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According to my notes based on a schedule that was previously posted here (don't see it now), the manuals and SAI's were initially submitted on April 4, 2011. They were resubmitted on April 24th. Everything was resubmitted again on October 18th. Then a very minor revision was resubmitted around December 21st (I've lost the exact date - but it was that week before Christmas).
My understanding is that on each major submission/resubmission, the FAA randomly selected a number of SAI question/answer sets for detailed examination and scoring. Each selection was apparently less than 20 SAI questions from the total of 4000 or so SAI questions. Apparently Baltia had to score better than 90% correct on all questions in order to achieve manuals approval at that stage. They didn't, so they had to go back and make extensive revisions to the SAI's and also the related manuals sections, because the two are directly interlinked. There is extensive cross-referencing between manuals sections, so nearly every change needed to be re-cross-referenced - apparently very time consuming. On the next resubmission, a different group of SAI's was tested, and so on.
During the revision process, I was told by Baltia people that the FAA staff was being very helpful with guidance to help them get it right. But each resubmission involved going deeper and deeper into the documentation, consisting of many thousands of pages.
Since the last minor revision last year, my understanding is that a second FAA office became involved in reviewing the voluminous docs in order to get it done, and that the FAA has said little to Baltia except "No news is good news" until final approval on the manuals comes through.
According to your source, the $8,800,000 is ENTIRELY in "restricted stock awards" - no cash. No surprise there.
Article in NY Times entitled "What Ever Happened to First Class?" that is interesting reading for all Baltians:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/travel/whatever-happened-to-first-class.html?hpw
Old news. That was authorized about a year ago.
Virgin America got certified BEFORE the new FAA air carrier certification system went into effect. Atlas was the first carrier to get partial certification under the new system (they were already certified as a cargo carrier) and it took them 2 years to get upgraded to add passenger certification. Baltia is the first airline to go for full part 121 certification under the new certification system, which now has over 4000 SAI questions to be answered. Virgin America didn't have to face that formidable gauntlet.
These Newswire announcements are usually picked up by money.cnn.com and you can see them there if you go to that site and do a search on BLTA. Probably one of the easiest ways to stay on top of PR announcements for publicly traded companies.
They have gotten feedback. Actually, "indications" would probably be a better word than "feedback" at this sensitive juncture. Not a lot of indications, but what they've gotten have all been positive, from what I understand.
Take a look at the "Final Steps Until Takoff" table above, and note the last column regarding steps still to be done.
If you can't see this table, then you've opted to "Hide intro message" so you wouldn't have to wade through all that info to get to these message postings. So just click on "Show intro message" link at the above-right, and it will display again. Then you can see the table.
Last spring a more detailed "Schedule of Events" was posted - since taken down. Remember, that was the schedule that proposed August 11, 2011 as the start date for flight operations. According to that schedule, flight operations were to start about 60 days after the FAA approved all the manuals. Also, according to that schedule, crew training would start immediately after manuals approval. Obviously, hiring of initial crews had to be accomplished first. That seems to be underway right now, so that tells us something about where Baltia management thinks they are in the process right now.
They have a ways to go. But as soon as they are allowed to start training, they'll be able to hit the ground running.
It slowed down because all the rest of us are trying to learn Russian.
Darth, fortunately Baltia isn't anywhere near as complicated as Enron, Lehman - or even a marriage. At this stage, it's fairly easy to see what's going on at their offices - which all have glass walls and open doors. It's easy to get into in-depth conversations with Igor, Russ, Barry and the others, and I haven't noticed any evasion in their answers to questions. The kind of exotic financial instruments that sunk Lehman and the shell game that sunk Enron just don't seem possible in this necessarily open environment. Necessarily open because of FAA and DOT oversight at this stage. I've seen and heard the Baltia management be very straight forward about Baltia's financial situation, which is challenging but not dire.
If you can, give them a visit and see for yourself.
My impression as well from my meetings with Baltia people, as recent as last Thursday. And work is indeed proceeding on next steps that will follow swiftly after manuals approval.
Would hate to see anyone miss out on what's coming because they just couldn't hang on a little longer.
It's going to happen. There is definitely light at the end of the tunnel.
The FAA is in the driver's seat in approving the manuals. But, in some cases where the FAA has taken too long to decide something, I've seen where getting a key senator to question the FAA got things moving pretty quick. But until we pass the end of this month, we probably won't be at that point yet where a senator would be willing to get involved, because technically the FAA may still be within the timelines set in their procedural rules.
