It’s an incredible tool to accomplish the impossible.

The disaster in Haiti is a great example of a time when the impossible needs to be accomplished.  And private pilots are stepping up to the challenge.

General aviation pilots are still asked to not fly into Port-au-Prince to avoid interfering with relief efforts there, but some outlying airports in Haiti are open and pilots are delivering supplies to them from the Bahamas and Dominican Republic.

“As always, the GA community is demonstrating its tremendous compassion for those in need and taking immediate action to help,” said AOPA President Craig Fuller. “General aviation has the unique flexibility to use reliever airports to enhance the relief efforts taking place in Port-au-Prince. Working through a variety of humanitarian groups here in the United States and in Haiti, pilots are making a real difference.”

Bahamas Habitat began flying to airports around Port-au-Prince, including Cap Haitien and Les Cayes, from Inagua in the Southern Bahamas using Cessna 182s, Bonanzas, Barons, Aztecs, a Cessna 340, and a Caravan.

“Sunday was our third day of airlift operations into the outlying airports around Port-Au-Prince and we delivered a lot of medical supplies and evacuated 27 more people today,” Bahamas Habitat President John Armstrong announced in a press release Jan. 18.

The organization is seeking volunteers to help with the efforts, according to Armstrong. Pilots can sign up by visiting the Web site or sending an e-mail.

Business and corporate aviation has taken a big hit from the economy in recent years, but we’re glad that there are airplanes and pilots in the market to respond to this challenge!  And we know that aviators are great people who won’t let the call go unanswered.

Corporate and business aviation is not affordable to everyone.  But we can help make it more affordable for your company by containing your maintenance costs.   Give us a call with your current maintenance plan or estimate.

We’ll be happy to look it over and give you a second opinion for free, with no obligation.  We don’t charge you anything unless we save you money.

Business aircraft activity in the U.S. in November was up 22 percent year-over-year and 3 percent from October, according to serial-number-specific arrival-and-departure data gathered by Aviation Research Group/U.S. Compared with a year ago, activity increased 28 percent for large-cabin jets, 26 percent for midsize jets, 24 percent for turboprops and 14 percent for light jets.

It’s easy to imagine that as security policies tighten up after the widely publicized terrorist attempt on the Christmas Day flight to Detroit this year, business travelers will find more reasons to escape the airlines and avail themselves of the freedom that business aviation has to offer.

Best wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year from CrowleyAMA and the Aircraft Invoice program!

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Send us your estimate or invoice for a complimentary Review Today, or call Todd Crowley at 800 790 4959

Chief pilot Mike Carriker remarked that “They made a plan when times were good. . . and then we went through some hard times, but they didn’t change the plan. That was a just a class act.” Speaking of decision-makers at Boeing.

He also had high praise for the designers, engineers, suppliers and others who made this flight possible.

Two of the key design elements of this aircraft are reduced engine noise and increased fuel efficiency.

Innovations in aircraft are exciting, but they also create new challenges in maintenance.  Your airplane likely has technological advances and modifications that may make regularly scheduled maintenance a team operation. No one person is an expert on all of the technology onboard today’s aircraft, whether they are commuter, business or airline craft.

Our experts can provide a very helpful independent review. Call or write today!

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Send us your estimate or invoice for a complimentary Review Today! Or call Todd Crowley at 800 790 4959

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Send us your estimate or invoice for a complimentary Review Today! Or call Todd Crowley at 800 790 4959

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Send us your estimate or invoice for a complimentary Review Today! Or call Todd Crowley at 800 790 4959

We are in the New York area, but can work with you wherever you’re located. We use email, phone and fax for efficiency but travel to wherever we’re needed. In fact, our maintenance advisors travel quite a bit as they watch over inspections for our clients.
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Send us your estimate or invoice for a complimentary Review Today!

• The Men’s Wearhouse
• Hyperion Bank
• Property Developers
• Investment Companies

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Send us your estimate or invoice for a complimentary Review Today!

If I don’t pay anything out of pocket for you to audit an invoices or estimates, how do you make money?

For the one-time invoice review service, we earn a percentage of what is saved or recovered. Since not all of these documents have overcharges or inefficiencies, we’re gambling a bit.

