Troubled times continue at Commander Aircraft Co., as the Bethany, Okla.-based company is set to be liquidated. After two failed attempts to find saviors for the bankrupt company, Commander’s December 2002 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing has been converted to a Chapter 7 filing by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. All operations at the company […]
‘I’m saving a life’
On one of his first days as the new president and chief operating officer of Ballistic Recovery Systems Inc., Larry Williams was walking through the company’s South St. Paul, Minn., plant. He stopped to watch one of the firm’s employees pack a parachute. Intrigued by the process, he asked the young woman what she was […]
Commander Aircraft to be liquidated
Troubled times continue at Commander Aircraft Co., as the Bethany, Okla.-based company is set to be liquidated. After two failed attempts to find saviors for the bankrupt company, Commander’s December 2002 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing has been converted to a Chapter 7 filing by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. All operations at the company […]
Reach out and touch — your airplane
You live in the South, so icing isn’t a problem, right? Wrong, as this winter’s Arctic blasts demonstrate. Wing icing has been in the news a lot, lately, and pilots should be paying attention regardless of where they live. On Dec. 29, the National Transportation Safety Board issued an Alert to Pilots concerning ice accumulation […]
Snail mail becomes air mail
If you are an aircraft buff and a stamp collector, the United States Postal Service is about to deliver for you in a big way. This summer the post office will make available 10 stamp designs titled “”American Advances in Aviation.”” The designs, painted by William S. Phillips, an award-winning historical aviation artist, are models […]
The newest jet jockeys
University of Florida scientists have grown rat brain cells in a petri dish and taught them to fly a fighter plane, according to school officials. The “”brain,”” grown from 25,000 neural cells extracted from a single embryo, has been taught to fly an F-22 jet simulator, they claim. “”When we first hooked it up, the […]
Now that’s whale watching!
One of the best shows on earth is getting underway off the coast of California as the gray whales make their annual migration north. Biplane, Air Combat & Warbird Adventures in Carlsbad, Calif., offers you a chance to watch the show from a vantage point 1,500 feet in the air, from the cockpit of a […]
Let’s Talk: What we have here is a failure to communicate
Aviation must learn to speak with one voice, writes Steve Bill Hanshew elsewhere in this issue of General Aviation News. It is a theme which we have tried to nurture in the past, with little to show for it. We still think it a good — indeed a vital — idea. Hanshew cites the National […]
Why security agencies fear GA
“We don’t know who you are.” That was the short answer from Greg Mayes, chief of aviation security at the Secret Service, when asked what possible threat his agency sees from general aviation. “With the airlines, we’ve vetted all the pilots, we vet all the passengers, we know everything that goes on board right down […]