My point is, though the FAA - according to its rules - can take a long time to make a decision, their process is not really open-ended going on ad infinitum with no accountability. There is in fact a point where congressional oversight and accountability can occur and have an effect, but we're just not there yet.
I must point out, though, that I am not a lawyer with expertise in this area. I'm merely talking from the perspective of what I saw happen in another case a few years ago where a senator did get involved to get things moving at the FAA.
I'm reluctant to be more definitive about something over which I have no control. However, that said, I doubt that it will take longer than this month to get manuals approval. According to the prior posted schedule, 1st revenue flight should be 60-90 days after that. So, that's my best guess as to what's ahead short term.
If by "fly this year" you mean scheduled flights to St. Petersburg, RU, from what I see, I think we will.
I am not aware of any way in which the "gotcha game" here helps Baltia or its investors.
"Now, N705BL...not so sure..."
Agreed. But I don't think we'll have to worry about that now. As far as I can see, it served its short term important purpose in the process and now is no longer needed.
Is "abimbola" just a screen name or part of your real name? If it is part of your real name, then I don't think anyone should make fun of it. And if it is merely a screen name, then what it looks like to anyone is irrelevant to the purpose of this board.
I have no interest in using the "ignore user" feature with anyone.
The investigations of the accidents/incidents caused by metal fatigue make interesting reading. Of the 6 you mentioned, two were 747s and 4 were 737s. The 737s all had over 30,000 cycles. The most famous of those, the Aloha incident, was a 737 with 89,680 cycles!
Of greater relevance to Baltia are the 747 crashes. In addition to the two 747 accidents you mentioned involving structural failure, there is another famous one: JAL flight 123 on 8/12/1985. None of these three 747 crashes involved high cycle times. Of special interest is the fact that the JAL and the China Airlines disasters involved similar causes: improper repairs of prior tail-strike damage. These improper tail-strike repairs resulted in metal fatigue in the patches that eventually brought catastrophic structural failure in the tails.
There is no record in the NTSB database of the Baltia N706BL / NWA N623US aircraft ever having a tail-strike incident, or any other kind of reportable structural damage.
The El Al 747 flight #1862 that you mentioned was a cargo flight that had two engines fall off the right wing shortly after takeoff. This fatal accident was of particular concern to authorities because this aircraft had only 10,107 cycles and 45,746 hours (not a high time aircraft). The finding in this case was that metal fatigue in a part of an engine mount had prevented engine #3 from breaking away cleanly when the engine started to disintegrate from a mechanical failure. The engine mount was purposely designed to allow the engine to break away cleanly if it vibrates uncontrollably, in order to prevent damage to other parts of the airplane. Instead, a degraded engine mount made engine #3 tear away with difficulty, making it smash into engine #4 and part of the wing. Then engine #4 also broke off, and there was serious flap damage. The plane subsequently rolled over to the right and crashed.
As a result of this El Al crash, 747 engine mounts were redesigned and an AD was issued that required replacement of key engine mount parts on all affected 747s in service. This AD compliance was accomplished on Baltia's N706BL.
That engine-less aircraft (N705BL) is now stored in Malaysia and will almost certainly never fly in Baltia livery, if it ever flies again. Its leased engines were shipped back to the US and installed on N706BL. It will probably be parted-out because better 747-200s are now available with better economics than bringing that bird up to snuff.
You've got the wrong airplane. The plane Baltia will be starting with is N706BL.
N706BL was Northwest's N623US - a fact that has often been mentioned on this board. It was flying for Northwest until late 2009, purchased by Baltia in 2010, and always maintained under Northwest's FAA certified maintenance program. N706BL is a lot newer and with a lot less hours and cycles than N705BL - the former PIA plane with the green stripes now mothballed in Malaysia.
All you had to do in order to get the right airplane history info was simply Google "N706BL" - a registration ID in clear view on many of the photos posted on the sticky above, and also repeatedly mentioned in postings here.
With jet airliners designed to be flown almost continuously day in and day out under a continuous maintenance program, years of age are meaningless. The most meaningful measure of airliner age is the number ov "cycles." A cycle is basically a trip - a takeoff and landing. Metal fatigue is the primary concern regarding cycles because of the expansion and contraction of the aircraft skin going up to pressurized altitude and then coming back down to earth again. For most aircraft, this isn't a real concern until flying with over 36,000 cycles, after which periodic thorough inspections to detect possible metal fatique are required. The Baltia 747 has about 18,000 cycles, so it has a lot of life left in it. Also it wen theough a thorough overhall recently - called a "C-check". By some measures it was a "deep C check" going beyond C check requirements. So it is in excellent shape.
