briefs

Diamond Aircraft continues to turn heads with a piston twin that appears to put the fuel-economy figures of the most miserly singles and the performance data of the most spirited high-performance piston aircraft to shame. The company released test data on its DA42 Twin Star earlier this week. The all-composite, diesel-powered aircraft ripped along at […]

It could be viewed as an awfully suspicious incident, an elaborate hoax, or a simple misunderstanding, but the community of Beverly, Mass., is buzzing over the attempt by two men to buy a crop-duster at the local airport. It’s being taken seriously enough that the Massachusetts State Police are investigating the incident, which occurred Feb. […]

Somehow, in the Feb. 13 edition of AVflash, we managed to re-name the CEO of Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. Our apologies to John Murphey, as his family, friends and colleagues at Bell know him. Sorry, John.

The world is now open to U.S. flight schools, 16 months after security concerns closed a significant part of their business. The Department of Justice Thursday announced that as of March 17 it would allow non-U.S. citizens to take first-time type training in aircraft weighing more than 12,500 lbs. Foreign nationals with current certificates have […]

Word is finally trickling out to the politicians about the unprecedented powers granted to the TSA in unilaterally suspending airmen’s certificates, revoking them and then reviewing their appeal. When FAA Administrator Marion Blakey appeared before a Commerce Committee hearing last week, Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) noted that evidence supporting a revocation could be kept secret […]

While the FAA struggles with STARS, there’s a steady stream of innovation helping pilots get the job done more safely and efficiently. A wake-turbulence detector and a collision-avoidance system for small aircraft are under development and a wind-shear detector has already been installed in New York, not far from where American Flight 587 last year […]

As AVweb reported earlier, deployment of the controversial Standard Terminal Automated Replacement System (STARS) has been pared back to seven installations this year from a scheduled 18 because of budget constraints. The FAA is putting the best possible spin on the delay. “It’s not that we’re cutting back the deployment,” FAA spokeswoman Rebecca Trexler told […]

The FAA has been given until May to outline its needs and wants for the next four years. In hearings last week, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain told FAA Administrator Marion Blakey that if Congress doesn’t have the agency’s reauthorization proposal by then, the politicians would themselves set the FAA’s course. ATM Global obtained […]