briefs

Southwest Airlines is beginning the seventh year of its Adopt-A-Pilot program, in which fifth-grade students across the country get to follow the travels of one of 450 volunteer pilots who take them along for the ride in a variety of ways. Some communicate by e-mail or send postcards, giving clues and asking students to figure […]

A proposed law will also make volunteers who fly cancer patients to treatments and sick children to medical appointments fit the legal meaning of the term Good Samaritans. The House and Senate Judiciary Committees are now reviewing the bill, proposed in 2002 by Rep. Ed Schrock (R-Va.) to include volunteer pilots in the Volunteer Protection […]

After a yearlong battle to be included, cargo pilots can now apply to carry guns on their flights. However, the expansion of the Federal Flight Deck Officers (FFDO) program seems to have stirred up more criticism than it has calmed. The TSA announced the move on Tuesday, about a month after the president signed it […]

_______COLUMNS Pelican’s Perch #77: Startups & RunupsEven the apparently simple tasks of starting and running up a piston aircraft engine before takeoff should be done with the same concerns for engine life, reliability and safety as any other part of flight. AVweb’s John Deakin steps us through the process, dispelling myths as he goes.

https://avweb.com/avmail/ February 2, 2004Reader mail this week about getting your license in 40 hours, changes in the D.C. ADIZ, airport closures and more.

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Could Air Canada flight crews be in for some refreshers on VFR procedures? For the second time in less than six months an Air Canada crew has committed an embarrassing navigational blunder while looking out the windows instead of scanning the panel. According to the NTSB incident report, on Jan. 19, a rare clear winter […]

After years of bitter legal battles, a company’s plans to build a souped-up modern version of the venerable Luscombe 8F taildragger revolve, predictably, around finding new investment. Renaissance Aircraft LLC has the facilities, the jigs and the equipment and should soon have the legal right to start building new Luscombes, but the court battles have […]

We told you Jan. 19 and Jan. 26 about the case of the allegedly drunk pilot who raised havoc over Philadelphia and southern New Jersey a couple of weeks back, but the story keeps getting better (worse). Authorities now say John Salamone was also taking Valium when he took his Cherokee on a four-hour tear […]

Regulations aside, a California pilot claims the military put him in harm’s way when it refused to let him land his powerless Cessna 140 at Travis Air Force Base Jan. 11. But an Air Force spokesman said he was welcome to set down on that big, wide runway. “We were more than ready to accept […]