briefs

A NASCAR fan who apparently took exception to a crop-duster’s drowning out the televised coverage of a race will spend six months in jail for trying to shoot down the offending aircraft. Anthony Gene Moore, 36, of Lenoir County, N.C., was convicted of a single count of firing into an occupied vehicle after he hit […]

HAVE YOU SIGNED UP yet for AVwebs NO-COST twice monthly Business AVflash? Reporting on breaking news, Business AVflash also focuses on the companies, the products and the industry leaders that make headlines in the Business of Aviation. Business AVflash is a must read. Watch for a Business AVflash regular feature, TSA WATCH: GA IN THE […]

_______COLUMNS Say Again? #35: Lessons UnlearnedThe National Airspace System has lots of redundancies; and some would say that takes more effort than is necessary. Why fly on airways when direct can be faster? Why read back the entire clearance or radio frequency change when you can just give your callsign? AVweb’s Don Brown tells of […]

An Australian youth might be looking for a less dangerous pastime after he was charged last week with making hoax radio calls to aircraft and the tower at Perth Airport. Scott Bradley Pike, 19, of the Perth suburb of Lynwood, was charged with a single count of using a transmitter in a way likely to […]

The next space tourist doesn’t intend to just kick back in the weightlessness for a week. Gregory Olsen is a New York scientist who made his fortune with optics inventions. He’s packing a bag full of infrared sensors with him to do some research of his own during his $20 million visit to the International […]

The Navy has ordered a review of its flight safety and maintenance operations after it lost about $150 million in hardware last week. Four fighters — three F/A-18 Hornets and an F-14 — were destroyed in separate incidents. All crews ejected safely, although two pilots suffered minor injuries, and no one on the ground was […]

A suicidal man, who asked for a ride in an open-cockpit biplane for his 88th birthday, jumped to his death Monday near San Diego. Joseph Harold Frost, who was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor, got out of the Stearman despite the best efforts of pilot Willis Allen to restrain him. The elderly passenger removed […]

France banned Egyptian carrier Luxor Air after the pilot of an MD-83 flew low and off course while on approach to the Nantes Airport last Sunday. The plane reportedly descended to about 660 feet over the city, below the level of some of the taller buildings, and was about a mile off course. The aircraft […]

A bill that would promote the development of defenses to protect commercial aircraft from shoulder-launched missiles was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday. The bill, H.R. 4056, would require the FAA to speed up certification of anti-missile systems at the same time it encourages the government to take steps to stop the […]

HAVE YOU SIGNED UP yet for AVwebs NO-COST twice monthly Business AVflash? Reporting on breaking news, Business AVflash also focuses on the companies, the products and the industry leaders that make headlines in the Business of Aviation. Business AVflash is a must read. Watch for a Business AVflash regular feature, TSA WATCH: GA IN THE […]