briefs

Flying at 40 feet or so AGL while firing at wild animals on the ground might not seem like the safest way to fly an airplane. But it’s standard practice in the American West, where the federal government operates a fleet of aircraft and contracts with pilots to fly their own small airplanes and helicopters […]

Onboard systems help military aircraft to anticipate and avoid attacks from missiles, and in this post-9/11 era, efforts are mounting to quickly transfer that technology to the civilian realm. The FAA reauthorization act now in the works would create (in Sec. 427) a task force to hasten that process. Underscoring the urgency, The New York […]

The FAA has extended its comment period by one month for two proposed Airworthiness Directives that would require a wing-spar modification for several models of Cessna twin-engine aircraft. Comments can now be submitted on or before September 8, 2003. Click here to download the proposed AD affecting Models 402C and 414A, and click here for […]

Owners and operators of repair stations face a sea of paperwork from the FAA, but a new publication from the Aeronautical Repair Station Association (ARSA) aims to relieve some of that workload. ARSA, based in Alexandria, Va., announced last week that it has published a Model Domestic Repair Station Manual to help small repair stations […]

Congress may be taking a recess — putting the FAA reauthorization bill on hold till after Labor Day — but the debate over privatization goes on without a break. In the latest round, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) is getting snippy with DOT Secretary Norm Mineta over the Bush administration’s decision to declare […]

A sleek amphibian (not a description usually used for flying boats) that captured the imagination — if not the marketplace — in the kit crowd will be launched as a certified design, according to Advanced Aero Corporation spokesman Paul Marshall. A prototype of the production Seawind, with its distinctive tail-mounted engine and massive bubble canopy, […]

New Piper said last week that it has achieved shorter product-development cycles and greater efficiency in its “Factory of the Future” by implementing the production techniques developed by automobile manufacturers in the 1980s. “That task was nothing less than changing the way Piper does business,” New Piper CEO Chuck Suma said in a news release. […]

A system intended to enable pilots to fly accurately even when blindfolded is being tested this month at Canada’s Institute for Aerospace Research (IAR) in Toronto. The system, developed by U.S. Navy Capt. Angus Rupert, uses stimulators embedded in a pilot’s vest to produce tiny vibrations that move around the torso in the same direction […]

A new program starting next month in Stockton, Calif., offers a chance for 24 students in grades 7 through 9 to integrate aeronautics and space into their middle-school curriculum. The Venture Space and Aeronautics Academy will meet at the Stockton National Guard Air Center. “There’s so much science and math in aviation,” academy educator Marcie […]

The NTSB said on Tuesday that the probable cause of the crash of an Emery Worldwide Airlines DC-8 aircraft near Sacramento, Calif., on Feb. 16, 2000, was “a loss of pitch control resulting from the disconnection of the right elevator control tab.” The three crew members aboard the flight were killed, and the aircraft was […]