It has been three years since the Sport Pilot/Light Sport Aircraft rule was finalized. In that time there has been continual growth in the number of LSA manufacturers and importers, as well as in the number of people earning Sport Pilot certificates. The Experimental Aircraft Association, one of the key organizations that spearheaded the development […]
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An Appreciation: William T. Piper Jr., a pleasant man of accomplishment
He was a son of William T. Piper, who made the Piper Cub a synonym for any airplane that was neither military nor an airliner, but he did not live in the shadow of his more famous father, having made his own, if less-known, name in aviation and beyond. Bill Piper Jr., a man of […]
Around the world in a CT: Indian pilots set new LSA record
A Flight Design CT flown by Rahul Monga and Anil Kumar of the Indian Air Force recently completed a round-the-world flight in 79 days. The epic journey was undertaken as part of a celebration of the Indian Air Force’s 75th anniversary. In all 19 countries Monga and Kumar landed in, they made contact with local […]
Steve Kurtz dies at 86
William Stephen “Steve” Kurtz, an aviation icon in Minnesota, died Aug. 24. He was 86. Kurtz, whose aviation career spanned 50 years, did most of his flying at Aitkin Municipal Airport/Steve Kurtz Field. “He was a living legend here,” said Ron Sieling, a mechanic who took flying lessons from Kurtz, who noted the airport was […]
Museum celebrates the Golden Age of aviation
The Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, N.C., celebrates its 40th anniversary with a new exhibition: “Wings of Adventure: Smith Reynolds and the Flight of 898 Whiskey,” which examines the Golden Age of aviation. Reynolda House was built in 1917 by Katharine Smith Reynolds and Richard Joshua Reynolds, founder of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco […]
Work on pilot headset fl ashlight wins NASA award
NASA’s Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program recently awarded New Mexico State University engineer Yu-Ping Tang the prestigious Engineering Award of Excellence for his work developing FLITELite, an LED flashlight for headset microphones. NASA gives the award to four engineering support centers each year. Tang, a professor and engineer at New Mexico State’s Mechanical Engineering Tech […]
Astronaut Gene Cernan tapped for Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy
Astronaut Eugene Cernan has been named winner of the 2007 Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy. The trophy, presented annually by the National Aeronautic Association, is awarded “…to a living American for significant public service of enduring value to aviation in the United States.” It is one of the most prestigious aviation trophies in the world. Previous […]
Search for famed adventurer Steve Fossett continues
On Labor Day, millionaire adventurer and accomplished pilot Steve Fossett took off from a private airstrip 80 miles southeast of Reno in a Super Decathlon on what was supposed to be a three-hour flight. He did not return. As this issue went to press, the search for Fossett, 63, was in its second week. Fossett […]
How to cripple an airport
A zoning change can kill an airport — or, at the very least, cripple its development dramatically. In a nutshell, that’s the issue facing Harvey Field (S43) in Snohomish, Wash., north of Seattle, where there’s a long waiting list for hangars but the airport cannot grow — or even make safety improvements to the runways […]