briefs

The Lancair Co., of Bend, Ore., confirmed last Friday that it has (finally) closed on a $55 million financing deal with Malaysian investors. With 173 outstanding orders for its Columbia certified aircraft, the company has plenty of work to catch up on. “Our every effort is now directed at the re-start of manufacturing and delivery […]

The U.S.’s newest airline is putting its best features forward with an innovative marketing and service plan. Hooters Air will staff its Boeing 737s with three certified, gender-neutral flight attendants (to tell you what to do in an emergency) and two Hooters Girls in the uplifting uniform of that food service icon. “Why would you […]

Builders of a modern version of the ME-262 WWII jet fighter say their prototype will be back in the air in three to six months after a landing accident Jan. 18. Bob Hammer, the driving force behind the ME-262 project, said the left main gear collapsed after its first flight with the gear retracted. A […]

Controllers at the FAA’s 20 air route traffic control facilities can now see precipitation at three altitudes in three different colors, depending on intensity, on the same screen that shows aircraft position. FAA Administrator Marion Blakey announced Thursday that installation of the Weather and Radar Processor system has been completed and it should result in […]

If you said business at Cessna had its ups and downs in 2002, you wouldn’t just be making a bad pun. Although the Wichita company delivered almost 300 fewer aircraft than the year before and laid off hundreds of staff, CEO Russ Meyer said they took in the most money ever in 2002. Revenue for […]

A Boeing official has confirmed that the presumed-dead Sonic Cruiser may find new life in Boeing’s “new vision airplane” project. Kenneth Hiebert, Boeing’s marketing director in the Middle East, told a Dubai newspaper that elements of the long-range, high-speed airliner would end up in a new, unnamed aircraft that marries those attributes with high efficiency. […]

Coverups, lies and deception are the hallmarks of a good spy thriller, but a book to be released in March claims that this is no work of fiction. Joseph Farah, publisher of “First Strike,” claims writers Jack Cashill and James Sanders have uncovered “overwhelming evidence” that TWA Flight 800 was hit by a missile before […]

A personal injury suit against Lycoming over failure of an IO-540 engine will go ahead in U.S. District Court in Beaumont, Texas, May 12. But this one doesn’t have anything directly to do with the crankshaft problems that have grounded hundreds of aircraft since October. The crankshaft in this engine was made by a different […]

The General Aviation Coalition, a group of 16 GA organizations chaired by EAA President Tom Poberezny, chewed the fat with the new FAA administrator for the first time on Jan. 21, tackling certification, airport, funding and security issues in its first face-to-face with Administrator Marion Blakey. The group urged the Administrator to further delegate certification […]

While U.S. airlines celebrated a fatality-free 2002, the same could not be said for the rest of the world. In fact, new figures released by Flight International magazine reveal the number of people dying in airline accidents rose last year for the first time since 1996. There were 1,022 fatalities in 2002, compared with 778 […]