News

In 1972 Jim and Mike Swift bought a 1946 Taylorcraft BC-12 with an 85-hp engine. The plan was that Mike would use the plane to build his hours to qualify for an airline career. While recovering the aircraft, the brothers decided to do some modifications to it, including clipping the wings. Other modifications followed, including […]

You wouldn’t think a group called Stumps R Us has anything in common with the Air Care Alliance or a show for school kids telling the story of Bessie Coleman, the first African-American woman to earn her pilot’s license. But each of these is one of the 170 winners of grants from the Wolf Aviation […]

Norbert C. Ruff, of Bloomer, Wis., died Nov. 28, following a stroke. He was 88. Born in 1919, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1940. During the war he was stationed in the South Pacific and flew a P-38 with the 80th Pursuit Group. After the war Ruff left the military and became […]

There’s encouraging news mixed with some discouragement in AOPA’s annual Nall Report on aviation safety. The good news is a 10-year trend downward in general aviation accidents, from 7.19 per 100,000 hours flown in 1997 to 6.32 in 2006. In fact, the report states, 2006 was the safest year in the history of general aviation. […]

Former Minnesota Vikings All-Pro linebacker Matt Blair, a 2008 candidate for induction into the Football Hall of Fame and a successful entrepreneur, has become involved in the Red Tail Project. Blair, who owns Matt Blair’s Celebrity Promotions, Inc., says he plans to “help raise awareness, build momentum, and get information out about the Red Tail […]

“Wow! Wow! Wow!” Those were the only words one Oshkosh visitor could utter as he stood beside Tom Dinndorf’s elegant Stinson SR-10, an airplane once owned by Shell Oil Co. and flown by Jimmy Doolittle. The gleaming red and yellow Stinson, correct to the smallest detail of its original 1938 appearance, is a past Vintage […]

Mike Peter’s AvTek is celebrating 25 years of developing and producing a variety of aviation products, including pulsing landing lights, door seals, standby electrical systems, panel lighting, electric system alert warning meters and more. Founded in 1983 as Sammamish Valley Avionics in Redmond, Wash., Peter changed the company’s name to AvTek in 1991. He has […]

Citing the FAA’s paperwork backlog and its lack of available inspectors, the Experimental Aircraft Association has filed for an exemption to the Jan. 31, 2008, deadline for the conversion of two-place or “fat” ultralights to certification under the Experimental-Light Sport Aircraft category. In its request, the EAA asks that owners who already have submitted their […]

There is no such thing as a quick restoration project, especially if it’s “Memphis Belle,” probably the most famous B-17 of World War II. The big bomber has been undergoing restoration at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Dayton, Ohio, since the fall of 2005, when it arrived at the museum […]