The Terrafugia roadable car has made its first test flight hop. Information on this product has been displayed at Oshkosh for the past two years. The vehicle has folding wings, and is intended to be LSA qualified.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/19/video-terrafugias-flying-car-lifts-off/
Effective April 30, 2009 the TSA is implementing sweeping security changes at airports that host commercial traffic. Think that won’t affect you? Think again. Flying to Worcester, New Haven, Hanscom, Albany, White Plains, Nantucket, Martha’s Vinyard, and Stewart will be affected, as well as learning and practicing at Bradley.
Separate security clearances will be required at every commercial airport.
A new web site www.aviatorsforliberty.org is being developed to address the continuing encroachment of our right to travel. So far, AOPA, EAA and NBAA haven’t posted comments on this change. The first public meeting to explain the implementation was held at Montrose County Airport in Colorado. The alarming summary of the meeting is circulating on many internet message boards. The proposed rules are not available for public inspection or comment since at the meeting the TSA emphasized this was a Security Directive thus circumvents any rule making procedures. The AOPA message forum has an active thread on the subject.
As always, it looks like airline interest political contributions have paid off for them. This will make private flying more difficult which takes away a major disadvantage the airlines have luring high-profit business and first class customers.
Great news for aviation yesterday as another potential federal administration nominee withdrew consideration. You may recall Jane Garvey from the early 90’s when she was the head of Logan Airport. Two years after Garvey took the helm, the FAA fined the Massachusetts Port Authority $178,000 for 136 security violations at Logan that included failure to screen baggage properly and allowing easy access to restricted areas and parked planes. Two of the 9/11/2001 hijacked planes left from Logan.
She was the FAA Administrator from 1997 to 2001. Some of the notable accomplishments during her tenure were the abuse of Bill Bainbridge of B&C Specialty Products and her role implementing the administrative ticket program where inspectors could implement actions against a pilot without requiring proof, and without a process for appeal
The biggest current danger to general aviation from here is her role in privatization. As of last May she is head of public-private partnerships (aphorism for infrastructure privatization) at JP Morgan. http://blog.littlesis.org/tag/jane-garvey/
It’s a never-ending battle.
You may have read about the people in Fairfield County who are complaing about the changes in the New York air traffic patterns. Here’s an article that goes into the process that is used to try different traffic changes.
Notice that they only consider airline traffic, and make no mention of general aviation using the airspace. The comments following the article give some important balance to the article, which is primarily the FAA’s press release.
It looks like 4,150 comments have been received on the TSA proposal to require passenger and crew screening for all flights in aircraft 12,500 lbs and greater. Was yours one of them?
Of course, we all know how well they listened to the 20,000 comments they received on the Washington airspace issue. The ball is in their court now. I’ll bet they have a hissy fit and take the ball home with them.
On February 4th AOPA Air Safety Foundation Executive Director, Bruce Landsberg spoke about the Buddy Holly Crash. You can listen to it here.
A public hearing was held on Monday February 9th regarding the possible sale of Robertson Airport in Plainville to the town. Statements were made by the Connecticut Department of Transportation, the FAA, the current owner and the current airport manager. A presentation was then made by Clough Harbour & Associates LLP based on their analysis of municipal purchase of the airport. The full report was over an inch thick, and I didn’t look at it. The presentation covered the existing and proposed physical, environmental financial and management aspects of the airport.
The discussion covered how airports are closing in Connecticut, and won’t come back. The airport property is 75 acres with a 3600′ runway and parallel taxiway. It has 3 storage hangars plus a maintenance hangar, a terminal building, fuel facility for regular and jet fuel as well as 100 tiedown positions.
The FAA will contribute 95% of the funds for purchase. The State adds 3.75%. So the town will have to pay 1.25% of the cost, or about $107,000. The financial projections showed a small profit made by the airport. Operations are expected to be leased out, likely to the existing FBO, Interstate Aviation. Profit from operation is expected to be minimal, so to increase the profit, additional T and box hangars were recommended. Federal and State money would contribute to these improvements.
About 60 members of the public spoke. The vast majority were in favor of the purchase stating the benefits of the airport, the memories, and the future potential. However many of these people were not from Plainville, but they use the airport. At the end, two residents expressed their concern about the possibility that the airport could become a financial burden if there are losses. Questions were asked whether another corporation could be persuaded to purchase the airport. That wouldn’t be favorable to them since it would require a large investment with limited return. The Federal and State contribution wouldn’t be available. The airport owner, Michael Tomasso stated that the only interest he had in the purchase was from people who wanted to close the airport and develop the land.
The next step in the process is a referendum for Plainville which has yet to be scheduled.
The Microsoft-owned development team ACES studio has been hit heavily by layoffs, including the entire Flight Simulator team. According to Gamasutra, the only people left are six employees retained to fulfill contractual duties.
Microsoft hasn’t released a new version of the simulator since Flight Simulator X in 2006, and while its graphics are improved over earlier versions, it still doesn’t take advantage of the latest features of Direct X 10. Originally developed by SUBLogic, the Flight Simulator has undergone 12 major versions over 27 years.
Hundreds of add-ons are available for the simulator. Speculation on comments to the information is that Microsoft is migrating to the subscription model of software within their live.com environment instead of through purchased software.
Chapter members often ask about what the national EAA organization is doing for the chapters. A lot of times we don’t see items behind the scenes, or they have programs where we need to initiate contact. For instance, just imagine how devistating it would be if a chapter got in a situation where it didn’t have the necessary liability insurance.
Besides the insurance, here’s some things they’re doing for the chapters and individual members:
Planned changes in 2009 include:
The aviation authorities are making it more difficult to get rescued with your 121.5 Mhz emergency locator transmitter starting February 1. There’s an interesting thread over at Slashdot on this subject.
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/16/0916226
A lot of the comments make excellent arguments that most pilots aren’t the millionaires jetting around the country. We’re just normal folks who decided to spend our hobby money this way. Ground based stations will still monitor 121.5. It may be more difficult to hear and pinpoint the transmitter without the satellite though.