This picture is a photo-shopped image that they used on their prior website design before the current (soon to be replaced) website. It was photo-shopped years ago before they had a real plane available in the Baltia livery.
This website may be used by the Baltia and FAA people who are working on the certification process. But I don't really know. I didn't see any of this before I saw Igor today so didn't ask him about it.
He did no such thing. He came to my office.
Flight crews needed...
My memory is a little hazy on this from discussion a while back - perhaps at the stockholders meeting - but I think it is at least 3 cockpit crews (maybe 4 - not sure) and possibly just 2 cabin crews. This is for 1 rt flight per week, if my memory is correct.
RS won't happen according to Igor and Barry. See minutes of stockholders meeting at sticky above for Igor's comment on RS.
Jet fuel price planning?
I don't have a current copy of Baltia's Projected Operating Results. But I have seen them for two years - 2008 (based on price trends at end of 2007) and 2009 (based on price trends at end of 2008). You can see the first of these by downloading excerpts from the business plan that was submitted with the DOT application in 2007 from...
http://www.leadersoft.com/baltia/DOTapplicationExcerpts.pdf
It has a line regarding fuel costs, projected in 2007 for 2008 to be $552,825 per month at 1 rt per week. In the projection made in 2008 for 2009, they estimated $1,213,144 per month at 1 rt per week. In both cases, there was a healthy operating profit.
As it turned out, the prices in 2007 were similar to today and prices in mid 2008 had reached a hellish peak far higher than today (remember $147 bbl oil?).
So, the projections I've seen (given out to some investors at various times) do account for swings in fuel prices, and all that I've seen have shown a substantial operating profit.
How, exactly, does it look fake to you?
Correction: In describing aerial video defect #4 I said that as Sam zoomed back, there was a jerkiness caused by the extreme telephoto setting of the lens. That is incorrect - as he zoomed back, he went to wide angle not telephoto. The jerkiness was perhaps caused by Sam trying to find the 747 again after it got so small in the distance as he zoomed back to wide angle.
Here is more info about how the aerial video of N706BL, "Baltia Takeoff" was shot.
The aerial photographer: Sam Lafoca of Los Angeles, phone 661-713-8475
You can see Sam with Igor in this 747 cockpit photo...
http://www.leadersoft.com/baltia/Baltia747cockpitLafoca2.jpg
Here is a photo of the video helicopter at Victorville just prior to the takeoff of N706BL last September...
http://www.leadersoft.com/baltia/BaltiaHelicopter1.jpg
Notice the gyro-stabilized aerial video rig fastened to the outside of the chopper.
The chopper was provided by Aerial Indies / Group 3 Aviation from Van Nuys Airport, CA.
The gyro-Stabilization and HD-Camera video equipment used for this shoot: Cineflex V-14HD integrated with the Sony HDC-1500 HD-Camera
Here is a still shot taken by Sam from the chopper as it took off just prior to the 747's departure...
http://www.leadersoft.com/baltia/Baltia_Plane_Vict2.jpg
Behind the plane is one of the two hangars used by the aircraft painting company. This photo establishes the fact that a helicopter was used for photography the day of the takeoff.
There are a number of defects in the video, due to it being shot for real as the plane took off (no retakes!), that simply would not have occurred if this had been a fake CGI video. I was able to minimize the effect of the defects by careful editing. Though the video may appear to have been shot by 3 cameras during the takeoff from the same point of view, it was actually shot as one continuous 5 minute shot by the one helicopter-mounted video camera. Here are the defects that I eliminated in my editing of the footage:
1. A dust storm a few days earlier had left a coat of reddish desert dust on the runway. As the plane started its takeoff run, the jet blast kicked up the reddish dust into a huge cloud behind the plane that was very unattractive. At one point, the plane itself (before it had picked up enough speed) had its rear end almost enveloped in the dust cloud so that it nearly looked like it was on fire. Note that in the aerial still shot of the parked plane at the link above, you can see the plane's wheel tracks in the coating of dust on the parking apron behind the plane leading from the hangar.
2. During the takeoff, just as the plane was lifting off, Sam fell slightly behind in his tracking of it, so that for a moment the nose of the plane actually went out of frame to the right. Then Sam caught up with it and the nose came back into view.
