briefs

Nine New Zealand rugby fans were en route to an international tournament in Wellington, flying in a 60-year-old vintage warbird — a former Air Force de Havilland Devon — when something went awry. Passenger Dave McGall told the New Zealand Herald the aircraft was about 200 feet off the ground, headed for the runway at […]

The city of Chicago plans to open a heliport on the lakefront this spring for use by emergency first-responders, the Chicago Tribune reported on Friday. Private use of the site will be allowed only under contract. Aviation access to downtown Chicago was lost when Mayor Richard Daley demolished Meigs Field in March 2003, despite widespread […]

Commercial spacecraft could be cleared to carry passengers by 2008, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta said last Thursday. Speaking to a group of space entrepreneurs at the 9th Annual Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington, D.C., Mineta said that a number of companies should be set to take passengers into space by then and the […]

WSI Corporation announced last week that it is working on a system that would receive WSI’s aviation weather over Sirius Satellite Radio in your airplane cockpit. The FAA-certified system should be on the market by the end of this year, WSI said. “The reliability offered by Sirius’s satellite network augments WSI’s continued commitment to build […]

The Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy has joined with 21,459 others who have expressed opposition to the FAA’s plans to impose a permanent ADIZ over the Washington, D.C., area. In comments filed last week, the Advocacy Office said it is concerned that the FAA has underestimated the cost and impact of the airspace restrictions […]

COLUMNS As the Beacon Turns #98: Just Another Winter Day In ColoradoSome days you take off when it’s beautiful and it’s all gone sour in time for you to land. It’s best to prepare for these times with relaxation, a soft touch on the controls … and a few alternate plans, as Michael Maya Charles […]

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By the year 2020, the average general aviation airplane will be almost 50 years old, says the FAA. The FAA will address the safety of the aging fleet in a public meeting to be held next month in Kansas City, Mo. The FAA held a similar meeting in 2000, but since then, fatal GA accidents […]

On Tuesday, the NTSB said it has determined that the probable cause of the crash of a Beech King Air operated by Hendrick Motorsports was the flight crew’s failure to properly execute the published instrument approach procedure. A contributing cause was the crew’s failure to use all navigational aids to confirm and monitor their position […]