News

Children from Suntree Petite Academy in Melbourne, Fla., got an insiders’ view of Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville earlier this month. Approximately 25 students ranging in age from 4 to 12 participated in the field trip. The visit gave the children the opportunity to learn how airports operate and how airplanes work. A highlight […]

Flabob Airport in Riverside, Calif., will be the scene for what is predicted to be the largest Gathering of Cubs in the west this summer. The event, slated for Saturday, Aug. 19, is expected to draw nearly 100 J-3, J-4 and J-5 Cubs to the one-day fly-in. The gathering is open to everyone and, except […]

Earlier this month, the FAA released a notice of proposed rule making that would require additional training for any pilot who flies VFR within 100 nm of the nation’s capitol (See Capital Comments, page 7, for more information). Pilots can check out the course right now at FAASafety.gov. Type ADIZ course into the search box […]

A highly experienced 61-year-old pilot was killed June 27 when the BD-5J he was flying for classified military radar tests crashed and burned about 1,000 feet west of Ocean City Municipal Airport (OXB) in Maryland. The little jet has been mimicking cruise missiles for radar calibrations for about five years, often based at Easton, Maryland, […]

One of the more enduring legends from World War II is the one about the phony wooden airfield constructed as a decoy. According to the legend, the Germans in occupied Holland built the airfield. Detail was meticulous, down to wooden hangars, oil tanks, trucks and faux aircraft. However, the Germans took so long in building […]

What do you get when you take a flight instructor and student, hand them the keys to a new plane that must get to its buyer, and then put an ocean between them and their destination? The North Atlantic Challenge. Benjamin Riecken, who teaches flying at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and Jean Olivier Mbog, a senior […]

Dr. James DeLaurier, an aeronautical engineer and professor emeritus at Canada’s University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, fulfilled a lifelong dream July 9. He saw his manned, jet-powered, flapping-wing airplane – a full-scale ornithopter – actually fly. It was the culmination of a quest that he had pursued for more than 30 years. The […]

“There’s a lot of rhetoric about what user fees do or don’t do. In the absence of real information, people will believe anything.” — Ruth Marlin, executive vice president, National Air Traffic Controllers Association “We have reached a crossroads in general aviation and our future is unsure.” — Pete Trabucco, pilot and GA activist “We […]

The first and second weekends in July were busy ones for the pilots of Cessna business jets as the crews transported some 1,800 athletes to and from the Special Olympics U.S. National Games held in Ames, Iowa, July 2-7. The owners of the aircraft volunteered their services. Some 237 Cessna Citation business jets took part […]