Volume 10, Number 02a -- January 5, 2004

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The Top Headlines From AVweb's Expanded, Illustrated News Coverage At AVweb's NewsWire.

FAA ON THE DOLLARS AND SENSE OF BARNSTORMING...
It's becoming the most despised piece of proposed legislation ever to come from the FAA for some and now it's being blamed for the imminent demise of barnstorming. In case you didn't know, barnstorming is alive and threatened by the proposed National Air Tour Safety Standards, according to the folks who organized last summer's popular National Air Tour. In an impassioned letter to aviation enthusiasts, Greg Herrick, president of the Aviation Foundation of America (AFA), said the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), if adopted, could turn dozens of flyable vintage aircraft into museum pieces because owners won't be able to subsidize their upkeep by charging for rides. Herrick said at least four aircraft on the National Air Tour, which re-created an annual publicity tour sponsored by Ford in the 1930s, were used to fly paying customers. "If the FAA adopts this new proposed rule, these types of rides will become a thing of the past," he wrote. More...

...COMMENT PERIOD CLOSES JAN. 20
"Unfortunately, the FAA is trying to make a 'one-size-fits-all' rule," said Herrick. "This will basically eliminate operators offering local rides in historic aircraft ..." Other than so-called "discovery flights," which might lead to flight training, the proposed rule would also prevent people from hiring a local commercial pilot to take them for a ride. Under the proposed rule, carrying passengers for hire would require Part 135 certification. Herrick said very few vintage aircraft owners have money or time to spend on the record-keeping and reporting requirements of Part 135 operations. By the same token, unless they can charge for rides, they won't be able to keep the old birds flying. The comment period for the NPRM closes Jan. 20 and Herrick is urging people to make their feelings known. More...

2003 SAFEST EVER FOR AIRLINES WORLDWIDE...
Africa continues to be the front-runner in a race no one wants to win. Saturday's crash of an Egyptian airliner in the Red Sea punctuated a report by the Aviation Safety Network calling the continent the most unsafe place to fly in the world. It accounts for less than 3 percent of airline departures, but Africa claimed 28 percent of fatal airline crashes in 2003 in what was the safest year ever for the world's airlines. According to the report, there were just 25 fatal airline crashes worldwide in 2003, easily eclipsing the previous record of 35 set in 2001. To put that into perspective, Chicago O'Hare (ORD), alone, saw 911,917 departures and landings in 2001, according to the Airports Council International. More...

...WAS CRASHED 727 "THE ONE"?
Investigators said an unnamed "technical fault" likely caused the Flash Airlines Boeing 737 to crash into the Red Sea on Saturday, killing 148 people. All but one of the 135 passengers was French and the 13 crew members were Egyptian and Moroccan. The plane was carrying tourists from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh back to Paris, via Cairo. The plane crashed in water hundreds of feet deep, hampering the search for bodies. The crash comes just two weeks after a Union des Transports Africains (UTA) Boeing 727 crashed off the coast of Benin, killing at least 130 of the 161 people aboard and reigniting a months-old rumor about the origin of the airplane involved. More...

FBI HUNTS FOR AL-QAIDA PILOT "MOLE"
A British newspaper says FBI fears that an al-Qaida operative may be working as a pilot for a British airline are behind flight cancellations last week. The Daily Mirror says American investigators will screen all British pilots flying to the U.S. to try and root out the suspected mole. The paper quotes unnamed sources as saying the infiltrator intends to crash a planeload of people into the White House, Pentagon or Capitol building. Brian Doyle, a senior official with the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed the suspicions. "The intelligence is telling us there are some forms of infiltration from al-Qaida. We are looking hard into it." More...

PARENTS SUE FLIGHT SCHOOL IN STUDENT'S DEATH
Where a flight instructor's responsibility for the safety of a flight ends and the student's begins appears to be the crux of a lawsuit filed against a Hawaiian flight school last week. The Honolulu Advertiser says parents of 17-year-old student Chezray Hayes are claiming that George's Aviation Services, its owner George Hanzawa and employee Jennifer Oka encouraged Hayes to go on his solo cross-country flight from Oahu to Maui despite deteriorating weather. Hayes died Jan. 25, 2003, when the Cessna 172 he was flying hit a ridge on the island of Molokai. More...

