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A New Zealand helicopter pilot who single-handedly put out a wildfire while flying with night-vision goggles in winds gusting to 40 knots has been awarded the Federation Aeronautique International (FAI) Outstanding Airman Award. According to the Southland Times, well-known pilot Richard “Hannibal” Hayes received the honor last week from FAI Chairman Pierre Portman for some […]

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have found that while the overall rate of airline mishaps between 1983 and 2002 remained stable, the number of those attributed to pilot error decreased 40 percent. Weather-related pilot mistakes dropped by 76 percent, those attributed to mishandling wind or surface conditions dropped by 78 […]

With no prop, no forward visibility and three people in his charge(one of them, his daughter), 7,400-hour pilot Barry Cox landed a 1988 Piper Malibu at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport Thursday after suffering catastrophic engine failure just minutes into his flight. Offering up a late nomination for understatement of the year, “It was exciting,” Cox told […]

Targeting aircraft owners, renter pilots, flying clubs, flight schools and FBOs, AOPA has teamed with the TSA to create an online interactive course to help ensure the safety and security of aircraft and airports. The course acts as an extension of AOPA’s Airport Watch program and “will meet TSA’s Recurrent Security Awareness Training requirement for […]

The first flight of the appropriately named Electra electric-powered open-cockpit aircraft took place Sunday, Dec. 23 at 11:50 a.m. local time at the Aspres sur Buech airfield, Hautes Alpes. The braced-shoulder-wing taildragger flew a closed circuit for 48 minutes powered by lithium polymer batteries, traveling the equivalent of a little more than 31 miles. (A […]

Some things old, some things new and a few things out of the blue make up the way we navigate. Answer the following questions correctly, and you’re cleared direct-to-anywhere-in-the-world with your GPS. Take the quiz. More Brainteasers

When Kevin Rudd was sworn in as Australia’s new prime minister earlier this month, among the items on his agenda was airport noise. Rudd has worked in the past to oppose expansion of the Brisbane Airport, and now is looking into imposing a curfew, the Courier-Mail reported this week. The curfew could ban aircraft operations […]

A group of committed volunteers who met online while participating in the Amazon/Google search for Steve Fossett has launched a new Web site, InternetSAR.org, to facilitate such searches in the future. “We learned a lot during the three months or so of searching for Steve, and we didn’t want that collective wisdom to get lost,” […]

In rural Sarasota County, Florida, police have been on the lookout for “grow houses,” secluded properties where barns and even homes are used as factories to grow large amounts of marijuana. This week, their investigations led to an airplane hangar at an 11-acre property in a neighborhood with a private airstrip. The home and a […]

Sometimes an airport is more than just an airport, and in Hilton Head, S.C., it has become a symbol of the island town’s future — will historic buildings and neighborhoods and trees be preserved, or will the needs of business and growth and tourism prevail? The town, aligning itself with longtime residents, has voted to […]