Taking this chance is okay with us for two reasons: It gives us the opportunity to establish a long-term relationship with the owner starting on the right foot, which is our goal. Second, we are fine with the odds of finding some items that we might want to address.

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Send us your estimate or invoice for a complimentary Review Today!

4. What do you charge for your services?

The MyTechnician service has three options, the first of which includes a one-time review of a current estimate or invoice.

We don’t charge anything upfront for that service, but we earn a percentage of what we save or recover for you.

The ideal scenarios are the next two:

The second scenario which are when we are hired from the beginning to protect an owner’s interests during a major inspection, which is a flat fee.

The third is when we consult on a monthly basis approving and disapproving all maintenance expenditures for an owner.

The second and third scenarios are where we can save the most for an owner.

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Send us your estimate or invoice for a complimentary Review Today!

Note – Todd Crowley of CrowleyAMA contributed to this article, which appeared in CAMP InSight magazine, October 2009.

Todd Crowley was featured in this article in CAMP InSight, October 2009.

IndustryInsights

By Adam M. Darnell, JTM Records

So, you’ve found the perfect airplane to suit your company’s needs. The seating arrangement is great, and the paint scheme even matches your company’s logo. The best part is the price, because it is actually below your budget. Pause now and realize that the world of corporate aviation can be a tricky one to navigate without the right team in place. If you do not have expert help, and are not a business aviation expert yourself, you may end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars that you don’t have to. Now is the time to get some expert assistance.

While this article focuses primarily on the operational issues of ownership, we must first mention that it is in your best interest to use a buyer’s agent or trusted broker to locate your aircraft. They will confirm whether the one you are looking at really is the perfect plane or just one that looks like it. Also, we recommend retaining an experienced business aviation attorney and a tax and regulatory expert. The attorney may act as the tax and regulatory expert as well.

Three experts will be critical to your early success:

1. A Pre-buy mechanical expert
2. An operations manual expert
3. A management company expert

Pre-buy

Let’s start with the Pre-buy. A Pre-buy is a critical pre-purchase inspection that allows the buyer to identify any mechanical or paperwork problems that may need to be corrected now or in the future. As you might imagine, a properly performed Pre-buy inspection by a trained, certified expert mechanic is crucial – the benefits cannot be overstated. A Pre-buy performed by a less knowledgeable individual might wind up
creating tremendous headaches down the road.

Not only will a good Pre-buy team member identify and correct potential problem areas, but they will explain parts of the purchase strategy to you, such as why you may want to choose the maintenance shop where the inspection is performed, rather than agreeing to where the seller’s broker suggests. Th e Pre-buy is a
maintenance intensive event that, if performed well, could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars. A great Pre-buy agent will have years of mechanical experience, and just as importantly, the confidence to stand up for your interests as a buyer.

They will know the ins and outs of maintenance and all of the paperwork that comes with it. They will have auditing skills and an attention to detail that is second to none. Richard Dadasiewicz, President of Jets West, explained it best when he said, “The client is looking for the best airplane for their money; a good pre-buy agent makes sure they get what they are looking for. The pre-buy agent is essentially a bodyguard for their bottom line.”

Operations Manual

Once the aircraft is in your hands, you will need to develop a manual suite for the FAA that allows you to operate your aircraft in compliance with the ever-changing world of FARs (Federal Aviation Regulations). One typo or form filled out incorrectly can cause months of delays before you can fly. Th ere are companies that provide specifi c manual publishing and revision services, but first you must know what you need. Do you need an entire operational suite or do you just need a Minimum Equipment List? What about a maintenance and inspection program?

If you are in uncharted territory, be cautious of unscrupulous businesses and overbuying. Ask questions and do your research.

Adam Darnell, Owner of JTM Records, commented “Not every client has been involved in aviation and many don’t know what’s necessary and what really is not; a creditable operations manual expert will give clients exactly what they need to stay in compliance, nothing more or less.” Darnell also noted that the process of developing a manual suite should not be disruptive. His organization, for one, prides itself on being able to “walk a client through the whole process, and get their plane in the air with minimal disturbance to their daily business.” Because any small mistake could mean weeks of delay and an inability to fly, expertise here is critical. After all, you are buying the aircraft to fly, not to watch it sit on the tarmac!

