briefs

Sino Swearingen President Carl Chen, who had been credited with helping to bring the SJ30 small business jet quickly to FAA certification, has left the company. The company announced his departure last Thursday, saying he had left to “pursue other interests.” But according to the San Antonio Express-News, Chen has filed suit against the company, […]

Contrails, those wispy white condensation trails that form behind airplanes, may seem harmless enough. Yet astronomers say they are one more problem making it harder for them to use their telescopes. While some contrails dissipate quickly, others can persist or even develop into high-level cirrus clouds. “We know from satellite imagery that clusters of contrails […]

Helicopters sit and wait on the factory floor in Stratford, Conn., as over 3,000 workers at Sikorsky Aircraft have taken to the picket line in a dispute over health-care coverage. The company proposed to double health-care co-payments right away and then hike them another 15 percent over three years, union officials told The Associated Press. […]

The NTSB on Tuesday asked the FAA to require turbine-powered helicopters that carry six or more passengers to be equipped with a terrain awareness and warning system. “It is well past time for the benefits from these standard safety devices to be made available to passengers on helicopter transports as they are on fixed-wing planes,” […]

The AOPA Air Safety Foundation (ASF) has released the 2005 edition of its Joseph T. Nall Report, a review and analysis of the past year’s GA accidents. The report shows a historic low for aviation accidents in 2004, the ASF said. There were 6.7 percent fewer total accidents in 2004 than in 2003, and fatal […]

You can bet Russian airline pilots are extra careful with their transponder settings these days after the government passed a law allowing hijacked aircraft to be shot down in the name of security. Perhaps putting the law in context with Russian military action exhibited in recent bouts with terrorists, pilots have written President Vladimir Putin […]

The only VLJ with optional ejection seats (standard if you buy the military version) continues to successfully perform in the early stages of its flight test program. The fighter-like ATG Javelin recently cycled its gear in flight for the first time. Speeds ranged between 130 and 180 knots and a series of 30-degree bank turns […]

A B-29 that has kept its Cold War secrets 200 feet below the surface of the Overton arm of Nevada’s Lake Mead for almost 60 years will soon be open to the public — members of the public that are qualified to use rebreathing equipment for those depths. Although the wreck was found five years […]

A Kansas company has been charged with fixing a helicopter (that had crashed and been submerged in the ocean) with parts from another helicopter (that had also crashed) and then selling the chopper to a Niagara Falls sightseeing company, which used it to carry passengers. A federal grand jury indicted Robert A. Schlotzhauer, 66, owner […]

The pilot of a Cessna 182 that was flying between 120 and 140 mph, at night, and low, over an interstate highway, was talking on his cellphone when the plane’s wing was sheared off by electrical wires, according to the NTSB’s preliminary report. Benjamin R. Hicklin, of Spottswood, Va., was talking with his partner in […]