Travels And Aviation NEWS: Rescue of West Point cadets: NYPD Aviation Unit keeps rotors humming 24/7

NYPD air rescue unit pulled two West Point cadets from ledge along rocky face of Storm King Mountain in Orange County.

1.

The NYPD, like the city it serves, never sleeps - even if it means sending a rescue helicopter upstate at a moment's notice in the dead of night.

"The NYPD is unique in that we are standing by 2-4/7 as a quick-reaction force to answer 911 calls," said Capt. James Coan, head of the NYPD aviation unit.

Coan's shift was set to end at midnight Sunday when the phone rang: two West Point cadets were trapped on a mountainside; they had been exposed to freezing temperatures and bitter winds for nearly six hours.

Coan stayed at the office and directed his unit's on-the-fly response. It ended with the trapped cadets being hoisted onto an air-sea-rescue helicopter as Officer Steve Browning expertly hovered the chopper alongside the cliffside, buffeted by winds gusting at 30 mph.

The aviation unit, part of the elite Special Operations Division, is able to pull off dangerous rescues because Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly stresses having "the best equipment, the best in technology," Coan said.

But as other emergency-response agencies throughout the tristate area are pinching budget pennies, the NYPD is charging into the gap.

"We actually become a regional asset, certainly after 11 o'clock at night when most agencies, due to the economic constraints, close down their special operations sections ," Coan said.

Coan, who's also a lieutenant colonel in the New York Army National Guard, serves as its deputy aviation officer for New York.

He said Army and Air National Guard rescue helicopters are based out of two Long Island airports and one in Albany - but their crews don't burn the midnight oil.

"Those facilities are not staffed 2-4/7, waiting for a rescue," he said. "They're staffed by a skeleton crew of full-time personnel."

2. Fort Riley awaiting return this week of Combat Aviation Brigade from Iraq

FORT RILEY, Kan. (AP) — After a year in Iraq transporting some 300,000 passengers and 9 million pounds of cargo, a Fort Riley aviation unit is coming home.

Soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division's Combat Aviation Brigade will begin arriving this week, with ceremonies planned when they return to Kansas.

The unit grew in size and coverage area during its deployment to Iraq, rising from 2,800 soldiers and almost 120 aircraft to about 4,000 soldiers and more than 230 helicopters.

Fort Riley officials say that as U.S. forces began leaving Iraq, the aviation brigade was the sole unit of its type in the country. Its role was to provide aerial support to ground units conducting a variety of missions.

3. Texas-owned private jet owned impounded in Congo
DALLAS — A private jet owned by a North Texas company has been impounded for the past 2 1/2 weeks and its passengers and crew detained by the Congolese government in central Africa, where officials say it was used to smuggle gold from rebel territories in the nation's eastern provinces.
The plane was leased by Southlake Aviation, based in suburban Dallas-Fort Worth, to a subsidiary of CAMAC International, The Dallas Morning News reported in its Sunday editions.
CAMAC company is owned by Kase Lawal, a Nigerian-born Houston oil tycoon an appointee of President Barack Obama to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiation.
The jet's passengers and crews have been detained since Feb. 3, when the jet was seized before leaving the airport in Goma, on Congo's eastern border with Rwanda. Congolese officials say the plane was loaded with about $20 million in gold and several million dollars in cash.
The passengers included Mickey Lawal, brother of the Texas oilman, and Houston diamond merchant Edward "Carlos" St. Mary, a longtime Lawal family friend, the newspaper reported.
"They were on the runway attempting to take off when they were detained by the authorities," said St. Mary's Kenyan attorney, Punit Vadgama, in a letter to CAMAC that company spokesman Mike Androvett provided to The News.
The members of the travel party "were not informed of the reason for the detention," Vadgama wrote.
St. Mary had borrowed the plane from CAMAC, Androvett told The News.
In his letter, Vadgama stated that St. Mary was shipping gold from Kenya in East Africa, not from within Congo. St. Mary's company, Axiom Trading Co. Ltd., hired Vadgama to obtain the permits needed to buy 475 kilograms of gold — about a half-ton worth about $23 million — from a Kenyan broker.
After accepting payment, the Kenyan broker stopped answering Axiom's calls, Vadgama wrote. After Axiom contacted Kenyan authorities, the broker came forth and told St. Mary that he had moved the gold to Goma for security reasons, he wrote. St. Mary flew there to pick up the load when all were seized and detained, Vadgama wrote.
According to the letter, Vadgama has appealed to Congo's president, Joseph Kabila, for St. Mary's release. "Our clients have acted within the law and have been the victims of a fraud perpetrated upon them," Vadgama wrote.
Also aboard were four American flight crew members and two other foreign nationals.
"We're concerned about the welfare of the crew and passengers that are still in the Democratic Republic of Congo," Androvett told The News. "We think it best not to make any additional comments about this until they are out."
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Southlake Aviation owner, Southlake businessman David Disiere, said Disiere and his company have no involvement in the episode.
"Nobody involved with the incident is an employee of David Disiere or any other entity under his control. Once the lease agreement (with CAMAC) was completed, the other company took control" of the plane, spokesman Dan Allen told the newspaper.
The Congo has been torn by sectional strife for practically all of its post-colonial history, since the country became independent of Belgium in 1960.

4. Hawker Beechcraft CEO says sales prospects better

WICHITA | Hawker Beechcraft sees increased sales prospects for its general aviation aircraft, but 2011 will continue to be a challenging environment for pricing, its top official said.

CEO Bill Boisture said the company just completed its seventh consecutive quarter in which orders exceeded cancellations.

The company reported net sales of $2.8 billion for 2010, down from $3.2 billion the year before. It also reported a net loss of $304.3 million in 2010, compared to a loss of $451.3 million the year before.

Hawker Beechcraft delivered 238 business and general aviation aircraft in 2010 compared to 309 in 2009.

Company officials are hopeful theyt will win a contract for an attack version of Hawker Beechcraft's trainer aircraft from the U.S. Air Force in the next six months. The company has an agreement in principle with the Salina Airport Authority to use the airport for pilot and maintenance training should it win the work.

To help secure orders that are firm and less likely to be canceled, the company has increased deposit payments.

Boisture said the company continuously evaluates market demand, pricing, competition, production rates and its supply. It's that kind of evaluation that led it to announce last year that it would cancel production of the Hawker 400XP business jet for two years.

Its production levels are "reasonably matched" with incoming orders, and the firm is working to bring inventory levels even lower.

"We are committed, and we intend to bring the inventory down further," he said. "We have discrete plans for doing that."

The firm plans to do that with its so-called Project Challenge, an internal plan to reduce costs, and with its streamlining its supply chain.

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