THE ADIZ FIGHT -- WHEN IT'S PERSONAL
AOPA President Phil Boyer spoke before the FAA, TSA, Defense, Secret Service and Customs brass last week but it was his story about the experience of one pilot perhaps less accustomed to the spotlight that lent a unique power to the presentation. At the public meeting on the future of the Washington Air Defense Identification Zone, Boyer said his wife Lois is among the pilots falsely accused of busting the ADIZ and it's an experience he says the couple will never forget ... and never wants to relive. "She went through hell," Boyer told the panel, in front of 200 others waiting to relate their experiences. Because Boyer's Cessna 172 has just about every electronic gizmo available on it, including ADS-B, the Boyers were ultimately able to prove they were nowhere near the ADIZ when they took the Sunday afternoon flight in the summer of 2003. But not before Lois, the pilot in command, was threatened with enforcement action. More...

REGULATIONS DESTROYING AVIATION REVENUE
But even if the pain of the ADIZ is gut-wrenching to pilots across the nation, it's the economic impact that carries the clout. The town of Leesburg, Va., northwest of Washington, sent a representative with facts and figures, plus a resolution from the town council opposing the permanent ADIZ proposal and asking for relaxed restrictions. Dennis Boykin, a member of the Leesburg Airport Commission, told those in attendance that at least 20 airplanes (almost 10 percent) have left the field for more convenient locations, a flight school has closed and fuel sales are down 30 percent. And while airports in similarly affluent areas elsewhere in the country are bursting at the seams with a flood of aircraft seeking space, Leesburg has room for more airplanes. "We have an airport in the richest county in the U.S. and we have vacant tie downs," he said. More...

STILL SEEKING REASONING BEHIND THE ADIZ
If the function of the ADIZ is to ensure the security of the seat of government, some might question Thursday's TFR that arose around the president when he spoke at Sterling, Va., a hop, skip and a jump from the White House, and well within the ADIZ. "If the ADIZ is doing its job, why does the President need a TFR when he goes inside the ADIZ?" Boykin asked. And while government officials may believe there exists a threat from GA, "the federal government has failed to justify the threat to the public," he said. National Air Transportation Association President Jim Coyne, a well-connected former senator, added his own voice. Coyne told the panel he's moved his airplane's base three times in three years, each time farther from Washington, "to avoid the draconian consequences of an accidental encroachment on the ADIZ" he said in news release. More...

AIRLINES, FAA WORRY ABOUT IMPACT OF LITTLE JETS
It's the year of the very light jet (VLJ) and a new set of naysayers has stepped forth to offer their (generally negative) views. Having survived skepticism that verged on outright hostility from within the general aviation industry, Eclipse Aviation, Adam Aircraft and (after it looked like there might be something to the VLJ phenomenon) Cessna are poised to launch their dreams within the next year or so. Now, those accustomed to having the flight levels pretty much to themselves are sounding the alarm. According to an unusually thorough examination of the VLJ phenomenon by The Associated Press, critics say an already overtaxed air traffic control system trying to keep order around already congested urban airports will bear the brunt of a VLJ population explosion. But the architect of the VLJ movement, Eclipse's Vern Raburn, says the fears are unfounded. More...

VLJS A BENEFIT, NOT A CURSE SAYS RABURN
Raburn, who's used to defending the VLJ concept, dismisses the concerns as being from schoolyard bullies who don't want to share the sandbox. The critics, he said, have the attitude that "if it hasn't been done before, it can't be done or it won't be done or it shouldn't be done." As we've heard many times before, Raburn is sure that little jets will open up 5,000 underused regional and municipal airports around the country to point-to-point air taxi and charter business. "We're going to offer service where the airlines don't," Raburn said. Just how many of these "SUVs with wings" as the AP claims to have heard them described will take to the skies is anyone's guess -- the FAA is estimating 4,500 will be flying in 10 years. More...

ECLIPSE A LITTLE LATE, MUSTANG A LITTLE EARLY, ADAM MOVES FORWARD
As AVweb reported in December, Eclipse's certification schedule slipped to sometime in June after a parts supplier fell behind, but the company is still hoping to deliver airplanes sometime this summer. A final assembly building is under construction and there's a total of more than 1,000 test hours on the fleet of five flight test aircraft. Eclipse says it can build an airplane in five days, as quoted by The Associated Press. Cessna's Mustang continues flight tests aiming for first deliveries in late 2006 and Adam, which upstaged both of its principal competitors by flying its A700 jet prototype to EAA AirVenture in 2003, is getting ready for the first flight of its first type-conforming jet, perhaps by mid-February. More...

CZECHS DEVELOPING TWIN, TRAINER, AND CRUISER
It's been awhile since a 9-to-14-passenger utility twin turboprop was certified and the next one may come from the Czech Republic. Evektor hopes the PT-6A-21-powered E-55 Outback will fill a vacuum left by 30- to 50-year-old aircraft that are nearing the end of their service lives. The company, which produced 110 planes in 2005 but may be better known on this side of the Atlantic for its Light Sport category aircraft, such as the SportStar, describes itself as a major player in east European aviation and says it's filling an obvious need with a new twin. First flight is planned for 2007 with Part 23 certification and first deliveries in 2009. Evektor's year-end newsletter says the E-55 will carry up to 14 passengers or 4021 pounds of cargo with a cruise speed of 220 knots at 10,000 feet. The company is also taking aim at the high-performance single market. More...

