briefs

A South Carolina teen claims to be the youngest dual-rated pilot in the U.S. According to his local newspaper, The Southern Pines Pilot, Zealand Shouse got a private airplane certificate on Dec. 10 to go along with his lighter-than-air ticket. His father, a former airport manager, is also a CFI and provided most of Zealand’s […]

The city of Pompano, Fla., is asking the FAA to reconsider a Dec. 15 ruling that would force it to abandon long-standing noise-abatement regulations that the FAA says are illegal. For almost 10 years it has been “illegal” to do touch and goes at Pompano Air Park except on weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 […]

Investigators are concerned that harnesses holding novice skydivers to their jumpmates may have played a role in the death toll resulting from a crash in Australia earlier this week. Five people died when the Cessna 206, with a pilot and three tandem pairs on board, clipped a tree and crashed into a dam on private […]

An Israeli company has received the first-ever certification of an anti-missile system for civilian aircraft. Israel’s Civil Aviation Authority this week approved the system, developed by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAIs) Elta Systems Group. The system is specifically designed to thwart terrorist attacks from man-portable air defense systems (MANPADs), which are in the hands of as […]

A Piper Warrior pilot who spent about 20 minutes in the 37-degree waters of the Hudson River last Monday was released from hospital a little more than a day later, none the worse for wear. John Eberle, 42, the flights pilot and a flight instructor, met with reporters on Tuesday, 27 hours after the Warrior […]

An airline passenger who misbehaved during a transoceanic flight was dropped off on an obscure tropical island and stranded there for 36 hours before he could find a flight out. The unidentified and allegedly inebriated man was flying on a Monarch Airlines Airbus A321 out of Manchester, England, with 210 other passengers last Tuesday night […]

The FAA has mandated emergency wing inspections for Mallard seaplanes. The action follows a fatal crash in Miami on Dec. 19 in which a Mallard lost a wing shortly after takeoff. The pilot and 19 passengers all died in the crash. The Airworthiness Directive instructs that all affected aircraft must be inspected before further flight. […]

A homeowner in Scotland who launched fireworks into the path of aircraft landing at Edinburgh Airport has pleaded guilty to reckless conduct, the Scotsman.com reported last week. Peter Crane, 20, fired the rockets from his backyard on a busy Friday night on Oct. 29, 2004. Air traffic controllers started to warn crews of the hazard […]

The FAA last Thursday published its proposed rules to govern the operation of commercial space flight. The 120-page document mainly covers qualification and training for the crew and passengers — but the FAA doesn’t call them passengers. They are “space flight participants … not a typical passenger with typical expectations of transport, but someone going […]

The day of reckoning is near for many very-light-jet projects that have been in the works for years now … for many, that day could come in 2006. Eclipse says it’s expecting FAA certification in March but that a supplier’s certification trouble will likely push deliveries to second quarter 2006. Cessna plans to certify and […]