News

Despite airline bankruptcies, the withering of cushy retirement plans and having to suffer the indignities of long security lines to get to work, pilots are a happy lot, according to the Nov. 26 issue of Time. In an article about job satisfaction, the magazine reports that 49 percent of professional pilots say they’re “very happy” […]

The Department of the Interior says it will continue using helicopters to herd wildlife in national parks despite an accident in October that destroyed a helicopter but only caused minor injuries to the pilot and the biologist on board. The NTSB says the Bell 206 snagged the top wire of a fence as the chopper […]

It may be music to the ears of some, but airplane noise may be hard on the heart. A Swedish study suggests that men who live near airports have a greater risk of developing high blood pressure than those who live in quieter neighborhoods. “It is thought that aircraft noise causes stress problems when it […]

A Honolulu department store could face the FAAs wrath after a Honolulu Police Department helicopter tangled with the tethered balloon the store was using to advertise a sale. The HPD chopper was supporting ground units chasing a suspected thief last week when it clipped one of the lines holding the Savers Thrift Centers promotion balloon […]

The Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands will demonstrate how the application of Fault Tolerant Control can be used to keep damaged aircraft flying and improve their chances of being successfully recovered. Fault Tolerant Control involves the creation and adaptation of on-board control systems to handle unanticipated in-flight emergencies and keep the shiny side […]

The families of two helicopter television journalists killed in a collision in Phoenix in July have donated much of the considerable public fund created in their memory to a group that helps the families of police officers killed in the line of duty. Pilot/reporter Scott Bowerbank and cameraman Jim Cox, of KVTK, died July 27 […]

The environmental group Friends of the Earth says Lead emissions from general aviation aircraft endanger public health and warrant regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency. Friends of the Earth is calling on the agency to either regulate or, if lacking present evidence, to investigate “the health and environmental impacts of lead emissions from general aviation […]

Click for larger images Five people were injured Thursday when Airbus suffered its first ground test accident. The event involved Airbus’s second largest aircraft, a 359-seat A340-600, that “broke free” while testing its four engines (rated at 56,000 pounds of thrust, each) and crashed into a noise-reduction barrier at the Airbus facilities in Toulouse, France, […]

“The FAA funding issue is far from resolved,” AOPA President Phil Boyer warned in a release Thursday. President Bush is using public frustration over airline delays to push his administration’s agenda of imposing a 263 percent increase in avgas taxes plus additional user fees, according to AOPA. For its part, AOPA is using the president’s […]

President Bushs plans to ease congestion and reduce flight delays over the coming holidays were panned as too little, too late in some circles but embraced as a sign of hope in others. Bush announced that the epidemic of flight delays will be addressed with the opening of Thanksgiving express lanes through military operating areas […]