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Closer To Reality… The Light-Sport/Sport Pilot classifications could be a reality early in the coming year after Department of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta signed off on the rulemaking package Tuesday and forwarded it to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for a final review. The new classifications will allow reduced training and medical standards […]

Washington, D.C.-area pilots can expect a return to using gateway airports for security checks prior to entering the ADIZ thanks to the increased terrorism alert announced Sunday. The FAA’s Greg Martin told AVweb he doesn’t anticipate any increased security measures outside the Washington area. Regardless, check the FAA’s TFR Web site and call 1-800-WX-BRIEF prior […]

The FAA, according to some, is not above stepping into the season’s most despised role. The agency has some strict guidelines in the use of aircraft for charitable purposes and pilots, who have spent their own money using their airplanes for the good of others, have found themselves under investigation and even facing sanctions. Those […]

Not all erstwhile Santas descend from the heavens and dress in red. For 20 years, Pilots For Kids, a group founded by airline pilots, has been visiting hospitalized children, bringing them toys and other items to cheer them up while they’re ill. The pilots and cabin crew taking part in the visits wear full uniform, […]

Pilots’ Good Deeds… Year after year, a squadron of fellow volunteer pilots join with Santa to deliver the goods. While few of the aerial efforts have reached the sort of legendary status reserved for the Jolly Old Elf himself, maybe some are similarly deserving. One of the longest-running Yuletide aviation benefit programs is Flying Santa […]

Meanwhile, down under, an Australian company says it has created the first true flying robot helicopter, one that doesn’t need any help from the ground or space to find its way around. The five-foot-long Mantis uses a robot brain linked to sensors that enable it to “see” its surroundings and fly without a remote-control pilot […]

U.S. Navy To Test Flying Saucer… It may sound like something from Mars, but this pilotless flying saucer is actually Russian and it has caught the eye of the U.S. Navy. The pita-shaped Ekip drone could be flitting around the Navy’s Patuxent River test facility by 2007 thanks to a congressman who saw a prototype […]

For the first time since 1975, the number of “open” safety recommendations on the NTSB‘s books has dipped below 1,000, the board reported Monday. “Open recommendations mean that the safety loop is not closed — open recommendations mean that our job is not done,” said NTSB Chairwoman Ellen Engleman Conners. The current number of open […]

Maintenance Practices Cited In Airline Crashes… Flying today is certainly much safer than it was in the early days, when the Wrights and others were developing the first airplanes, but things still can go wrong. Last week, the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer reported that faulty maintenance played a role in at least three, and perhaps four, […]

While President Bush’s visit to Kitty Hawk yesterday (by helicopter, Air Force One, and helicopter) was widely viewed as a boost for aviation, it brought with it huge chunks of TFR’d airspace, giving the folks at AOPA a chance to vent. “This has got to be the bitterest irony — that America will celebrate a […]