briefs

The 2004 fire season might be a bit hotter since Monday’s announced termination of contracts accounting for 33 heavy water bombers. The Forest Service and other federal agencies dropped the contracts citing “unacceptable risk” even as one of those aircraft last Friday worked a fire near Hot Springs. Motivation behind the move comes from three […]

https://avweb.com/avmail/ Reader mail this week about Northwest Airlines vs. GA, FSS privatization, autogas vs. avgas and much more.

_______COLUMNS CEO of the Cockpit #32: Great ExpectationsWe all assumed technology would make life easier and safer; and save time and paper. Nice try. Welcome to the hurry-up-and-wait world with bugs in the software, reams of computer printouts, and people who couldn’t calculate a weight-and-balance to save their life (and wouldn’t have pencil and paper […]

Magnetos, that is. Our sister publication Aviation Consumer is seeking owner feedback on these two magneto types for an upcoming article. Contact the editor directly to comment.

Talk about a break with the past. The Italian government last week fired the entire board of Alitalia in order to find private investors to pump up the languishing airline. The government, which owns 62% of the company, also fired CEO Marco Zanichelli, who had been in the job for less than three months. Talk […]

The National Transportation Safety Board has released information that provides disturbing details of the fatal crash of a Hawker Hunter T MK 7 being ferried last July 22 for the Northern Lights Aerobatic team. Pilot Thomas Benton Delashaw of Conroe, Texas, was killed less than a mile from the runway after taking off from the […]

Just how many times can one company file for bankruptcy? We may find out with US Airways. US Airways Group Inc. says it is considering yet another filing to reduce costs by at least 25%, to better position itself to compete with the low-cost carriers. US Airways emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March of […]

We told you last week about damage suffered when the EAA’s B-17 “Aluminum Overcast” belly-flopped after folding its mains on a landing May 5 at the Van Nuys, Calif., airport. Now you can see what happened. Video obtained by KCBS-TV in Los Angeles shows that the B-17 went down hard when both of its mains […]

Citizens of Toulouse, France, and European aircraft maker Airbus celebrated as a “gigantic” new assembly line for the new super-jumbo A380 was unveiled to acclaim and many other fine adjectives last week. Airbus, the consortium of European companies, has (according to the numbers) displaced Boeing as the world’s leading producer of commercial aircraft. That sits […]

An apparent false report of a swimmer in distress proves once again that closing Chicago’s beloved lakefront airport was a singularly boneheaded move, according to the group Friends of Meigs. On April 25, Chicago 911 received a call of a person in trouble on a north-side beach. Emergency crews were dispatched, including a helicopter with […]