briefs

Canadian biz jet operators and other high-performance aircraft owners are being urged to get their planes upgraded now for the new world of high-level air traffic control coming by the end of 2004. Nav Canada will implement the Southern Domestic Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum at the same time the U.S adopts the reduced vertical spacing […]

If your Continental engine needs replacing anytime soon, a call to TCM now might save you a few thousand dollars later. The company announced an across-the-board price increase of 10 percent for most of its products last week. TopCare cylinders went up 5 percent. Parts prices went up Dec. 20 but the existing stock of […]

How would you feel if you knew the controller working your flight hadn’t eaten in five days? We thought so. That was the strategy behind an innovative (and ultimately successful) job action in Russia last week. On Sunday, controllers in the Siberian city of Omsk stopped eating, but kept showing up for work, to press […]

Want to swap flying stories with John Travolta? You could be his neighbor at a posh fly-in community under construction near Ocala, Fla. Travolta, who owns a Boeing 707, among other jets, was one of the first to buy a piece of Jumbolair Aviation Estates. Not only will the 7,500-foot, lighted, FAA-licensed runway be ample […]

Communities around Austin, Texas, are not exactly lining up to take on a GA airport the state’s capital city doesn’t want and the state government has said the area must have. Eighteen months after the state passed legislation ordering construction of a new GA facility near Austin, a committee of government and aviation officials is […]

The skies are open for business over this week’s Rose Bowl festivities … and that has some local officials steamed. The FAA will allow up to six banner-towing aircraft over the parade and football game at any one time. It’s doing so despite security worries by police and civic leaders. “It creates a dynamic where […]

The nation’s nuclear reactors are safe from an airborne terrorist assault … provided the terrorists use a Boeing 767-400 and keep their speed under 350 mph. A computer engineering model study done by the Electric Power Research Institute, an industry-sponsored consortium, showed the 767, fully loaded with fuel, wouldn’t breach the four-foot-thick concrete of a […]

The FAA has been told to get the best bang for the traveling public’s buck with a new weather avoidance and forecasting system — a.k.a. the Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS). An audit by the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General says the FAA should put the best possible equipment into air traffic control […]

Is Wichita’s loss Vancouver’s gain? As Cessna Aircraft prepared its workforce for a pre-Christmas layoff announcement, workers at Vancouver-based Avcorp Industries were getting ready to design, test, build and support the center wing box, vertical stabilizer and rudder for the new CJ-3bizjet. Cessna awarded the contract to Avcorp Sept. 10 and it has theInternational Association […]

While airports are being sold to development interests all over the country, the residents and politicians of Hillsborough, N.J., have a different agenda for their facility. The community is banding to together to prevent closure of their little airport and to use it as a hedge against further development. “If the property is sold, it […]