Take Flight

Take Flight may refer to:

See also

Kenn Ricci

Aviation entrepreneur Kenneth C. "Kenn" Ricci is the principal of Directional Aviation Capital, which owns or invests in various aviation enterprises including Flight Options and FlexJet, which he also serves as chairman. Ricci also is an operating partner at Resilience Capital Partners, a private equity firm with a wide variety of portfolio companies, including an investment in Flight Options, and has helped found or lead other companies, including Nextant Aerospace and Constant Aviation.

Corporate Wings

In 1981, Ricci began his entrepreneurial career by founding Corporate Wings, an aircraft management and charter operation company providing charter flight service to corporate clients. The company grew rapidly, with annual revenues increasing from $300,000 to approximately $3.4 million between 1981 and 1985, they still remain the industry leader. The firm was named to the Inc. 500 list of America's fastest-growing companies, among other honors.

Over time, Ricci expanded Corporate Wings into a diversified service-oriented transportation firm that provided other aviation support services; including aircraft maintenance, fueling and storage, and other aspects of aircraft operations.

Flight

Flight is the process by which an object moves, through an atmosphere (the air in the case of earth) or beyond it (as in the case of spaceflight) without direct support from any surface. This can be achieved by generating aerodynamic lift, propulsive thrust, aerostatically using buoyancy, or by ballistic movement.

Many things fly, from natural aviators such as birds, bats and insects to human inventions such as missiles, aircraft such as airplanes, helicopters and balloons, to rockets such as spacecraft.

The engineering aspects of flight are studied in aerospace engineering which is subdivided into aeronautics, the study of vehicles that travel through the air, and astronautics, the study of vehicles that travel through space, and in ballistics, the study of the flight of projectiles.

Types of flight

Buoyant flight

Humans have managed to construct lighter than air vehicles that raise off the ground and fly, due to their buoyancy in air.

An aerostat is a system that remains aloft primarily through the use of buoyancy to give an aircraft the same overall density as air. Aerostats include free balloons, airships, and moored balloons. An aerostat's main structural component is its envelope, a lightweight skin containing a lifting gas to provide buoyancy, to which other components are attached.

Phantom (UAV)

Phantom is a series of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) developed by the Chinese company DJI. These non-military quadcopters or drones are intended for recreational and commercial aerial cinematography and photography. The body frames are made of composite materials. Propulsion is provided by four two-blade propellers driven by four electric engines mounted at the ends of the x-shaped body.

Features

Phantom 1

The Phantom 1, originally known as Phantom, was released in January, 2013. It was commonly equipped with a GoPro camera for amateur film making or photography. It was first ready-to-fly drone that used GPS. Its battery life was less than 10 minutes.

Phantom 2

The Phantom 2 was released in December, 2013. Upgrades include auto-return, increased flight speed, increased flight time and controllable range, increased battery capacity, smartphones, tablets and even some smart glasses compatibility, WI-FI module and is available in different performances. Its configuration allows users to remotely tilt the camera and adjust its orientation on two axes for a better level shot.

Pilatus PC-12

The Pilatus PC-12 is a single-engine turboprop passenger and cargo aircraft manufactured by Pilatus Aircraft of Switzerland. The main market for the aircraft is corporate transport and regional airliner operators. The U.S. Air Force's designation is the U-28A.

Design and development

Pilatus announced the development of the PC-12 at the annual convention of the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) in October 1989. The two prototypes were completed on 1 May 1991, with the first flight taking place on May 31, 1991. Certification of the type was originally planned for mid-1991 but a redesign of the wings (increase of wing span and addition of winglets to ensure performance guarantees were met) delayed this. Swiss certification finally took place on 30 March 1994, and U.S. Federal Aviation Administration approval followed on 15 July 1994.

As with many other Pilatus aircraft, the PC-12 is powered by a single Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 turboprop engine (the PT6A-67B). It is certified for single-pilot IFR operations, though operators may choose to use a second flight crew member. Pilatus offers the PC-12 in a standard nine-seat airliner form, in a four-passenger seat/freight Combi version, and as a six-seat corporate transport with an option for a seven-seat by adding a three-seat bench in place of seats five and six. A pure freighter model is under consideration.