briefs

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Helicopter pilots have discovered all kinds of useful, and profitable, niches for their flying machines, but New Zealand farmers may be popularizing a new use for the big eggbeaters — they can help keep their precious grape vines warm at night. Many of the vineyards on the South Island are tucked into valleys and slopes […]

SpaceDev, a California company that has provided components to Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipOne, has started its own project to develop a reusable, piloted, suborbital spaceship. SpaceDev is not aiming for the X Prize, but says it is looking at a long-term program that could be scaled up to transport passengers to and from low earth orbit, […]

Anyone who is still uncertain whether to cast a vote for President Bush or John Kerry can check out AOPA Pilot’s October issue to read up on their views about general aviation … but it’s pretty tough to discern much difference in their responses. The strongest distinction we could find was in regard to the […]

As AVweb reported Monday, the TSA has issued a new rule about background checks for foreign flight students, and the General Aviation Manufacturers Association welcomed it as fair and balanced. But on Tuesday, AOPA published its own analysis of the rule, and found it wanting. “It applies unnecessary training and burdensome recordkeeping requirements to every […]

It’s not legal to discriminate against small aircraft while giving all the breaks to jets — that’s the argument of three tenants at McClellan-Palomar Airport, near Carlsbad, Calif., who are about to be evicted so a developer can build 19 new jet hangars. A complaint filed with the FAA last month by the Pacific Coast […]

The pilot and passenger in a Cirrus SR22 escaped injury on Sunday afternoon when they activated their ballistic chute and … arrived … in a walnut tree near Stockton, Calif. The pilot, William Graham, 65, and his wife, Barbara, 64, were en route to San Diego from Redding. Preliminary reports say the aircraft encountered turbulence […]

When something went “whoomp” outside a home in Hartselle, Ala., last Saturday, it turned out to be the door off an airplane. This week, it was identified as the door from a Diamond Star based at nearby Rountree Airport; the plane landed safely after the incident. Jeff Owen, a spokesman for Diamond Aircraft, confirmed yesterday […]

Hurricane Frances damaged the dream of dozens of veterans at Merritt Island. The Vietnam-era Huey helicopter they’d restored was all but wrecked when the pedestal hoisting it 15 feet in the air broke under the strain of the winds. It’ll cost $10,000 to fix, money the veterans say they don’t have… Only the pilot was […]