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AVmail: December 7, 2014

Letter of the Week:Third Class Medical Issues Regarding Woody Beck’s article on the decline of GA: He states the following,“Over the longer term, changes in the third class medical will have no significant impact because its cost is negligible, roughly the cost of 15 gallons of av fuel every two years for us older pilots.” […]

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Smaller Aircraft Tails Possible

Researchers at Caltech and the University of Arizona are working on a system that may someday allow aircraft designers to drastically reduce the size of the vertical stabilizer. That, they say, will reduce weight and drag and save a lot of fuel. The researchers installed small jets along the rudder and blew streams of air […]

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Canadian Airlines’ Battle Of Good Cheer

Competition between airlines is nothing new but Canada’s largest carriers seem to be in a pitched battle to prove which is the nicest. Last Christmas, WestJetthrew down the good cheer gauntlet by treating two loads of passengers to their Christmas wishes, which were delivered on the baggage carousel. The resulting video got nearly 37 million […]

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Device Aims To End Armrest Wars

Now that the airliner seat reclining issue seems to have subsided, a Dallas company has come up with another gadget designed to keep us from getting too close to our fellow passengers. The Soarigami is a plastic divider that clips on armrests to allow passengers on each side a segregated sliver of personal forearm space. […]

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Video: Orion’s First Flight

On December 5, 2014, NASA flew the new Orion deep space vehicle for the first time, launched by a Delta Heavy booster. In this NASA-provided footage, the first part of the mission is detailed. view on YouTube

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Orion Lands Successfully

NASA’s Orion unmanned spacecraft successfully launched, orbited the Earth and splashed downFriday morning on its first test flight, one day after the liftoff was scrubbed due to weather and mechanical problems.Orion, a prototype capsule for future manned space missions, made two laps around the Earth, rode its Delta IV rocket up to 3,600 miles, then […]

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Orion: Glacial-Pace Space Dawns

Watching the Orion launch on NASA’s splendid live feed on Friday, I was asking myself if it made me feel that old Apollo magic. The answer: it did. Even though the vehicle was unmanned, its ultimate purpose is to put the U.S. back into the manned spaceflight business. That’s on my short list of worthy […]

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Pilots Union Sues NetJets

A union lawsuit filed this week against NetJets Inc. alleges the private charter company illegally accessed a pilots union message board and created an imposter Twitter account in efforts to undermine the NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots, which represents about 2,700 pilots who fly for the company. The action is the latest in heated […]

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New This Week

AVweb’s search of the latest in aviation news turned up previews of 2015 events including EAA’s AirVenture and the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo, and announcements from manufacturers including Hartzell Propeller, Quest Aircraft and Waco Aircraft.One of the most harrowing and triumphant adventures in space exploration history will be commemorated atEAAAirVentureOshkosh 2015, as members of the […]

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Orion Launch Postponed

After dealing with a variety of delays including mechanical issues, NASAscrubbed the launch of the Orion capsule Thursday morning and scheduled another attempt in less than 24 hours.The original 7:05 a.m. launch was delayed when a stray boat was spotted in the launch zone, according to Florida Today. Strong winds then delayed new launch times […]

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