3. As the chopper followed the 747, as the plane started turning to the left, the chopper tilted forward to pick speed. The tilt forward was a little greater than Sam's equipment could compensate for by tilting in the opposite direction, so the camera was no longer level. This tilt forward made the plane climbing past the clouds appear to be climbing at a steeper angle than was actual. This real-world error probably would not have occurred in a CGI video.
4. As the 747 flew away faster than the chopper could follow, Sam zoomed back revealing the full expanse of the Mojave desert, with the plane disappearing in the distance somewhat jerkily (the extreme telephoto magnified vibration more than the gyro could compensate).
Here's how my editing dealt with these problems...
To fix #1, I quickly cut from the beginning of the takeoff roll to a point about 30 seconds later where the camera zoom and the chopper's flight had pulled back to a slightly different perspective. At that point, the plane had picked up enough speed so that the dust cloud was receding well behind the plane.
To fix #2, at the instant that the 747 nose touches the right frame line, I cut to a point in the shot about 5 seconds later after the plane had completely lifted off and Sam's panning had caught up with the plane so that the nose was back in view.
Problem #3 - I didn't attempt to fix this, except that my next cut (used to shorten the length of the climbout for better pacing) was careful to match camera levels at a point just before the chopper tilted forward in order to speed up its chase.
To fix #4, I dissolved from the plane video during the beginning of Sam's zoom-back to a still shot looking up at the "Baltia" on the front of the plane taken by Sam earlier while it was parked at Victorville. This seemed to be a nice way to end the sequence gracefully.
If this had been done with CGI, it never would have occurred to anyone to create a cloud of dust rising up behind the plane as it started to takeoff, because that was so unusual. Also, it would be very difficult to do realistically in CGI. Nor would the minor camera-following error that occurred right at liftoff been part of the shot. A CGI artist would have followed the plane perfectly on takeoff. Etc., etc.
I hope this puts to bed once and for all the claims by "experts" that this video is a fake. It is not.
See posts 11265 and 11274. I am the producer/director of that video, which was shot by aerial photographer Sam Lafoca from a helicopter when the plane took off from Victorville in September.
At links provided above, you can see an extensive series of stills that Sam took of the plane on the ground prior to takeoff.
If you think it is fake, the burden of proof is on you.
It's called bending your knees before you jump.
Very informative, Eye. Thanks!
And Darth, thanks for an interesting question. It gave us a chance to learn something more about the complexities of the airline business, and how well the Baltia management is dealing with them.
Don't know the answer to your ACMI question - beyond my expertise.
I'm not really at the Baltia office every day - more like once every 10 days or so. (Office video gets pretty boring pretty quick.) More involved in meetings and activities elsewhere regarding Baltia as things ramp up. I'll be glad when the shackles are off and Baltia will be able to tell you about it all.
"dry leasing a 767-200..."
Leasing a 767-ER was considered in depth. But for this particular route, buying the 747-200 airframe and leasing the engines (only pay for running time) was found to offer more net revenue potential and greater flexibility. Huge advantages in greater load capacity for both passengers and cargo - and cargo hauling will be a big revenue factor. Also, the much bigger 747 cabin allows adding 6" pitch to coach seat rows - a huge comfort factor. Plus owning at low cost enabled going through an open-ended certification process at far less overall aircraft cost. Keep in mind that they had to have an aircraft in hand early on during certification. If they had been paying an aircraft dry lease all this time, they probably wouldn't have been able to raise enough money to keep going through certification.
However, I am not an expert on this. Russ Thall is such an expert with decades of airline management experience, which is why he's the exec. VP. Talk to him and he can explain it all to you better than I can.
Dry/Wet leasing, from www.NBAA.org -
"The FAA classifies aircraft leases as either 'dry leases' or 'wet leases'. Under a dry lease, the aircraft owner provides only the aircraft and no crew. If at least one crew member is provided in the lease arrangement, this becomes a wet lease as defined in the FARs. A wet lease is an exception to the simple definition of a lease because it does not involve transferring possession of the aircraft. The lessor maintains operational control of the aircraft under a wet lease. Without a specific exemption, such as a time sharing agreement, or other options found under FAR 91.501, a wet lease requires an FAA commercial operating certificate."
Call (718) 244-8880 - Baltia HQ - and ask to speak with Russ Thall, the exec. VP. I'm sure he'll be happy to answer all your questions. If you live near NYC, you might like to pay their new office a visit at JFK to see for yourself what they're up to.