briefs

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https://avweb.com/avmail/ Reader mail this week about Lockheed FSS, English on the radio, preventing mid-air collisions with gliders and much more.

Online Now: Listent to, or take today’s news with you via AVweb’s downloadable podcasts. Find exclusive interviews featuring Excel Jet’s Bob Bornhofen, Adam Aircraft’s Joe Walker, FAA administrator Marion Blakey, Cirrus Design’s Alan Klapmeier and more. AVweb‘s Podcast index, is available online — pick and choose your interets, or subscribe free to AVweb‘s podcasts and […]

We like aviation art as much as anyone but we suspect an Italian artist’s interpretation of the term could be questionable in the minds of some. Paolo Pivi borrowed an apparently well-used Westland Wessex helicopter and had it placed, greasy side up, in a public square in Salzburg, Austria. The 9,000-pound helicopter comes from what […]

It’s been 16 months of hard work but what a prize Robert Simon got at the end. The Columbus, Ohio, pilot and homebuilder recently flew his Lancair ES-P for the first time. The P stands for pressurized but it could also mean pretty darn fast. Simon reports his four-place, fixed-gear aircraft (Lancair suggests a Continental […]

A flight school in the Canadian province of New Brunswick says it will train up to 900 pilots for China Southern Airlines over the next five years. Officials of Moncton Flight College, of Moncton, N.B., say they expect to sign the $70 million deal in the next few days. The deal is the result of […]

Two announcements this week are a case in point for the diversity of the newly regulated Light Sport category of aircraft. Nexaer, of Colorado Springs, announced that its LS-1, an all-composite low wing with a swooping fuselage, is ready for its first flight. Meanwhile, beleaguered Renaissance Aircraft said it’s found a home at Flabob Airport […]

Congress has trimmed funding for the deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for border patrol duties until someone can explain what caused a Predator UAV to crash a few hundred feet from a home near Rio Rico, AZ, last month. (Thanks to Randy, an AVweb reader, for those details.) As AVweb reported, the UAV went […]

Cliff Garl satisfied a lifelong dream and may have set a record of sorts last week. The 91-year-old Shoreline, Wash., student pilot soloed for the first time over Arlington Airport. “You go into a nursing home and you’ll see people a lot younger than he just sitting there,” Garl’s 75-year-old instructor Joe Bennett told The […]

BRAINTEASERS Quiz #107: SIGMET/AIRMET SavvySlam into a developing thunderstorm that shakes your dentures loose and you’ll appreciate the significance of a good weather briefing. Or you can circumnavigate that learning step and test your severe weather planning skills here.