Conversation with an aviation consultant, flying the B-52 in two different wars, special airline service for special customers, holding pilots accountable for safety, and reaching a Bombardier CSeries milestone.

Ken Curry is President/Owner of KC Aviation Consultants in Loveland, Colorado. We talk with Ken about being an aviation consultant, the current state of the FBO business, and flying the B-52 in the Vietnam and Cold Wars. Ken’s heavily damaged Boeing B-52D Stratofortress resides at the National Museum of the USAF in Dayton.

Established in 2001, KC Aviation provides consulting services to aviation businesses and venture capital firms.  They also assist private jet aircraft owners and buyers with corporate aircraft acquisitions, sales, and charter services.

Ken was formerly the President and COO of Jet Source, Inc. in Carlsbad, California where he was responsible for two fixed base operations with over 100 employees.

Prior to that he was Vice President and General Manager of Petersen Aviation for over 7 years, providing aviation fuel, terminal services, and commercial jet charter and aircraft management services in Van Nuys, California.

Before that, Ken was with British Aerospace, Inc. where his last position was Vice President of Marketing & Sales at Arkansas Aerospace, Inc. in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Ken served in the United States Air Force as a B-52 Pilot and Aircraft Commander.  He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and flew 157 missions in Southeast Asia, 27 of those missions over North Vietnam.

An investigation is underway to determine if the airline had improper “contacts or motives†when it provided the then Chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey with his own weekly flights to South Carolina.

United pilots received a safety bulletin after four incidents where flight crew errors were called “major safety events and near-misses.” The bulletin came from United’s senior vice president of flight operations, and vice president of corporate safety. Some feel the message doesn’t speak kindly of pilot professionalism.

After the story came out about the United safety alert to pilots, Rob received some information that might call into question the motives of the airline.

The Bombardier CS300 made a five hour maiden test flight from Montreal’s Mirabel airport on February 27, 2015. In its Press Release, Bombardier says the “aircraft and its systems performed as expected.†The plane reached an altitude of 41,000 feet (12,500 metres) and a speed of 255 knots (470 km/h).

Avalon Airshow is over and the boys are recovering from the heat, the long distance walking and the aero-awesomeness. For this segment, they chatted with Flying Officer “Guns” about the lessons learned when the RAAF took some C130Js to Exercise Red Flag at the start of this year.

Micah tells us the story of “Lew’s Flight of Fancy.â€

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• ‘Ghost Rider': B-52 Resurrected from Desert Boneyard
  

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• The 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group
  

Opening and closing music courtesy Brother Love from the Album Of The Year CD. You can find his great music at brotherloverocks.com.