While the House and Senate enjoyed their summer recess, the NBAA, National Air Transportation Association, AOPA, and other groups stepped up lobbying efforts with Hill staffers and members to persuade legislators to approve FAA reauthorization legislation when Congress returns.
The FAA will begin issuing new, security-enhanced airman certificates. The new credit card-size certificates are made from composite PVC media card stock and will feature new security features, such as a hologram of the FAA seal. The new licenses will be issued to all new airmen and to existing airmen as they obtain higher licenses or additional ratings or replace lost or damaged certificates. According to FAA Administrator Marion C.
A friend of ours flew with an old mutt named ``Rabbit'' that he swore was so sensitive to airspeed that he'd bark whenever the aircraft was approaching a stall. When I told him he was full of baloney, he piled me and Rabbit into his airplane and off we went. Wouldn't you know that ol' Rabbit woofed just as the plane began to buffet; he was a reliable stall warning indicator after all!
ONE RECENT FRIDAY afternoon, I fetched the family and headed for the shore. A friend had invited us to weekend at his beach house. We were rolling south at 70 miles per when a highway advisory sign flashed that there had been an accident up ahead on the parkway. No problem; I'd take the interstate. When we entered the connector, I was surprised to see the opposing traffic was bumper to bumper, three lanes across, and backed up from the Hudson River bridge, 10 miles distant.
-- Adam Aircraft Industries, Inc., Englewood, Colo., has promoted Joe Wilding to vice president for advanced development, John Hamilton to vice president of marketing and Bill Mermelstein to vice president of propulsion. -- All Weather Inc., Sacramento, Calif.: Gary Wagner has been elected president and CEO by the company's board of directors. Wagner will be based at the company's Sacramento headquarters and will be responsible for the operation of the Sacramento and Hunt Valley, Md., AWI locations.
This past spring, federal legislators moved at near record pace to draft a comprehensive bill that would fund the FAA and various aviation programs. What in the past has taken years to create was put together in the House and the Senate in just a few months. Legislators followed many of the Bush administration's recommendations in what had been considered a non-controversial pair of bills in a non-controversial year for aviation.
A Learjet 35 crashed about a half-mile short of Groton-New London Airport (GON), Conn., hitting at least two houses and coming to rest in an estuary on the shoreline. The two pilots, the sole occupants, died. There were minor injuries to people in the houses, reportedly incurred when they jumped out of windows. The aircraft had made at least one missed approach after hopping from Republic Airport across Long Island Sound to pick up a passenger at 6:30 a.m.
The Chicago mayor scored a second victory when fellow Democrat Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed a bill approving a $6.6 billion expansion of Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Daley's O'Hare expansion plan was once linked to the continued operation of Meigs. Daley and former Gov. George Ryan (R) signed a pact that would have allowed O'Hare to move forward and ensured that Meigs would continue as an airport. Daley repudiated the agreement, denying that there had been a ``formal'' commitment to preserve Meigs.
The Experimental Aircraft Association's reproduction 1903 Wright Flyer received a Special Airworthiness Certificate at AirVenture 2003. FAA Administrator Marion Blakey presented Tom Poberezny, EAA president and fellow U.S. Centennial of Flight commissioner, with the certificate. ``This special airworthiness certificate will allow the EAA to fly its Wright Flyer near the dunes of Kitty Hawk, N.C.,'' said Blakey.
Don't pack undeveloped film or one-time-use cameras in checked airline baggage, advises Eastman Kodak Co. ``Newer [high-intensity X-ray scanner] systems will damage unprocessed film,'' said Matthias Freund, president of Kodak's Consumer Imaging products and services operations. Freund advises travelers to pack film and one-time-use cameras in their carry-on luggage. Scanners used to inspect carry-on items are safe for most consumer films, but he advises caution if multiple passes through these scanners will be necessary.
Early in August, we belted into the left seat of an airplane fitted with Garmin's new G1000 integrated avionics suite. We switched on avionics power, and an edge-to-edge earth-sky background appeared on the PFD. We used the EICAS on the MFD to monitor engine start and ran through the pre-taxi checklists. The appropriate takeoff V speeds popped up onto the PFD's airspeed scale. We double-checked the takeoff data, then used the radio management feature of the system to set up the com/nav/surveillance (CNS) equipment.
Multiflight says it is spending $14 million on new hangars, an FBO terminal and offices at its Leeds Bradford Airport base to be operational for the startup of its BBJ2 charter service. The two hangars (due to be operational by November) will have a combined floor area of approximately 68,0000 square feet, capable of housing four BBJ2-size aircraft. Multiflight Handling Service has been contracted by the airport authority to operate all south-side private and business aviation facilities. M.V.
