briefs

Stories of financial hardship are all too common in the world of GA businesses, so numbers like “56 percent growth” tend to stand out. That number led a press release last week from Ballistic Recovery Systems (BRS), of South St. Paul, Minn., which reported gross revenues up 56 percent from the same quarter a year […]

NavCanada, the private, non-profit company that supplies air traffic control and other aviation services in Canada, is raising its rates an average of 6.9 percent in August. The company announced Thursday that the ongoing airline slump, coupled with the war in Iraq and SARS, and an unpaid $43 million debt owed by Air Canada, now […]

The FAA is rewriting the definition of “public aircraft” as opposed to civil aircraft but don’t hope (or worry) that it’s opening any loopholes. The rewrite is just to clean up the language and bring it in line with the Wendell H. Ford Aviation and Investment Reform Act (AIR-21), which was enacted in 2000. Owners […]

After they’re trained to carry guns in the cockpit, airline pilots’ next course could be on taking out a missile headed for their aircraft. The Homeland Security Department is calling for proposals from high-tech companies on how to protect airliners from shoulder-launched missiles and they’re asking for at least two prototypes to be built. “This […]

With a couple of drone engines supplying the power, the Eclipse 500 resumed flight testing Thursday, flying a 26-minute shakedown that Eclipse said went well. The Teledyne 382-10E engines are substituting for the yet-to-be-built Pratt and Whitney Canada PW610F engines that will go on production models. The drone engines will be used to complete aerodynamics […]

The V-22 Osprey tiltrotor program appears to have passed a major hurdle. The Pentagon has ordered 11 more Ospreys, at a cost of $817 million, giving life to a project almost killed after a series of high-profile incidents and fatal crashes in 2000. Since the crashes, which in 2000 killed 23 Marines, aircraft systems have […]

On Monday, AVweb reported on an incident in which a Russian-made airliner’s cargo door opened in flight. We still don’t know how many people were sucked from the aircraft to their deaths but the Associated Press found some passengers who managed to hang on through the decompression. The AP said Congo police Lt. Ilunga Mambaza […]

While Ansett Airlines is no more, the labor issues it once dealt with are still very much a present-day issue. Thirty-six pilots of the defunct Australian carrier are suing the company’s administrators for more than $716,000, claiming they should have been paid wages for training in January 2002 as preparation for the aborted takeover by […]

Apache owners take note: A new FAA final rule is going to effect next month. This amendment adopts a new Airworthiness Directive (AD) that applies to certain New Piper Aircraft Inc. model PA-23, PA-23-160, PA-23-235, PA-23-250, and PA-E23-250 airplanes that do not incorporate a certain design flap control torque tube or torque tube assembly. This […]

While most of the aircraft manufacturing industry struggles to remain aloft, Cirrus Design claims to be on a growing sales trend. The company boasts 800 employees and an equal amount of aircraft. The company recently released some data to support this claim. Cirrus says its has experienced an increase in production for the SR20 Version […]