briefs

Someone must have thought of this before, but how do you guard against terrorists armed with remote-control aircraft? As we suffer any number of indignities on our trips through the National Airspace System, technology marches forward in pilotless vehicles, such as the system IBM engineers are fooling around with. The folks at Big Blue’s Pervasive […]

The cash-starved city of Cincinnati might be looking lustily at 230 acres of prime real estate it owns as a cash cow, but those using Blue Ash Airport hope not. The city has a $450,000 FAA grant in the bank to resurface the runway or do other improvements but it’s decided not to spend it. […]

Airports and housing developments don’t mix, but try telling that to the community of Greenwood Village, near Centennial Airport in Colorado. The community recently approved a 387-lot subdivision less than 1.5 miles from the north end of the airport’s main runway. Centennial is the closest airport to downtown Denver and the second-busiest GA field in […]

Scaled Composites keeps marking milestones toward the capture of the $10 million X Prize to build the first civilian spacecraft. Last week, Environmental Aeroscience Corp. (eAc), one of two contractors competing to supply the rocket for the suborbital SpaceShipOne spacecraft, did a full-duration test of its hybrid rocket engine. Its competitor, SpaceDev, has already tested […]

The NTSB is recommending (PDF file) that the FAA order airlines to more thoroughly inspect aircraft that have encountered severe turbulence after the discovery of a composite delamination in an American Airlines Airbus A300 that was missed during the inspection specified in the maintenance manual. The NTSB said the plane, operating as Flight 903, was […]

The rumors about Beechcraft and Hawker being up for sale just might be true. Raytheon’s new CEO William Swanson told Bloomberg News last week he’d consider selling the aircraft division after fixing what ails it. “As soon as the market wakes up and people realize there is a rationalization that needs to take place, we’ll […]

____________BRAINTEASERS Quiz #72 — Grab Those VFR Sectional Charts And FlyFAR 91.103 says that you need “all available information” before launching on any flight. Yeah, right. Where’s a PIC supposed to glean all that stuff? Surprisingly, much of what you need — IFR or VFR — is on the lowly VFR sectional chart. But you […]

While GA airports are too often the target of cranky neighbors and developers in search of space to develop, now and then a local community discovers that aviation can enhance its quality of life. Such a story is unfolding in Tinicum, Pa., amid the suburbs between Philadelphia and New York City, where a little grass […]

Just who’s in charge of the next generation of aircraft could be open to debate. NASA has recently completed a crucial part of testing an F-15 that learns as it flies and can think for itself in emergencies. The Intelligent Flight Control System research is developing “self-learning” neural-network software for aircraft flight-control computers. During recent […]

New Zealand’s accident investigation board has praised a helicopter pilot’s skill in saving her craft and crew after a collision with trees at night in rough terrain, despite her own injuries — but criticized her actions in getting into the accident in the first place. According to the report, Life Flight Trust BK-117 helicopter ZK-III […]