A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

Daher Aircraft&nbsp;(Booth 5079, Static ISD05) highlighted the first commercial operator of the airframer’s TBM 930 this week at NBAA 2018. Truckee, California-based Part 135 charter provider Mountain Lion Aviation acquired the aircraft that was exhibited by Daher at the static display at last year’s NBAA show, and since then the operator has notched 430 flight hours in the turboprop single on 300 flights that&nbsp;carried 475 passengers.

 


“We focus on a small, elite group of clientele that really is used to the private level of aviation and we provide that for them on demand,” said Devin Noe, the operator’s chief possibilities officer. “We fly that plane nonstop to Chicago from Truckee, we go to Dallas. Our clients just love it, and it has really opened doors for us with operating costs to get people into private aviation.” She added that the aircraft allows the company to get into all the smaller airports, with runways under 3,000 feet.

 


“We salute the TBM 930’s successful charter introduction by Mountain Lion Aviation, which has accumulated an impressive first year of activity,” said Daher Aircraft president Nicolas Chabbert, adding that at present 10 charter firms around the world operate&nbsp;17 TBMs. “This is clear indication that our very fast turboprop has an important role to play in the point-to-point air charter market.”

 


The French aircraft manufacturer has thus far delivered 248 TBM 900 series airplanes—the TBM 900, 910 and 930—and its order book currently holds another 266. The entire 900-series TBM fleet has logged 1.6 million flight hours, with more than 700 in the North American market and 141 based in Europe.

 


With direct operating costs of $2.48 per nautical mile, the manufacturer sees the aircraft as an ideal entry-level business aviation platform. “The one thing that is still hanging is we need to get the market educated to single-engine operations,” said Chabbert.

 


He noted the company is further increasing its digital presence through its Me &amp; My TBM application, with 43 aircraft currently enrolled. According to the company, it will eventually provide interconnectivity with other services, through a virtual assistant, for functions such as transferring flight data to the service center, flight operations, or other pilots, flight planning, fuel and ground service scheduling, and even booking car service and hotels in the destination city.

 


Daher plans to link its TBM Care proactive data analytics platform through the app as well, allowing the company to perform diagnostic tracking and proactively prevent problems.

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