Aviation International News senior correspondent Ian Goold has been involved in aerospace since 1964 and in aviation media for more than 40 years. He enjoyed a 20-year career at Flight International magazine, where he was latterly air-transport editor before turning freelance in 1993. A winner of the European Regions Airline Association Hank McGonagle award for excellence in aerospace journalism and a Royal Aeronautical Society Aerospace Journalist of the Year global&nbsp;award, he has edited or contributed to aerospace and aviation magazines, special publications, and websites in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. Ian entered aerospace as an apprentice at the British Aircraft Corporation at Brooklands (Weybridge), where he worked on production and final assembly lines of the Vickers Super VC10, and BAC One-Eleven , and manufacture of Concorde major sub-assemblies. He subsequently graduated from the BAC Design Training School to work in the airframe structures drawing office (including design of international future projects, such as the Panavia Tornado multi-role combat aircraft) before joining Flight International in 1973. Apart from years of reading aircraft magazines and books, his first direct contact with aviation media had come during the early 1970s when he was involved at Brooklands with the Weybridge Man-powered Aircraft Group, which designed and built the tenth aircraft to fly under purely human power. As an aviation journalist, he has worked at more than&nbsp; 50 of the major biennial&nbsp;global and regional international aerospace industry shows at Le Bourget, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai (having missed attending only one "Farnborough" since 1960), plus innumerable NBAA, HAI, (U.S.) AOPA, and EBACE Conventions and ERA Assemblies. His favourite aircraft is the Hawker Hunter, of which – as a schoolboy – he heard hundreds make their first flights from Dunsfold, where also on September 24, 2013, he saw the penultimate landing of the VC10 (happily involving an example of which he had witnessed the maiden takeoff in 1970) a day before the last example made the design's final flight (unless, of course....).

Senior correspondent

Ian Goold

BAE Systems Regional Aircraft suggests there might be a large increase in the Persian Gulf-based fleet of British Aerospace 146/Avro RJ regional jets in the next six months. The current four airplanes operating in the area could have grown to as many as 15 by the second quarter of 2008, according to BAE Systems salesman Andy Whelan at an aviation-finance conference here last week. 
Interest in regional aircraft in the Middle East is growing, said Whelan. Often available at relatively short notice and for utility applications beyond established airline operations, such equipment permits carriers to develop short and “thin” routes while maintaining service frequency. Abu Dhabi-based Palm Aviation has acquired the seven BAe 146-300s in storage following previous operation by China Northwest Airlines. The first machine, due to undergo a VIP conversion, will go to its customer later this year.
The Dubai Air Wing has bought three Avro RJ85s previously flown by Mesaba Airlines of Minneapolis. At least one will undergo VVIP configuration, and all will enter&nbsp; service in the early part of 2008. An Avro RJ100 currently in airline service has been sold to an undisclosed Gulf customer for delivery in January ahead of conversion for VVIP use. 
The current fleet in the region consists of two Avro RJ85 transports flown by the Bahrain Defence Force, an RJ70 corporate aircraft with Abu Dhabi’s Amiri Royal Flight, and a 42-passenger executive-charter RJ85 flown by Royal Jet. The most recent transactions mean that three Gulf governments have chosen to operate Avro RJs.

Gulf BAe 146/Avro RJ fleet may experience large hike

BAE Systems Regional Aircraft suggests there might be a large increase in the Persian Gulf-based fleet of British Aerospace 146/Avro RJ regional jets in th

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