WHEN AIRCRAFT EXECUTE THE HIGHWAY MERGE
The pilot of a Piper Malibu Mirage says he was "just trying to merge with traffic" when he belly-landed his plane on a highway in Florida last Friday. And he almost did. The big single rear-ended a Jeep carrying two adults and three children, pushing it over a median and into the oncoming lanes. There were no injuries and only minor damage to the plane and car. Pilot David Shelby, who was flying from Foley to his home in Birmingham, Ala., said the nearest airport was eight miles away when the engine quit on the Mirage and when it became clear he wasn't going to make it, the highway was his only option. "I was trying to merge with traffic and hoping there were no cars below," he told the Pensacola News-Journal. That's when he met Aaron Ott and his family. More...

AIRLINER MAY HAVE STALLED AT 33,000 FEET
An MD-82 that crashed in Venezuela last August, killing 160, may have been behaving just the way Boeing had warned it might in a 2002 service bulletin. The bulletin warned that the autopilot might reduce engine power too much after a rapid climb, allowing airspeed to bleed off to the point of a stall. Pilots of the West Caribbean Airways flight, out of Panama for Martinique, may have been unaware, unnamed French investigators (Martinique is a French island) told the International Herald-Tribune. An interim report on the crash released by the Venezuelan government last November said the plane climbed from 31,000 feet to 33,000 feet and held the altitude for eight minutes before the autopilot turned itself off. The plane then descended for a minute before the stall horn sounded. It then fell to the ground at about 10,000 feet per minute, with the pilots pulling full back on the control yoke. More...

KILLER KITE STALKS SHREVEPORT PILOTS
Nah, not really, but it sort of seems that way to CFI Kevin Morris. Morris, a Shreveport, La., flight instructor, got quite a scare last week -- he called it the most intense few moments in his flying career -- when the Cessna 150 he was in struck a kite string just after takeoff from Runway 14 at Shreveport's Downtown (DTN) Airport. This "string," though, was braided nylon rope that wrapped around the spinner and almost immediately starting chewing away cowling and melting onto the windshield. As Kevin looked up after a brief gauges check at about 500 feet MSL he saw the box kite looming. "No problem," Kevin told AVweb. "A big box kite is easy enough to evade." If only that was all there was to it. (You'll want to see the images in NewsWire.) More...

POST-CARNAGE UNITED HEADED OUT OF BANKRUPTCY
A judge granted United Air Lines approval to move out of bankruptcy protection on Friday. Although United is on schedule to make the move Feb. 1, it might take some time for that relatively good news to translate to smiles on the faces of rank and file workers. After laying off 25,000 workers, cutting pay and replacing defined benefit pension plans with 401K plans for its front-line workers as part of its reorganization, the company rewarded 400 top management personnel by giving them 8 percent of 125 million new shares to be issued by the company. Still, seated aboard the new share cushion, company brass said the reorganization was even tougher than they thought it would be. They also believe the leaner, meaner United still has its work cut out in regaining profitability. More...

AOPA WANTS MCCAULEY NPRM WITHDRAWN
AOPA says the FAA should either withdraw a proposed AD setting life and operating limits on a couple of McCauley propellers or provide justification for imposing the rules. Last November, the FAA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that, if adopted, would affect the props on about 1,000 Beech Bonanzas, T-34s and Navions. The rule would put a 10,000-hour life on C406 and C409 props and also prevent them from being operated continuously at the common setting of between 2350 and 2450 RPM with 24 inches or higher of manifold pressure. The FAA says it issued the proposed AD based on test data supplied by McCauley and it's intended to prevent hub and blade failure in the props. But AOPA's Luis Guittierez said there is no evidence that any of the props have failed. More...

ON THE FLY...
Both occupants survive fiery SR22 crash Sunday at Lincoln Park, NJ...
Engine problems reported prior to Caravan crash on Vancouver Island...
Spitting incident lands passenger in jail...
Satellite photos attracting advertising...
Bogus crash site tricking pilots. More...

AVWEB'S NEWSTIPS ADDRESS ...
What have you heard? There might be something to it. If you've heard something that 130,000 pilots might want to know about, don't be shy. Submit news tips via email to newstips@avweb.com. Our best stories start with you. More...

NEW ARTICLES AND FEATURES ON AVWEB
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COLUMNS
The Pilot's Lounge #95: Bureaucrats Or Radium Dials -- Which Poses A Greater Danger?
This is a tale of the big bully versus the little guy. It's a true tale. And the little guy is losing really badly. What's more, the big bully may come after your aiplane or your museum next. AVweb's Rick Durden has the story in The Pilot's Lounge.

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AUDIO CLIP
Paul Berge makes sure we're all speaking the same language when it comes to critical airport operations and runway procedures. Click through to make sure you've got it right.

More...

READER FEEDBACK ON AVWEB'S NEWS COVERAGE AND FEATURE ARTICLES ...
http://www.avweb.com/avmail/

Reader mail this week about Sport Planes, aircraft parts, 737 reefs and more. More...

AVWEB'S 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. Watch for a Business AVflash regular feature, TSA WATCH: GA IN THE "SPOTLIGHT". Sign up today at http://www.avweb.com/profile/ More...

SHORT FINAL...
If ever you've lost your place...

I fly "co-pilot" for a national carrier. This particular dark and stormy night had me eager for some real world practice. The captain had other ideas.

Me: I'd like to fly the approach tonight if you don't mind.

Captain: ...and how many times have you flown this one before?

Me: More times than I can count.

(pause)

Captain: I'm still waiting for you to say something that might inspire my confidence. More...

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

Today's issue was written by news writer Russ Niles. (http://www.avweb.com/contact/authors.html#rniles)

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