CESSNA TO BUILD SKYCATCHER OVERSEAS
Cessna CEO Jack Pelton has confirmed what many suspected when the Cessna 162 Skycatcher — and its $109,000 price tag — were introduced earlier this year. In an interview with The Wichita Eagle, Cessna CEO Jack Pelton said that to make that price target "a major part of that content has to be built someplace else." Cessna intends to announce where the little aluminum high-wing will be made at a news conference on Wednesday. The company has searched the world looking for the right manufacturer. More...

PILOT SHORTAGE HITS REGIONALS
American Eagle, the regional subsidiary of American Airlines, has trimmed flights from its winter schedule in part because it doesn't have enough pilots. "It's one of several reasons, but that does play into it," Eagle spokeswoman Andrea Huguely told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "The pilots are crucial, and without them, the planes don't fly." Eagle is one of several airlines that has cut minimum experience requirements by two-thirds to 500 hours to attract more recruits. According to the newspaper, Trans States Airlines, which operates a regional service for American under the name American Connection, briefly lowered its experience requirement to 250 hours during the summer. Although no one seems to deny the value of experience, industry spokesmen contacted by the newspaper seemed to agree that safety is not being seriously compromised. More...

SIMULATOR SALES BOOM
New Multi-Crew Pilot License (MPL) training standards recently adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) are causing an explosion in flight simulator sales as training organizations and airlines rush to implement the simulator-heavy training regimen. Under the new standards, a student can become a fully qualified first officer with as little as 40 hours of actual stick time and 200 hours in the sim (although real-world beta testing suggests 70 to 100 hours flight time and 330 in front of the screen is more realistic). The new standards cut training costs by as much as half and speed up the process but it won't sacrifice training standards, according to Jeff Roberts, of CAE Inc., one of the world's largest simulator makers. "With the capability and fidelity that exists in simulation today, it's pretty hard to argue that we cannot create a synthetic environment that is as realistic as any physical environment that you can encounter," Roberts told The Canadian Press. More...

HOUSTON, MIAMI POLICE TEST UAVS
Will news helicopters and traffic spotters soon be mixing it up with police drones? That’s one of many questions that will have to be answered as the FAA asks the Miami and Houston police forces to try out unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) "in urban environments" for tasks like search and rescue and spotting traffic hazards. And since the policy has been to close large tracts of airspace to normal traffic when UAVs are in the air, another question on the minds of pilots in both cities might be how these tests will affect their activities. Whatever the ramifications, the tests are scheduled to last until June and Houston’s assistant police chief Martha Montalvo told the Houston Chronicle they are preliminary. "At this point, the project is strictly on a research level," she said. More...

TURBULENCE DETECTION SYSTEM WORKS
A system that gives cockpit warnings to pilots about bumpy air has been tested for the past month in some airliners flying east of the Rocky Mountains, and feedback from pilots has been favorable. "The messages I've received in the cockpit gave a very accurate picture of turbulence location and intensity," Captain Rocky Stone, chief technical pilot for United Air Lines, told editors at Weatherwise Magazine. "The detection of turbulence intensity provides an unprecedented and extremely valuable new tool for pilot situational awareness." The system uses a formula developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and is called Nexrad Turbulence Detection Algorithm (NTDA). It works by analyzing wind distribution data gathered by radar sites and crunching the resulting numbers into predictions of where the ride will get rough. More...

FLYING FEAR CURE GETS PILOT FIRED
A well-known swashbuckling British pilot has lost an appeal of an earlier decision to fire him for allowing a passenger into the cockpit on a flight last month. As we reported in October, Pablo Mason, a retired RAF Gulf War veteran, whose handlebar moustache and irreverent demeanor have endeared him to many British citizens, also runs a business that tries to cure people of their fear of flying. He claims that's what he was doing when he invited even more famous soccer player Robbie Savage, who's terrified of flying, for a cockpit tour. He admitted to "bending" regulations that ban anyone but the flight crew from the cockpit during flight but said he never put the flight in jeopardy. More...

VIRGIN PILOT CLEARED OF ALCOHOL CHARGES
A Virgin Atlantic relief pilot, who was hauled off an aircraft and arrested on suspicion of being drunk, has been cleared of the charges and is expected to return to work. The unidentified 42-year-old pilot, who was to fly as the third crew member on the Virgin A340 from Heathrow to Miami, was arrested Oct. 28 a few minutes before the flight was to leave. Airline policy is to replace the whole crew when that happens and the 266 passengers were delayed almost four hours while three pilots were rounded up. More...

PILOT FACES CHARGES IN ROADWAY TAKEOFF CRASH
Sometimes things just go from bad to worse. According to the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal, a 25-year-old Timmins, Ont., pilot faces a fine of up to $10,000 in a chain of events that began with a successful emergency road landing and ended with his badly damaged Grumman American in a ditch after an aborted takeoff. The aircraft apparently had engine problems while on a flight to Thunder Bay and the pilot set it down on a gravel road near the hamlet of Hurkett, Ont., about 80 kilometers east of Thunder Bay. The pilot apparently fixed the problem to his satisfaction and that’s when the real trouble started. More...

