SpaceShipOne flies again

SpaceShipOne flew again today, reaching 330,000 feet. The crew hopes to launch it again next week in an attempt to win the X Prize.

Lasers and axes: bad for pilots

There's a report today about a Delta pilot whose eyes were injured by a laser on approach to Salt Lake City Airport. Is this a new form of terrorism?

Another report today out of Norway about a man on an inflight rampage with an ax. Two pilots and a passenger were injured.

Jeanne visits

We got hit by Hurricane Jeanne this weekend. It brought lots of wind and an amount of rain that's hard to determine since it was mostly horizontal. Luckily the power stayed on, although many people around the state are without electricity.

The wind was strong enough to blow the rain through a closed, undamaged window. We had to keep towels on the sill to soak it up. The towels were soaking wet within an hour or two, so we had to keep replacing them and kept the dryer going all day so we wouldn't run out of towels.

There was no real damage to the building, but some around the pool areas. Here's a pic.

Good news from Washington

A small plane went down near Glacier National Park Monday. It was believed there were no survivors. However, Matthew Ramige walked 2.5 miles to safety with another survivor despite having a broken back and severe burns.

Concerns about new TSA rule

AOPA is raising concerns about a new rule from the Transportation Security Administration covering foreigners taking flight training in the USA. It seems the rule as currently written would require all pilots to pass some type of TSA screening before finishing any flight training, including flight reviews.

Parachute saves the day

On Sunday the pilot of a Cirrus SR22 successfully deployed the ballistic parachute when he got into a spin. Nobody was injured, and the plane wound up in a tree intact.

New look for the home page

I just redesigned the home page. Aviation news headlines are now at the bottom of that page, and the testimonials are on a new page. What do you think of the new look?

Another airline security breach

A U.S. contractor returning from Afghanistan was caught at New York's JFK Airport with highly explosive Soviet weapons. He had just arrived on a flight from the United Arab Emirates. Amazingly, he was allowed to continue his flight to California.

LAX, the TV series

Anyone else catch LAX, the new TV series, last night? I thought it was good & has potential. New shows usually take a while to get established, so any time the pilot episode is good, I take notice.

Get it- pilot episode?

It's an hour-long drama (with a decent amount of comedy) about the inner workings of Los Angeles Int'l Airport, starring Heather Locklear and Blair Underwood.

It's a change of pace from many drama shows that follow a set formula (cops, lawyers, hospitals). If you've ever read an Arthur Hailey novel about the inner workings of an industry (Hotel, Airport, etc), it might remind you of that. It's also like current shows such as Las Vegas, which show what goes on behind the scenes of a certain place.

Some of the subplots last night:
-Airport director dies, & the Locklear & Underwood characters both try to get the newly vacant job. Lots of jockeying between the two.
-Drunk Serbian airline pilots try to take off; the others try to stop them.
-Suspicious luggage left in terminal brings out the bomb squad.
-Woman arrives from Asia with one-way ticket to meet man who had visited her country, thinking they will get married. Will he show up? Or will she wind up with airport security guy she flirts with?
-Dog escapes from baggage & creates comic relief.
-Governor's plane is arriving & people are scrambling.

If you saw the show, post your comments about it here, good or bad.

Dangerous anti-GA bill in the House

A dangerous anti-general aviation bill has been introduced in the U.S. House. H.R. 5035 would require the same screening of all passengers and property on each flight of every passenger aircraft in the U.S., including general aviation aircraft of all types. In other words, if you wanted to take your friends (or even family) flying on a private airplane, they would have to go through airline-style security checks. Unbelievable.

The bill would also prohibit the flight of any non-airline aircraft over a city of 1 million or larger population and require all pilots to remain in contact with the FAA regardless of altitude or location.

Please contact your member of Congress and tell them to fight this ridiculous bill.

US Airways files for bankruptcy

As expected, US Airways filed for bankruptcy today, for the second time in two years.

New airport TV series

A new TV series set at an airport starts Monday night at 10 Eastern on NBC. LAX stars Heather Locklear and Blair Underwood.

A new look

Last night I revamped the look of the blog with a new template. On the right there are links to major sections of the website.

To keep the archive links from getting out of hand, I changed them to monthly rather than weekly.

If you'd like to add this blog to your My Yahoo page, use the handy graphic on the right.

I've also enabled titles for posts and have added titles to my more recent posts.

I'm experimenting with allowing people to add comments; just click on the comment link at the bottom of the post. Please keep your posts clean!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the new look of the blog.

Flying like a bird

Here's an interesting story about the Jet Man Project, one man's adventures inventing a bird-like human flying system.

Genesis crashes in the desert

The Genesis space capsule, which had orbited the sun for three years collecting data, crashed in the Utah desert this morning, when its parachute apparently failed to open. The plan was for helicopters to catch the capsule in midair, because the capsule was thought to be too fragile to survive hitting the ground, even if the parachute worked.

Another hurricane passes by

Hurricane Frances passed through here over the weekend with plenty of wind and rain. We got hit less than many other areas. Many people are still without power. There is a lot of flooding and damage. There's none of that in our immediate area.

Please consider making a donation to the Red Cross for hurricane relief. See the details at the top of the home page.

Frances is coming

The server this site is on is really close to where the eye of Hurricane Frances is expected to make landfall later today... if the site goes down, that is probably why.

New events added

I updated the Aviation Events Calendar with events through the end of September.

Good news from south Florida

Good news out of Stuart, FL. Three county commission candidates who wanted to downsize the local airport were defeated at the polls.

New rules take effect

The FAA's Sport Pilot / Light Sport Aircraft rule took effect yesterday.