briefs

The focus will shift from football to aviation for a while at this year’s Rose Bowl festivities. Contributions from two communities that legitimately share the distinction as the birthplaces of powered flight will have a prominent presence in the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif. The Outer Banks of North Carolina will have a […]

A new group’s study gives a whole new meaning to the term getting tanked. A task group of the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) Aviation Gasoline Subcommittee will investigate whether ethanol alcohol-based fuels can be a viable alternative to 100LL. It’s widely believed that 100LL will eventually disappear as more countries ban tetraethyl […]

The FAA has opened the door another crack to better integration of GPS navigation. A new proposed rule will allow GPS-equipped pilots to fly charted GPS routes through Class B airspace and to fly at lower altitudes along airways where ground-based radar coverage limits minimum altitudes. Once it becomes a final rule, the FAA can […]

In most organizations, if the chairman of the board said something, backed up by the CEO, you’d expect the rank and file to believe it. Not so, it seems, with the nagging issue of privatization of air traffic control services. Last week FAA Administrator Marion Blakey issued a memo to controllers that doesn’t seem to […]

In last Monday’s NewsWire, we inadvertently displayed the Aerosance FADEC logo in a story referring to an engine control system developed by Thielert. Sorry for the mixup.

For every new aircraft to actually make it into production, we’d guess there are a dozen that don’t make it past the prototype stage. A couple of old friends in Tower, Minn., are ready to test those odds and try to raise a couple of million dollars to realize their dream. Larry Gish, 53, and […]

In an annual survey of U.S. commercial pilots, the FAA gained 9 percent in its overall approval rating, ratcheting up to a score of 64 out of a possible 100, the FAA announced Monday. (While we appreciate the improvement, we can’t help noting that airmen with that score would fail to pass their FAA knowledge […]

Tuesday, Dec. 17, marked the 99th anniversary of the Wright brothers’ famous flight at Kitty Hawk, and it was also the kickoff date for a year’s worth of celebrations and commemorations leading up to the big 100th in 2003. In Washington, D.C., movie star/pilot John Travolta hosted a ceremony for the U.S. Centennial of Flight […]

The homeland security bill that became law late last month allows airline pilots to carry weapons aloft, but the next step is not an easy one: Volunteers must be recruited, training programs must be put in place and somebody has to pay for it all. The new law stipulates that the training is to begin […]