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If you’re ready to prepare for that next big certificate or rating, and need to take a knowledge test, Sporty’s Pilot Shop offers free services online that can help. The “Study Buddy” generates random test questions from the FAA database on topics that you select. You get instant feedback. Then when you’re ready, you can […]

While much of the U.S. has enjoyed a fairly balmy winter so far, for many pilots, the prime flying season is still ahead. Now is a good time to fight the winter rustiness and brush up with some training. Flight simulators are one way to stay in practice, but the Internet also can provide a […]

At that same meeting, Boyer played a videotaped message from U.S. Rep. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), who sits on the Transportation Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. Tiahrt said he would oppose any effort by the FAA to impose user fees on general aviation. “That should be a pretty clear message to the Bush administration,” […]

The FAA’s underlying aim, AOPA President Phil Boyer said last week, is to get out from under the control of Congress. In a speech to a Pilot Town Meeting last Wednesday night in Wichita, Boyer said the FAA’s complaint about diminishing funds is “just total fiction,” the Wichita Business Journal reported. “The fact is that […]

From a strictly business-savvy viewpoint, user fees for aviation don’t make sense, says Cessna CEO Jack Pelton. Talking to the Washington (D.C.) Aero Club last week, Pelton said arguments to impose such fees are based on five myths — that the current FAA funding mechanism is not working, that an overhaul is needed to pay […]

The FAA is reviewing its budget in order to meet the congressional mandate to cut back by 1 percent, FAA spokesman Greg Martin told AVweb yesterday, and has made no determination as yet regarding how that might affect the controller-hiring target. “We’re evaluating the entire landscape of our needs and priorities,” he said. “We continue […]

With a wave of controller retirements looming, the FAA had announced plans to hire 1,249 new controllers in fiscal year 2006. That plan now has been cut back by as many as 300. “This is a very disturbing development,” Doug Church, spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) told AVweb yesterday. “This agency […]

As of Monday, a thief with a taste for avionics apparently is working his (or her) way south along Interstate 95, the ACPI said. Reports began a few weeks ago in the Northeast and the most recent report came last Friday from Freeway Airport in Bowie, Md., near Washington, D.C. Late-model Bendix/King and Garmin units […]

Security measures have increased at airports around the country in the last few years, with fences, cameras and I.D. badges required in places that once were open to all — yet it seems that small airplanes still are not protected from thievery. Last year, 11 GA aircraft were stolen and 68 were burglarized, according to […]

While the MIT folks go straight to their ultimate creation, Larry Neal, of Butterfly LLC in Bridgeport, Texas, is taking the launch of his combination of a three-wheeled motorcycle and gyrocopter in a more methodical way. Neal’s friend John Frena, who’s trying to turn up the hype while Neal keeps his nose to the grindstone, […]