briefs

In April, the Zoning Board in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, sided with local pilots and said they were uncomfortable with a plan to install eight 387-foot-tall wind turbines within two miles of a runway at Somerset County Airport. But last week, the issue was being argued again in a county courtroom, as the wind-power developer began […]

…who flew round the world in a Piper. They landed in Limerick, and yelled, “Hey! We did it! And we raised a few bucks to fight cancer.” OK, they landed at Shannon Airport, not Limerick, but pilot Paul Ryan hails from there, and we couldn’t resist a rhyme in his honor. Last Thursday, Ryan, 33, […]

Flight Safety Technologies (FST), of Mystic, Conn., said this week it will test its Socrates Wake Vortex Detection and Tracking technology at the Denver International Airport this summer. The patented detection system projects low-power laser beams across a given space onto a reflector device, which reflects the beams back to a receiver. The Socrates system […]

On the heels of a federal agency’s report critical of the FAA’s oversight of maintenance and repair stations, a former 20-year FAA airworthiness representative pleaded guilty last week to selling bogus aircraft parts. The court said the sales caused losses of $2.2 million to the FAA and the airlines. Daniel Booker, 63, of California, bought […]

New Piper Aircraft Will Keep Answering The Phone At a press conference in Manhattan, New Piper Aircraft Inc. President and CEO Chuck Shuma Friday announced that American Capital Strategies Ltd. (ACAS) has purchased the $137 million company’s secured bank debt, representing a roughly $95 million investment. ACAS first invested in New Piper in 1998 and […]

As AVweb told you Thursday, ILS-like accuracy could be coming to an airport near you, thanks to the FAA’s new Wide Area Augmentation System. The WAAS signal, which improves GPS receiver accuracy, was switched on and now properly equipped aircraft can pinpoint their position to within a few meters. But the major impact will be […]

AOPA has developed an online form to collect real-life horror stories of pilots trying to operate within the security-related flight restrictions that have become a fact of life since 9/11. AOPA wants to use the stories as ammunition in its attempt to have the whole system of security-related regulations reviewed. AOPA is particularly interested in […]

GA pilots in the Los Angeles area are getting plenty of advanced notice of an FAA Christmas present to them. For whatever reason, the FAA has chosen Dec. 25, 2003, to implement the realignment of a VFR corridor through the busy LAX area. The new alignment changes the northern boundary of the Los Angeles Special […]

A top FAA official has been “counseled” by Administrator Marion Blakey and new flight information policies are being drafted after the agency got caught in a Texas-sized political scramble in May. The Department of Transportation’s Inspector General’s office released findings of the FAA’s involvement in the fracas, which, as we reported in June, at one […]

Boeing has entered the race to put a fuel-cell-powered aircraft in the air. Boeing’s research center in Madrid, Spain, will launch the process, planning to equip a Diamond Katana Xtreme motor glider with the plumbing, controls and electric motor needed to make it fly on a fuel cell. The plan is to fly the aircraft […]