Honda's Horse Enters the Race

Today the Honda Motor Co. officially announced the commercialization of their new light business jet and a partnership with Piper Aircraft. The partnership will develop a certification program for the airplane and manufacture several test aircraft that will go through this program. It is a long process. Honda estimates three to four years. (I predict that Honda will find a way to compress this.) Last year at this time Honda unveiled a prototype aircraft. They flew it to the 2005 AirVenture for one day. As every aviator knows AirVenture is the huge Oshkosh, Wisconsin air show that attracts hundreds of thousands of pilots and everyone who ever dreamed of flying. Honda is back this year for a full week with a large exhibit.

I had the pleasure of watching this exciting new jet as it grew from an embryo to a full test aircraft. All the early design and testing work on the prototype was done in Skunk Works like secrecy. Just over a year ago two of my close associates and I were treated to a tour of this top secret facility.



(Keith Garner, Don Godwin, Michimasa Fujino, Al Blackburn, and yours truly enjoy the afterglow of our simulator flight.)

We were able to inspect and even touch the aircraft. I discussed the finer points on the hangar floor and during lunch with Michimasa Fujino, the plane's chief designer and engineer. Perhaps the highpoint of the day was when Fujino offered me an opportunity to fly the Honda Jet simulator in the hangar next to the airplane. The same group of engineers that designed the Honda Jet designed and built the simulator. The same building that housed the Honda Jet and the simulator was also home to a flight following arena that looked like what you see at NASA during the launch and recovery of the space shuttle. Telemetry transmits all the real time flight test data back to this room in Greensboro, NC, and to Japan.

Watch this aircraft carefully. It may not have been the first horse out of the gate in the VLJ race, but it is a serious contender. I will have much more to say about the VLJs and the many commercial ventures being built around this new class of aircraft. Stay tuned.

Freedom of Maintenance Information

Anyone properly qualified and licensed to work on an aircraft should have, not just the training and tools, but also the up-to-date manuals for the aircraft in question. Aircraft manufactures have been very restrictive about making these maintenance manuals available to those who need them most. About four years ago the Aeronautical Repair Station Association (ARSA) attempted to get Congress to require the FAA to enforce their existing rules by enacting legislation to clarify and codify regulations relating to the availability of maintenance manuals. ARSA’s website explains the situation:

Instructions for Continued Airworthiness (ICA) are the manuals required to maintain aircraft in airworthy condition. The Federal Aviation Regulations require the holders of design approvals for aircraft, aircraft engines and propellers to prepare ICAs and make them available to persons required to comply with the terms of the instructions, including owners and repair stations that perform maintenance on the products. The FAA has been slow to enforce its regulations requiring aviation manufacturers to make this vital information available to repair stations and product owners.

Last April the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia in Savannah ruled in Summary Judgment in favor of CAMP Systems in a suit filed by Gulfstream. In a crushing blow to Gulfstream the court stated, “What Gulfstream seeks here is to use its claimed copyright in its manuals to gain a judicially-enforced monopoly in maintenance tracking services for Gulfstream aircraft. That outcome would be injurious to the free-market public policy advanced through antitrust and restrain-of-trade laws. It would be especially egregious since Gulfstream is required by federal regulations to produce the manuals anyway.” The court also ruled that Federal copyright law does not apply to maintenance manuals.

This decision could have a huge positive implication to the entire aviation MRO industry as many manufacturers have refused to make maintenance manuals available to independent maintenance providers who, like CAMP, borrowed the manuals from aircraft owners - an awkward and sometime complicated process.

In June the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) asked the court to reconsider. I predict that GAMA’s very effective lobbying skills will have little effect on the court. Stay tuned, this could be a big win for everyone – aircraft owners, repair stations, and I believe eventually the OEMs who should be concerned about their customers’ ability to have their aircraft properly maintained.