TRANSPONDER PROBLEMS FUEL SAFETY FEARS
Australian officials are investigating ten cases of transponder failure in light aircraft since new airspace regulations went into effect Nov. 27. Transponders are fundamental to maintaining separation under the new rules, which rely less on controller guidance and more on pilots to see and avoid each other. Richard Dudley, a spokesman for Airservices Australia, the government-owned air traffic management company, said some of the transponders were broken but others were switched off or set incorrectly. Critics of the new airspace regs were quick with the I-told-you-so's. More...

DUBAI AIRPORT GOES UNDERGROUND
A $4.1 billion underground terminal is the centerpiece of an ambitious expansion at Dubai International Airport. The new facility is being burrowed into the desert sand in what workers call the "mother of all holes." The excavation measures more than 1,000,000 square feet and when the terminal is finished, passengers will park their cars, check in and relax in restaurants and lounges 35 feet under the airport apron. Locally based Emirates Airlines will be the only tenant. More...

THE SPIRIT HAS LANDED
NASA's Mars lander Spirit began sending black-and-white photos of the red planet back to Earth Sunday, just hours after a textbook landing on what scientists hope is a dry lake bed. The 3-D photos gave scientists the clearest view yet of the Martian surface and it's only going to get better. The six-wheeled robot is expected to roam its new home for 90 days, gathering samples and looking for signs of past life. It (hopefully) will be joined on the planet by a second rover later this month. Meanwhile, British scientists will continue trying to contact their Mars probe Beagle 2, which was to have landed on Christmas Day. No signals have been received from the British probe. NASA's Mars success came on the heels of another accomplishment in space the previous day More...

MEDEVAC PILOT TICKETED
Stamford, Conn., officials are reviewing the city ordinance that landed the pilot of a medical helicopter in hot water last week. William Pope, 67, of Andover, N.J., was ticketed by Stamford police after he landed his chopper in the local hospital's parking lot. Pope was picking up a sick infant for transport to an intensive care unit in Valhalla, N.Y. The flight was ordered by a Stamford doctor, who apparently didn't know about the city's official disdain for helicopters. More...

ON THE FLY...
Second dead stowaway found at Kennedy Airport...
Search-and-rescue training exercise turned into real thing...
Bellanca hit two houses in Dallas, killing both on board...
Indiana flight school expanding to meet demand. More...

READER FEEDBACK ON AVWEB'S NEWS COVERAGE AND FEATURE ARTICLES
Reader mail this week about aviation security, colorblind pilots, and more. More...

NEW ARTICLES AND FEATURES ON AVWEB
Electronic Flight Bag -- Update
Last August John Ruley wrote about how you can make your own electronic flight bag, using a Tablet PC and relatively inexpensive software. After testing it on a couple of actual cross-country flights, he has some different things to say about it. More...

BUSINESS AVFLASH
HAVE YOU SIGNED UP yet for AVweb’s NO-COST twice monthly Business AVflash? Reporting on breaking news, Business AVflash also focuses on the companies, the products and the industry leaders that make headlines in the Business of Aviation. Business AVflash is a must read! Sign up today at http://www.avweb.com/profile/

More...

SHORT FINAL...
Overheard at KLAS, Dec. 19, 2003, 9:30pm...

ATC: NABCD, after departure turn left heading 175 climb and maintain at or below 4,000, departure 125.9 and squawk XXXX.

Pilot: Any chance of a higher inital altitude?

ATC: We give you 4,000 in case of lost com.

Pilot: I know thats why I want higher. More...

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AVflash is a twice-weekly summary of the latest aviation news, articles, products, features and events featured on AVweb, the Internet's Aviation Magazine and News Service. http://www.avweb.com

Letters to the editor intended for publication in AVmail should be sent to mailto:editor@avweb.com.com. Have a comment or question? Send it to mailto:newsteam@avweb.com.

Today's issue written by News Writer Russ Niles:
http://www.avweb.com/contact/authors.html#rniles
AVweb's editorial team: http://avweb.com/contact/authors.html.

Have a product or service to advertise on AVweb? A question on marketing? Send it to AVweb's sales team: mailto:sales@avweb.com.

Let's all be careful out there, okay?

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