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Col. (Dr.) Robert Smith, the program manager of the Air Force Warfighter Refractive Surgery Program, performed the first laser surgery on a pilot in September. “That aviator now has 20/12 vision (better than 20/20) without glasses and tells me that his night-vision performance has been tremendously improved,” Dr. Smith said. He added that the surgery […]

Permitted For Some Pilots… Gone are the days when laser eye surgery meant an automatic disqualification for would-be military pilots. A more sophisticated version we told you about in May 2003, called wavefront-guided LASIK, is now being used by Air Force doctors as a “performance enhancement” procedure designed as “an improvement to the human weapon […]

It’s no coincidence that Eclipse simultaneously announced the revised training program with the unveiling of an insurance carrier willing to take on the new jet jockeys. AIG Aviation Inc. lists the training program as a condition for insuring the 500. “Quality training will be a critical element to a successful future for very light jets. […]

Future Eclipse pilots will use the same simulators as the line pilots to learn the curriculum, jointly developed by Eclipse and United. However, they won’t get the same instructors. In a separate deal, United has contracted with Alteon, a Boeing subsidiary, to provide flight and other instructors for the Eclipse program. The training, including computer-based […]

Eclipse Announces Training, Insurance Plans… Eclipse Aviation appears to have answered the chicken-and-egg dilemma revolving around what were likely the biggest obstacles to very-light-jet ownership: training and insurance. In simultaneous announcements Friday, the company that hopes to bring the masses a million-dollar jet (well, pretty close, anyway) has thrown away the notion of in-house training […]

Of course, the majors didn’t get to be the majors without some things going for them and, although their employees can sometimes be their harshest critics, enlightened self-interest appears to be a factor in some recent concessions. Northwest pilots recently took a 15-percent pay cut for the next two years and relaxed clauses on adding […]

Before the mini-jets take a serious swipe out of any airline’s bottom line, the carriers have some rather more pressing problems to deal with. How about a collective debt of $100 billion (Canada’s national debt is around $500 billion), losses of more than $25 billion since 9/11 and fuel prices going through the roof? Add […]

Microjets Seen As New Threat… When Forbes Magazine this week came up with a David Letterman-style Top Ten list on why U.S. airlines are in trouble, it saved some of the blame for GA. What’s more, the sector it singles out doesn’t even exist yet. The venerable business journal claims that “a new generation of […]

The NTSB criticism comes a couple of days after FAA officials patted themselves on the back for some improvements made in the last year. In launching its annual “Flight Plan,” the five-year road map for the agency, officials noted that crashes had declined and the FAA was handling more air traffic more efficiently. But the […]

The topics for the rest of the list are familiar but it’s clear the NTSB is growing impatient with the FAA’s implementation of new safety initiatives. For instance, the NTSB has been asking the agency for eight years to tighten up standards to help prevent aircraft icing, but the lack of progress has resulted in […]