A Cessna Citation was involved in a landing accident at Santa Monica Airport Sunday evening but details were scant at our deadline. FAA spokesman Ian Gregor told NBC the aircraft ran off the right side of a runway and hit a hangar. Read More

The captain of United Airlines Flight 1603 from Houston to Seattle died after suffering an apparent heart attack during the flight Thursday evening. “We got a man down,” multiple news outlets quoted audio released by LiveATC.net. “Chest compressions going on right now. I’m not sure too much right now the status.” Read More

The NTSB says "extremely poor manufacturing technique" led to the in-flight decompression of a Southwest Boeing 737-300 two years ago but it also appears the shoddy workmanship was an isolated circumstance and not a fleet-wide problem. The board determined that improperly drilled and installed rivets in a misaligned section of the roof skin of the aircraft finally let go in an eight-inch-wide by five-foot gash while the aircraft was climbing through 34,000 feet on its way from Phoenix to Sacramento. Read More

Employees of Kestrel Aircraft have begun sharing tales of late paychecks and lost benefits, but Kestrel CEO Alan Klapmeier says the company is now current with payroll and significant funding is expected soon. The manufacturer aims to produce a high-performance composite single-engine turboprop and employs about 100 people split between Brunswick Landing, Maine, and Superior, Wis. Klapmeier hopes to employ scores more. One of those employees, however, Friday told Maine's Bangor Daily News that employee direct deposit checks had been arriving late and his insurance had been dropped. That same employee also said the company Friday told employees that "the company could get funding at any time." Read More

The commercial space industry took some giant leaps forward over the weekend with two separate successful missions. On Sunday, Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Cygnus cargo ship successfully rendezvoused with the International Space Station, bringing a load of groceries and other supplies. A few hours later, a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster took a Canadian research satellite to orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Read More

NASA, working with the Lindbergh Foundation, will show off early research that it believes could lead to "potentially revolutionary aviation concepts and technologies" during a three-day virtual seminar held Oct. 22-24. Subjects include ceramic matrix and hybrid composites for next generation aircraft, cooperative gust sensing and suppression for aircraft formation flight, sense and avoid radar for small UAVs, and turboelectric distributed propulsion. Distributed propulsion would replace a single engine with "boundary-layer ingesting propulsors" that could be tailored to provide enhanced aircraft control while increasing overall efficiency. Read More

The Society of Aviation and Flight Educators is teaming up with Redbird to offer a full weekend of pilot proficiency training at Redbird's Skyport, in San Marcos, Texas, next month. SAFE launched its Pilot Proficiency Project at EAA AirVenture last year, bringing scenario-based training to general aviation pilots using Redbird simulators. Now SAFE wants to bring that training to venues around the country, and the Texas event is their first effort. As an extra incentive to fly in, the date of October 26-27 falls during Redbird's month-long offer to fill up your airplane tank with 100LL for $1 a gallon. The program aims to provide "valuable proficiency training to pilots by combining relevant safety forums, challenging simulator training sessions, food, and camaraderie," according to SAFE. Read More

The Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (SAFE) is hosting a new weekend event next month at the Redbird Skyport in Texas, with a roster of seminars and simulator time, plus, as an added incentive to boost your proficiency, a chance to fill up your airplane with 100LL for $1 a gallon. Doug Stewart, executive director of SAFE, talks with AVweb's Mary Grady about what the Pilot Proficiency Program has to offer, why you should go, and how to sign up. Read More

Saturday, Oct. 5, at all three locations (Corona, Ca.; Peachtree City, Ga.; and Brantford, Ontario, Canada) Aircraft Spruce and Specialty Company will host Customer Appreciation Day, offering reduced pricing and representatives from some of aviation's leading product lines. Product demonstrations will be available from Garmin, Lightspeed, J.P. Instruments, Hartzell, Scheyden, PTI, Icom, Dynon and more. Pilots who are able to attend the aviation supply company's event will enjoy promotions, raffles and other events, along with some discounts. They may also be contributing to some good causes. Read More

Travelers in Alaska who relied on an iPhone app to lead them to the Fairbanks airport have driven onto the field and across an active runway at least twice in the last three weeks, the Alaska Dispatch reported this week. The iPhone directions led users onto the airport property, and onto Taxiway Bravo. The app doesn't actually direct drivers onto the runway, but from the intersection, drivers can see across to the terminal, with an apparently clear driving route ahead of them. "These folks drove past several signs," said Melissa Osborn, operations chief at the airport. "They even drove past a gate. None of that cued them that they did something inappropriate." The airport complained to Apple, which said it would fix the app, but as of Wednesday, it hadn't. The airport has issued a Notam and put barricades in place. Read More

AVweb travels to Hammondsport, New York for the 2013 Curtiss Seaplane Homecoming, including a visit to the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum of local history. Read More

Back in the early '80s, I was making a living flying night-time aerial advertising with a "Skycaster" electronic moving-message sign that spanned the wings under the belly of my Cessna 172. Flying out of CMH, I would circle local communities with ads. My "low and slow," combined with horizontal distance, gave the appearance that the moving lights were traveling in an oval pattern. This would invariably produce calls to the airport that a "UFO" was circling overhead. One night I left the sign running when approaching to land. I called, "N123 short final." The tower replied, "UFO N123 cleared to land. Please don't cut any crop circles in our runway." -- Bob Maroldy, via e-mail Read More

Heard anything funny, unusual, or downright shocking on the radio lately? If you've been flying any length of time, you're sure to have eavesdropped on a few memorable exchanges. The ones that gave you a chuckle may do the same for your fellow AVweb readers. Share your radio funny with us, and, if we use it in a future "Short Final," we'll send you a sharp-looking AVweb hat to sport around your local airport. No joke.

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