briefs

Australian officials are asking two former pilots of Trans Air to go on record about their alleged safety concerns about the airline in the wake of a crash that killed 15 people on May 7. The Australian Transport Safety Board says the pilots are only willing to give off-the-record statements but those are worthless to […]

While we periodically fret about the addition of single UAVs to the airspace, researchers at the University of Essex, in England, are working on computer modules that will enable the creation of flocks of UAVs that will be able to act as flying Web servers. Two types of systems are envisioned; one, the outdoor “Gridswarm,” […]

There will be no free rides for anyone on company aircraft if the Senate’s version of the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act is passed. According to an analysis by the National Business Aviation Association, the Senate has imposed even tighter limitations on the write-offs companies can claim when their aircraft are used for “entertainment” purposes. The […]

They were cutting-edge in 1935, and now “new” Taylorcrafts are on the vanguard of the light sport aircraft (LSA) category. Resumption of production of the venerable taildragger, which were churned out at the rate of 30 a day (yes, each day of peak production, according to the company) in 1946, was granted in 2004 and […]

AVmail: May 23, 2005Reader mail this week about Chicago’s lack of fighter protection, a snake strike, and answers to the question, “The D.C. Insursion: Who deserves more blame?”

ATIS Is Sport Pilot Training Uninsurable for Commercial Flight Schools?As the details emerge of just how the Sport Pilot rules will work in the “real world,” one major block has turned up: Insurance companies may not be willing to underwrite it. AVweb presents a guest opinion piece from a frustrated Sport Pilot flight school. _______COLUMNS […]

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The Czech Aircraft Works caught our attention at last year’s Sun ‘n Fun when they exhibited, with little fanfare, the already-flying prototype of their first in-house design, a Sport Pilot-ready two-seat aluminum-hulled amphibian called the Mermaid. Now they’ve taken what they learned from that prototype and started test flights on the first production model. The […]

The Vickers Vimy replica that flew 15,000 miles from England to Australia in 1994, then 9,000 miles from London to Capetown in 1999, is ready for adventure No. 3 — retracing the first nonstop Atlantic crossing, made by the British team of John Alcock and Arthur Brown, flying a Vimy, in June 1919. The open-cockpit […]