PILOT RESCUED FROM KENYAN WILDERNESS
A Kenya Wildlife Service pilot who survived on his own urine and leaves for eight days in the Kenyan forest told reporters he’ll be back in the cockpit as soon as he’s recovered. Capt. Solomon Nyanjui was flying a Kenya Power and Lighting helicopter when it went down 10 kilometers from Chuka Town, in the Mt. Kenya forest. He broke some ribs and hurt one of his hands in the crash but other than being dehydrated and hungry he was none the worse for wear from his ordeal when he was found on Friday. The previous Monday, Nyanjui sent a mobile phone message to a colleague and searchers used the signal to trace his general whereabouts but bad weather hampered the search. More...

Columns | Features | What's New | Calendar | Brainteasers

PROBABLE CAUSE #46: MILES TO GO
An experienced pilot botches a nighttime ILS to minimums. Is that all there is to it? More...

AVMAIL: NOV. 26, 2007
Reader mail this week about extra-terrestrial visitors, mechanic liability, unleaded avgas and more. More...

AVWEB'S MONDAY PODCAST: RICHARD ABOULAFIA ON THE VLJ 'EXPLOSION'
As Eclipse Aviation continues to struggle to make its production targets and other players in the very light jet market ramp up production to achieve their modest sales goals, aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia says the impact of the little jets on the overall industry is about what it can and should be. He told AVweb's Russ Niles the VLJ sector is and will continue to be a nice addition to the regular business jet market and that the bold predictions that VLJs would fill the airways will be looked back upon with embarassed nostalgia. More...

ON THE FLY ...
Piece fell off wing of Indonesian airliner ...
FAA denies more New York airspace hearings ...
Better inspections of A310 rudders recommended. More...

DID YOUR BATTERY DIE? TELL US ABOUT IT
Our sister publication, Aviation Consumer, will soon publish an in-depth report on aircraft batteries. As part of that report, the magazine would like to hear about your experiences with aircraft batteries -- good, bad or otherwise. To take part in our online survey, click here. More...

AVWEB'S NEWSTIPS ADDRESS ...
Our best stories start with you. If you've heard something that 130,000 pilots might want to know about, tell us. Submit news tips via email to newstips@avweb.com. What have you heard? More...

FBO OF THE WEEK: MONACO AIR (DKLH, DULUTH, MN)

AVweb's "FBO of the Week" ribbon goes to Monaco Air at Duluth International Airport (KDLH) in Duluth, Minnesota.

AVweb reader Armand Bendersky recommended the FBO for its friendliness and careful preparations, calling Monaco "a first-class operation with first-class folks":

[W]hen I told Holly were we were staying, she gently suggested that we could do better and proceeded to name about four hotels that were much better. Also, she said that Monaco had checked them out and arranged special rates for transient pilots. We got a great rate at her first choice. ... Also, she and the line manager were so helpful on our arrival. Our rental car had been pulled up and was running, as temps were in the teens.

Keep those nominations coming. For complete contest rules, click here.

AVweb is actively seeking out the best FBOs in the country and another one, submitted by you, will be spotlighted here next Monday!

VIDEO OF THE WEEK: AIRBUS A380 LOW PASS
We've all seen some impressive aerobatics at air shows. Usually, there's an F-15 doing rolls and making low passes to give the crowds a thrill, but how often have you seen those same tricks performed in the big iron — like, say for instance, an Airbus A310? Thanks to the internet, you (and we) have a front-row seat waiting for us at the Portugal Air Show '07, where we can see just such a thing. (Click through to watch — and hang on to your hat.) More...

SHORT FINAL

Overheard in IFR Magazine's "On the Air"

With my CFII Jim in the right seat, we were on vectors to Allentown Airport for practice instrument approaches. En route, we heard the approach controller making the following call to another pilot in the area.

Approach:
Cessna One Three Four, two o'clock, same altitude, have you spotted it?

Cessna 134:
No, I'm under the hood.

Ed Dolezal
Bridgewater, New Jersey

AVWEBBIZ: AVWEB'S BUSINESS AVIATION NEWSLETTER
HAVE YOU SIGNED UP yet for AVweb's NO-COST weekly business aviation newsletter, AVwebBiz? Reporting on breaking news, Business AVflash focuses on the companies, the products and the industry leaders that make headlines in the business aviation industry. Business AVflash is a must read. Sign up today at http://www.avweb.com/profile/. More...

MEET THE AVWEBFLASH TEAM

AVwebFlash is a weekly summary of the latest news, articles, products, features, and events featured on AVweb, the internet's aviation magazine and news service.

The AVwebFlash team is:

Publisher
Timothy Cole

Editorial Director, Aviation Publications
Paul Bertorelli

Editor-in-Chief
Russ Niles

Contributing Editors
Mary Grady
Glenn Pew

Features Editor
Kevin Lane-Cummings

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