About a month after Steve Fossett disappeared over the Nevada desert, the Civil Air Patrol suspended its search for the millionaire adventurer and pilot. Fossett disappeared Sept. 3 when he flew from a private airstrip in Yerington, Nev., in a Bellanca Decathalon and failed to return from what was supposed to be a three-hour flight. […]
Kansas Air Tour begins to take shape
Plans for the 2008 Kansas Air Tour continue to evolve. The tour, which is slated for April of 2008, is, in part, a re-creation of the All Kansas Air Tour of 1928. “We wanted to fly the original route, but that is not possible,” noted Ed Young, director of aviation for the Kansas Department of […]
What’s in your hangar?
How would you like it if you were on the waiting list to get a hangar at your airport and you knew that one of the current tenants used his hangar to store his motor home, a pool table, and parts of a car and old furniture — everything but an airplane? Chances are that […]
Columbia production to remain in Oregon if Cessna is successful bidder
If Cessna Aircraft Co. is the successful bidder for Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing Corp., the plant will stay in Bend, Ore., Cessna CEO Jack J. Pelton said at AOPA Expo. Pelton noted that the Columbia workforce, with its experience in composite construction, is in the region and that Cessna’s manufacturing facilities in Kansas are at capacity, […]
New airport slated for Central Texas
A private investor has purchased a small airport in Central Texas with the intent of turning it into a larger general aviation facility. Ron Henriksen, a Texas businessman and pilot with strong ties to aviation, has purchased the privately owned, public-use Bird’s Nest Airport located approximately 12 miles outside of Austin. He recently constructed Houston […]
Flock of bizjets in development
Demand for new business jets, and VLJs in particular, is strong and growing, according to speakers at an AOPA Expo forum earlier this month. One speaker listed 22 new jets in development – not all of them VLJs, however – and seven more that have been certified recently. The panel was in agreement that the […]
FAA wants aircraft equipped for ADS-B by 2020
The FAA has issued a notice of proposed rule making that spells out initial equipment requirements for the Next Generation of air traffic control. The proposal would require all aircraft flying in the nation’s busiest airspace to have satellite-based avionics by 2020, enabling controllers to track them using Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B), which is […]
Bush TFR ‘kills’ a fly-in
Some of the pilots flying to the annual Hagerstown Fly-In in Maryland in antique airplanes without radios found themselves in unexpected trouble Oct. 7. At least a dozen flew into airspace they didn’t know had been restricted for a visit by President Bush to a memorial service for firefighters. According to the FAA, an unusually […]
Demand still high for airparks
I’ve been working pretty consistently in recent days cleaning up our residential airpark directory, Living With Your Plane. With about 600 airparks in the directory, it is a never-ending job to keep the information current. Since most residential airparks are managed by the residents in a homeowners association or something like that, officers and contact […]