briefs

The downward slide in GA accidents and fatalities hit an updraft in 2003 but a spokesman for the AOPA Air Safety foundation says it’s not much to worry about. The total number of GA accidents rose 2.5 percent in 2003 over the previous year while flight hours increased .8 percent, according to the annual Nall […]

They say politics makes for strange bedfellows but it appears the tiny fraternity of space explorers also has some unexpected liaisons. While Scaled Composites’ Burt Rutan was telling (yet another) conference on space development how generally inept and ill-suited NASA is for the job at hand, his mothership White Knight was running up and down […]

Midair collisions between aircraft are rare enough but for the second time in a little more than a month a parachutist has collided with an airplane in flight. In this case, near Racine, Wis., the outcome was a lot better than the tragic circumstances of the previous incident, in which the jumper died. Last Thursday, […]

There’s nothing like saving a life in your spare time. A volunteer pilot and his observer with the Coast Guard Auxiliary are credited with initiating the successful rescue of a kite surfer off the coast of central California on Thursday. Pilot Dan Lavi and Air Observer Sue Fry, both auxiliary members, were on routine patrol […]

Commercial spacecraft developers will get the same sort of opportunity to build and fly experimental versions of their vehicles as aircraft manufacturers do under a new set of guidelines issued by the FAA. The agency recently unveiled, for public comment, a special “experimental class” permit for those tinkering with suborbital spacecraft. The new permit promises […]

COLUMNS As the Beacon Turns #90: The Risk TakersRisk can’t be summed up with simple truisms like, “There are no old, bold pilots.” A surprising number of pilot-induced accidents are caused by more-experienced aviators who have become complacent to the risks. AVweb’s Michael Maya Charles ponders our flying risks in this month’s As The Beacon […]

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Some people just land on their feet. And for Kyle Martin it was a potentially devastating fall from a cliff that gave him a shot at being an Air Force pilot. The well-liked cadet at the Air Force Academy had everything going for him. He was second in his class, a potential Rhodes Scholar, and […]

A part owner of the St. Louis Cardinals believes that if a small airport in Wyoming builds a longer runway, people will come to his nearby guest ranch in neighboring Colorado. In fact, David Pratt is willing to pay $1.11 million for improvements to the Dixon Airport as long as they include boosting the runway […]