Daher (Booth 4882) is launching a new program to pair TBM turboprop owners with commercial charter operators. Called Fly and Charter your TBM (Fact), the program—announced this week at NBAA 2016—brings owners and operators together, as well as provides initial documentation, insurance guidance and technical advice. It also includes a "TBM charter pack," a Daher-fashioned solution designed to propagate higher aircraft utilization rates.
The charter pack includes an extended OEM maintenance plan, the TBM Care Program (TCP), to cover commercial operations and provide continuing airworthiness monitoring through CAMP Systems, while also offering a dedicated maintenance hotline and TBM professional training courses. Daher maintains that the aircraft is a more attractive charter platform now that it is offered with a lavatory option, which will be available on new-production aircraft next year. Currently, 40 TBM family aircraft are used in commercial charter and corporate service, according to Daher.
Separately, Daher announced that a TBM 930 cockpit has been delivered to Simcom Aviation Training for use in a new flight training device (FTD) being built by Frasca International. The FTD will be installed at Simcom's Lee Vista Training Center in Orlando, Fla. It features an actual Garmin G3000 avionics suite, including weather radar and synthetic vision, along with XT4 image-generation and display and a 220-degree field-of-view. The FTD will join other training devices at Simcom for legacy TBMs.
Daher is also bundling Jeppesen NavData and digital charts with the delivery of new TBM 900/930 models. Jeppesen subscriptions will be activated with new aircraft deliveries beginning in 2017.
Year-to-date, the French aircraft manufacturer has delivered 37 TBMs this year, and more than 806 TBMs have been delivered overall, with the fleet accumulating 1.38 million flight hours.