WASHINGTON, D.C. — Air traffic controller errors are on the increase, but whether there are really more incidents or better reporting is not determined, according to experts testifying at a recent hearing by a Senate aviation subcommittee. Operational errors increased a whopping 53% between 2009 and 2010, according to FAA statistics. But FAA Administrator Randy […]
Baumann Floats closes doors
Dan Johnson, president of the Light Aircraft Manufacturers Association, is an expert on Light Sport Aircraft. Pilots interested in a floatplane LSA and airplane sellers seeking floats lost a good supplier recently when Baumann Floats, based at the South St. Paul, Minnesota, airport closed its doors. In an email, General Manager Joe Birkemeyer wrote, “Due […]
Legal challenge planned against DOT
The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) and Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) say they will mount a legal challenge to the decision by the Department of Transportation (DOT) to dismantle the Block Aircraft Registration Request (BARR) program. The three associations will seek an injunction to prevent the decision from taking […]
Southern Maine Aviation adds autogas, Legislature says no to ethanol
The GAfuels Blog is written by two private pilots: Dean Billing, Sisters, Ore., an expert on autogas and ethanol, and Kent Misegades, Cary, N.C., an aerospace engineer, aviation sales rep for U-Fuel, and president of EAA1114. GA pilots in the state of Maine have reason for optimism: The cost of flying there is dropping. Southern […]
Training reform preliminary report released
The Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (SAFE) has published its preliminary report stemming from the Pilot Training Reform Symposium. Thirty recommendations generated during the symposium have been consolidated into six project proposals.The recommendations are: Conduct a thorough general aviation fatal accident root cause analysis to pinpoint underlying accident causality as a means to create […]
GA seeks relief for losses from TFRs
Presidents of six of GA’s alphabet groups have asked the Transportation Security Administration to work with general aviation on ways to reduce business losses sustained under airspace restrictions during presidential travel, according to a report at AOPA.org, which gives as one example at FBO a Midway Airport that loses an average of $60,000 a day […]
Illinois kicks off airport economic impact study
The Illinois Department of Transportation is launching a new study to determine the economic impact that the more than 100 Illinois airports statewide bring to their communities, according to a report in the Quad City Times. The 18-month study will update a similar study conducted in 2002.
Hunt inducted into Florida Aviation Hall of Fame
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s former president Jack Hunt was inducted into the Florida Aviation Hall of Fame at the Florida Air Museum May 21. Hunt, who died in 1984, was Embry-Riddle’s longest-serving president. He was represented at the induction ceremony by his widow Lynn Hunt-Doten and her husband, former Embry-Riddle vice president Eric Doten. Hunt served […]
Air Zoo to offer new rides, new exhibit
Starting June 11, visitors to the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, Mich., will be able to experience a number of new rides, including the indoor Century of Flight ferris wheel; the Paratrooper Jump, which allows paratroopers-in-training to feel the sensation of weightlessness as they are dropped at random intervals from a height of two stories; and […]