briefs

AVMAILAVmail: Aug. 14, 2006Reader mail this week about metal fatigue, 100LL, ethanol and much more.

COLUMNSProbable Cause #13: Circling Into DangerA circling approach is one of the most challenging maneuvers in an instrument pilot’s repertoire. While it sounds simple, it’s also easy to get it wrong. WHAT’S NEWWhat’s New for AugustThis month AVweb’s survey of the latest products and services for pilots, mechanics and aircraft owners brings you a new […]

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This is one record you’ll never see in any official chronicles of aviation achievements but the team behind Vancouver’s Big Shooter couldn’t be happier. The “aircraft” managed to stagger about 86 feet before falling into False Creek, an ocean inlet in Vancouver’s downtown core. That was good for a North American record for Flugtag (means […]

A Canadian company is testing the waters to see if it makes sense to resume building Twin Otters. The last of 844 of the high-wing, twin turboprops rolled off deHavilland’s assembly line in Toronto in 1989 and Viking Air Ltd., of Victoria, B.C., says the notoriously rugged and reliable STOL aircraft are in serious demand. […]

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has given Groen Brothers Aviation the green light (and $6.4 million) to continue its efforts to develop a militarily-capable aircraft that lands and takes off like a helicopter but flies as fast and as far as a conventional airplane. In a news release, Salt Lake City-based Groen Brothers said […]

AOPA says it’s monitoring a couple of bills that some worry will mean the end of satellite weather beamed to aircraft cockpits. Internet rumors are circulating that the loss of Sirius and XM aviation weather services will be one result of the Local Emergency Radio Service Preservation Act, which has been lying dormant in House […]

Most of the Eastern Seaboard as far north as New Jersey now has virtually seamless automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast service (ADS-B — a system that automatically and precisely reports an equipped aircraft’s position, identity and velocity twice each second) thanks to a nudge from AOPA. The last gap was filled when the Pennsylvania Department of Aviation […]

Software originally designed for computer simulations has become an important tool for air traffic control centers to predict and manage the flow of aircraft traffic. Therefore NASA has declared its Future Air traffic management Concepts Evaluation Tool (FACET) the Software of the Year. The software crunches air traffic and weather data across the country and […]