Immediately after Congress passed a spending bill last week to fund the government for the rest of fiscal 2013, lawmakers' attention has turned to the fiscal 2014 budget. While Congress continues to wrestle with how to reduce the federal deficit and overturn sequestration before its potential consequences become a chilling reality, that does not mean it will be any easier to agree on spending Pentagon dollars. Last year, Congress thwarted Air Force plans to put Global Hawk Block 30 aircraft in storage.
Inspired by two Roman palaces, the National Building Museum was constructed in the 1880s with the dual purpose of housing the U.S. Pension Bureau and providing “a suitably grand space for Washington's social and political functions.” On March 7, nearly 300 aviation and aerospace luminaries from around the globe gathered in the cavernous building for Aviation Week's 56th annual Laureate Awards.
On March 31 a full decade will have passed since Chicago's then-Mayor Richard M. Daley sent municipal crews in the dark of night to bulldoze the runway at close-in Meigs Field.
In a budget environment where it is hard to find money for experimental aircraft, the 2013 Laureate for Aeronautics and Propulsion goes to a program that used a modest but sustained investment in ground demonstrations to mature technology, culminating in wind-tunnel tests of a model larger and more complex than many X-planes.
The story is familiar and often in times past, its conclusion was marked by tears, heated reproach and crushing disappointment. But unlike the odysseys of Bede, Adam and Raburn's Eclipse, this time there could be a happy ending.
Badly wounded in Vietnam when his gunship's rocket exploded during launch, Walt Fricke spent months in a stateside hospital, some 700 mi. from his family. During that time he was worried, lonely and in pain. He says that he wasn't really able to heal until his family could gather the resources to come visit him several weeks later. It was this experience that led him to create the Veterans Airlift Command (VAC), a network of business-jet operators that transports wounded vets and their families wherever they need to go, free of charge.
Contract-tower program supporters are appealing to the FAA to limit the number of airport tower closures set to start April 7 due to across-the-board budget cuts. Senate leadership rejected the efforts of Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) to keep the FAA from closing up to 189 contract towers and restore funding for the program in a short-term spending bill that passed Congress last week.
The final chapter has apparently opened in the turf war among national security agencies over which should control the most prominent weapon system in use since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Despite progress in voice recognition software, the technology is not ready for use in business or commercial aircraft cockpits, says Matt Carrico, senior engineering manager of advanced concepts at Rockwell Collins. Like other avionics makers, the Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based company has been researching voice recognition systems similar to those found in the consumer electronics world for a variety of cockpit functions, including tasks as simple as switching radios or as complex as interacting with navigation maps or inputting taxi routes to a flight computer.
Contract tower program supporters are regrouping after Senate leadership again rejected the effort of Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) to prevent mass closures of air traffic control towers beginning April 7. Moran expressed frustration at the inability to move his measure, but says he will urge the FAA to limit the number of expected tower closures and work with appropriators to restore funding.
The FAA says it will identify technical, political, legal and operational methods to protect aviation users from intentional spoofing and jamming of GPS signals in a report to be issued in September. Results of the one-year study, initiated by the FAA in September 2012 and carried out by a government/industry team, are critical to the agency’s planned reliance on GPS as the navigation and surveillance backbone of the next-generation air transportation system (NextGen) program.
The FAA says it will identify technical, political, legal and operational methods to protect aviation users from intentional spoofing and jamming of GPS signals in a report to be issued in September. Results of the one-year study, initiated by the FAA in September 2012 and carried out by a government/industry team, are critical to the agency’s planned reliance on GPS as the navigation and surveillance backbone of the next-generation air transportation system (NextGen) program.
The fate of three-quarters of the contract tower program remains uncertain after Senate leaders blocked Sen. Jerry Moran’s (R-Kan.) amendment from coming up for a vote. The measure, which Moran had hoped to attach to the continuing resolution (CR) short-term government-wide spending bill (H.R.933), would have limited the cuts FAA could make to the tower program, but give FAA more funding flexibility to help pay for the program. Supporters believed that if the amendment had come up for a vote, it would have passed.
Dassault Falcon's new FalconBroadcast airborne health monitoring service is now available on all Falcon 2000 and Falcon 900 models equipped with the EASy cockpit, the French manufacturer said today.
The Nigerian government has approved Associated Air Center (AAC) to become an authorized maintenance organisation at its large transport category VIP completions centre in Dallas, Texas.
Nextant Aerospace, maker of the light business jet Nextant 400XT, has bolstered its sales presence in Africa with the appointment of a new African and Middle East sales director
Evergreen Apple (EAN)the Lagos-based fully integrated FBO service provider is to present Nigeria's first ever dedicated business aviation conference on may 7.
Evergreen Apple Nigeria (EAN), the Lagos-based fully integrated FBO service provider, is to hold Nigeria's first ever dedicated Business Aviation conference on Tuesday May 7 2013.
STOP START: Kansas lawmakers late March 15 called on the Department of Defense to reinstate the stop-work order on the U.S. Air Force’s Light Air Support Program (See related story). In a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Sen. Pat Roberts (R), Sen. Jerry Moran (R) and Rep.
