briefs

In the Senate on Monday, Republican leaders tried to force a vote on the stalled FAA reauthorization bill, but failed to garner enough support, as their motion failed 45-43. Democrats, much to the satisfaction of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), are standing fast for guarantees that would restrict privatization of more control towers. […]

The flight crew was to blame in the crash last year of a Raytheon (Beechcraft) King Air 100 carrying Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone and seven others, the NTSB said Tuesday. Neither icing nor crew fatigue were factors, according to the board’s findings. The flight crew failed to maintain adequate airspeed on approach, stalled, and did […]

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_______COLUMNS As the Beacon Turns #70: We Aim to PleasePilots take pride in completing a flight — especially if there is a bit of a challenge to make it something other than routine. But as AVweb’s Michael Maya Charles tells us, when we try to please everyone — especially those who don’t know how dangerous […]

Some manuals that support Cessna aircraft stretch 10,000 pages long, and some aircraft models are attached to as many as ten of them. For Cessna, updating one of those manuals is no small task, but a software company is hoping their efforts will make sense of the mess all those pages can make for pilots […]

The GA traffic diverted from Meigs helped push the comings and goings at Midway to record heights, even though there is supposed to be an airline slump going on. Almost 31,000 flights were recorded at Midway in October, the most in 13 years and up more than 10 percent from last year. According to controllers […]

Squeezing more planes into less space (and using technology to keep them apart) may not be as safe as proponents of Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) claim. Peter Ladkin, a computer scientist specializing in “dependable systems” at Germany’s University of Bielfeld told NewScientist.com that reducing vertical separation from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet doesn’t leave […]

Aviation business people who think they’ve had it rough since 9/11 might pause to consider the plight of the North American Institute of Aviation in Conway, S.C. They might also note the never-say-die attitude of the flight school, which has certainly had more than the usual share of post-9/11 misery. “Hopefully we see the light […]