briefs

The FAA has closed a loophole that caused at least one community to believe it could control the airspace over its borders. Earlier this year Huntington Beach, Calif., passed an ordinance that would outlaw banner-towing aircraft from flying overhead. The FAA has reasserted its control of the skies over Huntington Beach — and everywhere else […]

As the Pentagon ponders whether the tilt rotor V-22 Osprey is too costly (or yet too dangerous) for the U.S. Marines and elite soldiers, Bell Helicopter has begun ground-testing a civilian version of the half helicopter/half airplane. The Bell/Agusta 609 would carry six to nine passengers and, like the troubled Osprey, use large propellers on […]

Most GA pilots don’t have to worry about new flight restrictions that may be imposed over national parks, according to AOPA. The group says it was in on drafting the National Parks Air Tour Management Plan and talked the FAA out of including transient GA traffic under the new rules. The program was announced in […]

As United Air Lines dove toward Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week, the FAA announced it wants to fine UAL $805,000 for alleged maintenance deficiencies. The FAA claims UAL illegally patched up holes in the spoilers on three of its Boeing 757s with tape and then flew them almost 200 times before permanent repairs were […]

Iowa’s members of the famed Tuskegee Airmen of World War II have been honored with a memorial at the Des Moines Air National Guard Base. The memorial, a full-size replica of a P-51 Mustang fighter painted in the colors of the Airmen, was dedicated recently at a ceremony attended by seven Iowa Tuskegee Airmen and […]

Ford Island, the U.S. Navy facility in the middle of Pearl Harbor that was a target of the December 7, 1941, attack that brought the United States into World War II, will become the site of a new aviation museum by 2005, if backers get their way. Plans for the Military Aviation Museum of the […]

Adam Aircraft, of Denver, Colo., announced this week that its prototype A500 aircraft, a six-place, centerline-thrust piston twin, has passed 100 hours of flying in its testing program. “We’ve completed 50 test flights,” engineer and test pilot Glenn Maben said in a press release. “So far, the aircraft has met or exceeded our expectations. We’re […]

Boeing workers have finished extensive modifications to a 747-400 destined for the U.S. Air Force’s Airborne Laser program, The Wichita Eagle reported this week. The 747 will head to Edwards Air Force Base in California next month, where it will be equipped with a high-energy laser system designed to shoot down ballistic missiles just after […]

As the seemingly endless Sport Pilot rulemaking process creeps through all of its necessary hoops, discernable progress is being made on a related front: the development of consensus industry standards for Light-Sport Aircraft. Subcommittees representing fixed-wing aircraft and powered parachutes have already completed work on their standards, EAA reported this week. Those standards are now […]

While we wait for news from Eclipse regarding how it will fill the void left by its rejection of the innovative Williams engine that was supposed to power its six-place twinjet, other manufacturers are quietly moving forward with competing projects. This week, The Wall Street Journal took note of Honda’s effort (which AVweb told you […]