchased before Jan. 15. The promotion includes a dinner for two prepared by "Iron Chef" star Masaharu Morimoto, as well as a cooking class and wine tasting at his Morimoto Napa restaurant. The jet card retails for $132,000 and includes up to 35 hours of flight time on private jets.

General aviation anticipates Chinese market for aircraft

General aviation aircraft manufacturers are eying the Chinese market after the country opened up its airspace below 12,000 feet. According to the Chinese media, the country has more than 1,000 general aviation aircraft, but only 200 helicopters. However, China could manufacture its own helicopters by 2020, sources say.

USA  aircraft specialist is looking to cash in on China's increasing demand for pilots and its resolve to open up the sky to general aviation.

Headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, Textron Inc, has built a factory exclusively to make aircraft for pilot training in Shenyang of Liaoning province. Textron owns brands such as Bell Helicopter and Cessna aircraft.

"For both Cessna and Bell Helicopter, clearly the biggest market opportunity is in China," said Scott C. Donnelly, president and chief executive officer of Textron.

A report by Boeing, released on Sept 16, predicted that China will need 70,600 pilots and 96,400 aircrew members in the next 20 years.

However, Textron's decision was initiated years before Boeing's report. In 2007, Textron built an important partnership with Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC) located in Shenyang, Liaoning province in Northeast China, to produce the Cessna 162 Skycatcher light sport aircraft exclusively for pilot training.

Although the factory only commenced production this year, Textron expects the production volume will reach 300 aircraft a year. More than 1,000 orders have arrived so far, of which 70 percent are from Canada and the United States.

"This is the first time we have a partner in manufacturing aircraft outside the US," said Donnelly, adding Textron looked all over the world for the right partner.

The decision was made not just to save costs, so as to make the aircraft affordable to trainee pilots, but also to gain a foothold in China's huge aviation market, he said.

Donnelly sees the wide gap in the number of Cessna aircraft flying in China and the US as a big reason for optimism.

There are a total of 208 Cessna airplanes (24 Citations, 10 Caravans and 174 Pistons) in China, while in the US the number is 83,314 (3,675 Citations, 600 Caravans and 79,039 Pistons), more than 400 times that of China, according to figures from Textron.

"The gap results from the (restricted) air space," Donnelly explained.

More business people in China have started to buy business jets and a growing number of people want to learn to fly.

But the restrictions on both business jets and pilot training are still stiff, making the procedure extremely complicated.

"China has more businesses than ever before, so once the air space is allowed to utilize general aviation, you will see many businesses benefiting from it," Donnelly said.

Donnelly added that the aviation sector has a heavy reliance on general aviation, and he found what the Chinese government has been saying and doing is very encouraging.

"It has been clearly moving in the direction of seeing growth in general aviation," he said.

A survey by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said 20,535 persons had received aircraft pilot licenses from the CAAC by the end of last November.

Korea Aerospace Industries will fly its single-engine KC-100 piston-engine aircraft soon in preparation for entering the market in 2013. The four-passenger aircraft, claimed to fly at 240KTAS, went undiscovered until Hartzell announced it was buillding a propeller for it. The aircraft uses a three-blade Hartzell composite propeller on a Continental TSIOF-550 engine with full autority digital engine control (FADEC), rated at 315 hosepower at 2500 rpm.

from AOPA news

Following two years of "deterioration," business travel via private jet is on the rise. According to a UBS research report, the number of flights on business jets jumped 5% in December -- the first monthly jump since the middle of 2007. The New York Times