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Wright Model “B” Crashes In Virginia… The Wright Experience’s reproduction of a Wright Model “B” crashed into a treetop Monday evening near Warrenton, Va., with airplane builder Ken Hyde at the controls. (This is not the reproduction of the 1903 Flyer that is scheduled to fly at Kitty Hawk in December.) Hyde was treated for […]

Orange Alert Affects D.C. Airspace, Sports Events… The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Tuesday raised its “national threat level” from Elevated to High risk of terrorist attack (for those of you with color vision, that’s Level Orange). What it means to you: Waivers that allow access to the 15-mile “no-fly” zone around Washington, D.C., will […]

Illinois Considers Law To Save Meigs… Chicago would be forced to reopen Meigs Field and never close it again under legislation now before the Illinois legislature. With help from AOPA, Rep. David Leitch (R-73rd District) has introduced an amendment to state Senate Bill 802 that would give Chicago additional powers to expand O’Hare International Airport. […]

Quality-Control Standards Approved… The enormously complicated task of creating the paperwork for a whole new class of aircraft took a major step forward last week. The quality-control language for the new light-sport category was completed during a consensus standard session hosted by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). The ASTM is facilitating the […]

DCA Access, Banner Towers And More… The alphabets are cheering (and taking some credit for) a legislative package that would, among other things, restore charter operations to downtown Washington, get banner towers back in business over outdoor gatherings, smooth foreign flight student regulations and allow third-party appeals of security-related airman certificate suspensions. The Aviation Security […]

Bombardier’s New Engines Emerge… Is the aviation world about to be set on its ear with the introduction of new piston powerplants? It would appear so. Although Bombardier/Rotax continues to be coy about what its plans are, AVweb has learned that it will announce at Oshkosh the introduction of at least two new certified aircraft […]

Alphabet Groups Push For Meigs Revival… It may have faded from the headlines (in the mainstream press, anyway) but the fight to reopen Meigs Field (CGX) is far from over. Just this week, three aviation organizations rallied their members to keep the pressure on Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. On its Web site, EAA notified […]

Eclipse Seeks JAA Certification… The dogfight between Eclipse and Cessna’s Mustang for the light jet market continued last week, but this time with a European backdrop. Both companies were trying to spin some news for themselves out of the European Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva, Switzerland. In a nutshell, Eclipse announced its […]

Rolling Out The Red … Tape… Further proof that Light Sport/Sport Pilot, which will create a new category of lower-performance aircraft and a new certificate for pilots with lower training and medical requirements, may not be but a dream: The FAA has begun creating the bureaucracy to administer it. The agency announced recently that it […]

New Lasik Technology Promises Better Results… Pilots, even more than most folks, tend to obsess over the limitations imposed by poor eyesight, and the inconvenience of glasses and contact lenses. Well, there’s a new twist to the most common form of vision-correction surgery, Lasik. The new procedure, which uses wavefront-guided technology that was developed at […]