Management Company

Now that your interests during the purchase are protected, let’s discuss the daily operation of the plane. We will assume you’ve decided to use a management company. Like an owner and their airplane, management companies come in all shapes and sizes, though a common misperception is that they are all essentially the same. For the majority of aircraft owners, and especially those who may want to charter their aircraft to third parties, identifying the company who off ers the best operational fit could mean big dollars. “Many times we’ll see a particular manager as the right fit for one client while not at all for another client, even though on the surface they look quite similar,” said Todd Crowley, CEO of Crowley Aircraft Management Advisors, a New York based advisory group specializing in this type of due diligence. Managers differ greatly in their abilities to garner discounts, generate charter revenue, perform maintenance, and accurately account for the significant cash flow, not to mention their payment and fee structures.

Perform your due diligence carefully. The wrong choice may mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in missed savings, revenue or flight efficiencies annually. The right manager for your friend’s aircraft doesn’t necessarily make it the right one for yours. It’s that simple. While private aviation creates lots of mysteries for aircraft owners, maintenance is probably one of the most expensive. Next to fuel, it is the greatest ongoing expense an owner will encounter, and sometimes the most confounding. Like writing your manual suite or performing your Pre-buy inspection, make sure your maintenance choice has the expertise and tenacity to make cost control a priority. There are options for everything out there and your maintenance provider has a lot of opportunities to either save or cost you a lot of money. Ask how they perform cost control, what their priorities are, and how much experience they have doing so. The answers to these questions should be just what you’d expect. Aircraft are complex machines, and only experts can perform cost control the way it should be performed.

Several management advisory firms provide maintenance cost control services. Outsourced experts can be of great assistance to those in charge of approving or disapproving large maintenance bills for which they have no training to decipher. Crowley’s firm, in particular, off ers a unique program allowing pilots, accountants, attorneys and owners to send in their maintenance bills for complimentary review for errors and overcharges. “Everyone makes mistakes, not intentionally, but when there are 340 line items covering 60 plus pages of invoice, you can’t be too surprised. Mistakes happen and we estimate they account for as much as 20% of some maintenance bills. That’s a lot of wasted money that could be recovered with the help of an expert,” said Crowley.

We’ve covered the fundamentals of what an expert can do for you. Let’s take it one more step since the range of aircraft in Corporate Service has broadened greatly in the last several years. There is an increasing use of aircraft traditionally considered “airline only.” Th e BBJ is an example, but there are also a number of B757, B767, and Airbus aircraft that are making their way into Corporate Fleets.

These corporate heavyweights bring with them a whole different realm of considerations that fall outside the expertise of many experienced advisors. Th ere are matters of certification that are not present in most corporate aircraft, like showers, beds, additional safety equipment, more complex entertainment systems, etc. Furthermore, these aircraft are operated under different rules; either FAR Part 125 or 121. The certification criterion for your operation is quite unique when it involves one of these aircraft.

The well-established and experienced “corporate” expert is likely to be unfamiliar with these aircraft and the nuances of their maintenance programs, certification requirements or how to decipher a voluminous maintenance history. The highly experienced “heavy iron” maintenance advisor is likely to be an ex-airline person who is out of his element when dealing with the corporate configurations and sophistication of the client’s expectations, like credenzas, electric window shades, flexwing headrests and SATCOM, etc

Joe Bates of Aurora Aviation Enterprises, LLC explained, “It is a narrow field of the corporate aviation marketplace, but a critical one. The complexity of the aircraft is so great and there are few people who are competent in both the technical aspects of heavy aircraft as well as being sensitive to the needs and expectations of a corporate interior and the corporate operation of the aircraft. There are serious matters of reconciling a maintenance program designed for airline utilization to that of a corporate operation where the aircraft may only see a couple hundred hours of operation per year.”

Corporate aviation is a complex and rewarding world, but if you don’t have the right help, it can also be a tremendous drain on your time and your company’s finances. In today’s economy, you can’t aff ord to waste your two most precious resources, time and money. Do your homework before buying a plane. Th ere are
thousands of professional companies out there to help you navigate the corporate aviation world.

Reach out to them; it’s what they do. Structured and utilized properly, a corporate jet can help both your company become an industry leader as well as get you home for that all-important sweet sixteen party, or “heavy-iron” party of sixteen.

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