The Sovereign is the third application for the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW306 turbofan. The engine went through its growing pains on the Dornier 328JET regional jetliner in the -A version and the Galaxy/G200 in the -B version, both with higher takeoff thrust ratings than the -C version fitted to the newest Citation. Now, the 306 is a mature engine, so reliability should be excellent. The engine is the second variant of the PW300 family, the first being the PW305 that powers the Learjet 60 and Hawker 1000.
Atlantic Coast Airlines (ACA) has taken the final steps that will equip it to fly on its own as a low-fare airline. ACA announced on July 28 that it was likely just a matter of time before its longstanding relationship with United Airlines would end.
Eurocontrol has decided to cap next year's budget at 2003 levels in an endeavor to help Europe's struggling airlines. The decision by Eurocontrol's policy-making body, the Provisional Council, follows a meeting with worried airline CEOs and airline associations, and aims to help cash-strapped airlines in the aftermath of the economic downturn, the war in Iraq, and the SARS crisis. Eurocontrol has requested its member states to ``do their utmost to control their unit rates and associated air navigation service providers' costs . . . across the continent.
Mel Hemann Charter member, past president, newsletter editor, National Association of Priest Pilots (NAPP), Cedar Falls, Iowa After a heart murmur cut short his dream of becoming a fighter pilot, Hemann ``quit running'' from his true calling and entered the seminary. Shortly after his ordination as a Catholic priest, his murmur disappeared and he took up civilian flying, ultimately earning his ATP and acquiring 12,000 hours, mostly as an instructor and charter pilot during his free time. He helped form the NAPP, which has some 120 ordained members throughout the world.
To support the development of a new generation of Mooney airplanes, including the Mooney Toxo and an all-new surveillance aircraft for homeland security missions worldwide, Mooney joined an international partnership with BAE Systems, the KASKOL Group, Foxton Investments Ltd., and Venture Industries in London.
DOT Secretary Norman Mineta said he was not optimistic that the White House would change its mind about restoring general aviation access to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). At a roundtable discussion with aviation manufacturers at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture 2003 in Oshkosh, Wis., the manufacturers urged him to use his position to help educate the Bush administration about general aviation and ward off overreaching security initiatives.
Eclipse Aviation secured an additional $87 million funding package, which is intended to carry the company through the development and certification of the Eclipse 500 with its new Pratt & Whitney Canada PW610F turbofans, the company announced.
The first production Cessna CJ3 flew three weeks ahead of the original schedule on Aug. 8, according to Cessna. The CJ3 took off from McConnell AFB in Wichita and landed at Mid-Continent Airport 1.5 hours later. Serial number 001 flew Cessna's standard first flight profile including speeds from stall to MMO and coupled approaches. This aircraft will be the primary platform for avionics development and certification according to the company.
Gary/Chicago Airport (GYY) and city of Gary, Ind., officials are tickled pink with Boeing's decision to base its corporate fleet there and lease the well appointed 50,000-square-foot hangar that Gary constructed to attract just such an operation. Boeing said it expects to assign 35 maintenance and operations personnel to the facility, which features offices, parts storage, a maintenance shop, briefing area, conference rooms, a fitness center, transient crew rest rooms and a technical library.
The FAA grounded all Learjet 45s on Aug. 13, with an Airworthiness Directive for the replacement of the horizontal stabilizer actuator assembly (HSSA). The AD grounds all 173 U.S.-registered Model 45s, except those on positioning flights to a facility where the work required by the AD can be performed. In April, the FAA issued AD 2003-06-51 also directing replacement of HSSAs having defective acme screws and nuts that had unacceptable susceptibility to brittle fracture. Their failure could result in the loss of the aircraft.
LET'S SEE, HERSCH, it was the last year we operated the Lockheed ``Lodestone,'' as Hardy John Harder used to call it, so it was 1954 or approximately 20 years and 8,000 hours ago. At our cruising altitude, seven thou, it was one of those clear nights that pulls astronomers out of the woodwork. The month was December, close to Christmas, and we were on our usual ELM-TEB-ELM milk run. Zitzing up V-35, tower clears us for an approach, which is a pretty legit way to descend through the semi-broken clouds, whose tops were at 6,500 feet and bases about 5,000 feet.
As further evidence that general aviation is alive and well, the AOPA announced that its membership topped 400,000 members on July 29, a new record for the world's largest civil aviation organization. The AOPA is now among the top 100 associations of any kind in the United States, the group said. More than 61 percent of all U.S. pilots -- and three-quarters of general aviation pilots -- are AOPA members.
