News from the NAAA

From Brian Jacobson, Operations Director at the NAAA:  Current market conditions indicate that there have been no radical changes in aircraft values over the past month.  Piston singles and twins are continuing to be impacted the most by avgas prices and those values are holding steady or declining.  There are buyers for these aircraft but these buyers are selecting only the "best of breed" and paying lower than normal prices due the current market conditions.  Aircraft with problems such as missing log books, damage history or dated equipment are being passed by and these aircraft will become increasingly more difficult to sell.  Turbine aircraft are generally continuing to hold their value and that market segment is generally healthy and will most likely continue to show activity as the situation with commercial aviation continues to worsen.

April is always an active training month and this year was no exception.  The NAAA completed USPAP (Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice) training and now has over 50 members who are trained and certified USPAP Aircraft Appraisers.  This is far more than anyone else in this industry. 

Keep in mind that USPAP is not just a set of guidelines that should be followed but it also encompasses a way of doing business that is more professional.  This general attitude of professionalism can be seen in all reports issued by Plane Data, Inc.  USPAP Guidelines specify the MINIMUM requirements that must be included in a professional appraisal report but it is important to remember that ALL aircraft appraisal reports from Plane Data, Inc. require an on site examination of the aircraft and records.  Desktop reports that are provided by other agencies normally do not involve any examination of the aircraft and records and have been proven time and time again to be unreliable and inaccurate.  Clients who use Certified Aircraft Appraisal Reports from Plane Data, Inc. have taken their aircraft lending and leasing efforts to the next level and rely on this information as a normal course of business.

During this climate when bank portfolios are being carefully examined for any unusual lending activities, having a professional aircraft appraisal report in your files can be a sign of prudent and responsible lending practices. 

Honda Aircraft's HondaJet Sees European Expansion

From AVWeb:  Honda Aircraft Company Inc. will begin expansion of HondaJet sales to Europe beginning at the European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE) to be held in Geneva this May. The move is a reaction to strong demand for the aircraft from customers in the European market, says Honda, and follows on recently expanded sales throughout North America that included a sales and service strategy for Canada and Mexico. "We are excited to initiate sales in Europe, where we have received a steady stream of inquiries from interested customers who will now have the opportunity to reserve delivery of a HondaJet," Michimasa Fujino, Honda Aircraft president and chief executive officer, told WRAL.com. Honda Aircraft Company last week finalized its distribution network in the U.S., adding Albany, N.Y., to a list that includes Tallahassee, Aurora, Phoenix and Salt Lake City as locations for its five sales and service facilities across the country.

The company's U.S. headquarters are located at Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, where the HondaJets will be assembled. Certification and first delivery of the HondaJet is expected in 2010

Russian Owners Complete Adam Aircraft Deal

From AOPA: One of the Russian owners of AAI Acquisitions arrived in Denver this week to formally complete the $10 million purchase of bankrupt Adam Aircraft and tour the facilities at the Centennial Airport complex. Massive cleaning efforts to ready the dusty buildings for a return to operations have begun as part of a 90-day reactivation plan. The future of the A500 piston-engine twin aircraft is uncertain, but the A700 business jet will move toward FAA certification once again. Recruitment of employees is to begin May 1.

Airplane Stolen At Gunpoint In Mexico

From AVWeb:  A pilot and his family were in their Cessna Stationair on Tuesday, preparing to take off from a dirt runway in Baja California, when they were forced at gunpoint to abandon the airplane, Bob Collins, president of the Aircraft Crime Prevention Institute, told AVweb. "Three men jumped the fence, then three others in a Nissan Sentra pulled onto the runway, blocking it," Collins said. "One of them had a gun, and they broke a window in the airplane and forced the family out. They pushed the Sentra off to the side and torched it, then all six of them climbed into the airplane. There was baggage in there too, and it barely made it into the air," Collins said. ACPI had issued an alert recently that aircraft thefts are rising in the border region. "Mexican officials are seizing aircraft, so smugglers are out looking for new ones," he said.

They prefer U.S. airplanes, he added, because they tend to be better-maintained and newer than local aircraft. The pilot and his family were not hurt, Collins said. The Mulege Airstrip is a general aviation dirt airstrip that is located two miles northeast of Mulege, near the Hotel Serenidad in the northern part of Baja California Sur.

Russian Capsule Nearly Burned Up on Re-entry

From Aero-News:  We had a hunch Russian officials and their counterparts at NASA may have downplayed the severity of this weekend's less-than-optimal reentry of the Soyuz space capsule carrying a South Korean 'tourinaut' and two members of the Expedition 16 crew. After all... what images does the phrase "ballistic trajectory" conjure up in your mind?

According to at least one report, the three people onboard the TMA-11 spacecraft did indeed come very close to an untimely end. Russia's Interfax news agency reports the capsule entered the atmosphere on its side -- with its egress hatch taking the brunt of the heat from reentry, instead of the ellipsoidal capsule's heat shield.

Interfax cited an unnamed official with Roskosmos, the Russian space agency. No one with that agency, or NASA, has publicly confirmed the scenario was so severe.

As ANN reported, South Korea's first astronaut, Yi So-yeon, Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson, and Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko experienced reentry forces in excess of 10-g's, far above normal levels.

The crew was forced to wait an additional hour for recovery crews to arrive at their landing site early Saturday morning, after the capsule landed nearly 300 miles away from the planned site. Communications with the crew were also compromised, as an antenna on the capsule's exterior burned off during reentry.

It was the second time in a row a Soyuz reentry didn't go as planned, and the third since 2003. In all three cases, the automated reentry system onboard the Soyuz put the capsule into sub-optimal attitudes to travel through Earth's atmosphere.

Despite the glitch, Saturday's rocky reentry also served as an endorsement of sorts for the sturdy TMA-11... a much-modified version of the earliest Soyuz capsules that first saw service for the Soviet Union in the late 1960s.

"The fact that the entire crew ended up whole and undamaged is a great success," one official told The Associated Press, adding the incident rated a "3" on a five-point scale of severity. "Everything could have turned out much worse. You could say the situation was on a razor's edge."

All three spacefarers are reported to be in excellent health, despite the frightening trip home. At a news conference Monday, Yi said she knew immediately something was very wrong as the capsule fell to Earth.

"At first I was really scared because it looked really, really hot and I thought we could burn," she said.