GM ASKS COURT TO DUMP JET LEASES
One of the first things General Motors did under bankruptcy protection is ask the court to allow it to shed seven business aircraft leases and the lease on the hangar that holds them at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. "The leases are not necessary or valuable to the debtors' business activities or the sale process," GM is quoted by Bloomberg as saying in filings to the court. Shortly after the widely publicized criticism of GM CEO Rick Wagoner and other car company CEOs for using business jets to travel to Washington, D.C., GM tried to dump the aircraft leases but were legally required to maintain some. More...

HELICOPTER WAAS LPV DEVELOPMENT
With the safety of helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) under so much scrutiny it's worth noting that technology and procedures are under development to make these and other helicopter operations safer. Among the systems being successfully deployed is wide area augmentation system localizer performance with vertical guidance (WAAS LPV) for helicopters. Although WAAS LPV is becoming common at airports all over the U.S., Hickok and Associates, of Orange Beach, Ala., is developing it where helicopters need it most, at the hospitals and other off-airport sites they customarily serve. More...

ALL BELIEVED LOST ON AIR FRANCE 447
Searchers and investigators are now converging on the area where the Brazilian Air Force found a five-mile debris field where an Air France A330 carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew is thought to have gone down while on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris Sunday evening. Brazilian authorities are now saying there is no hope for survivors. The Air Force says pieces of metallic debris and seats were spotted in the Atlantic about 400 miles off the country's northern coast. The aircraft sent about four minutes of telemetry to the airline's maintenance base indicating catastrophic failures in at least 12 systems, Air France said Monday, but the cause of the accident has not been determined. It is known the aircraft flew through an area of convective weather about the time of the telemetry burst. The flight was beyond radar range and there were no communications received from the flight crew over the high frequency radio used for transoceanic communications. A lightning strike remained the popular media's most persistent theory for the cause of the apparent crash, although lightning dispersal systems are a well tested and effective feature of all modern airliners. More...

CIRRUS BOOSTS PRODUCTION, WILL REHIRE 50 STAFFERS
Cirrus Aircraft said this week it will boost production to eight aircraft per week and recall about 50 furloughed workers. "We are extremely pleased with continuing stronger sales trends that began in the first quarter," said Pat Waddick, executive vice president of operations at Cirrus. The company had increased production to six airplanes per week in late April, after nearly six months of significantly reduced production rates that averaged about three to four airplanes per week. It will take some time to ramp up to the new rate, Waddick said, since staff must be recalled and vendor lead times must be adjusted. Workers will be called back at Cirrus facilities in Duluth, Minn., and Grand Forks, N.D. Brent Wouters, president and CEO of Cirrus, said the marketplace is responding to the company's new offerings, including flight into known icing certification for the SR22 and Turbo models. More...

FLORIDA TOWN PRESSES ON WITH ANTI-FLIGHT TRAINING EFFORT
The town council of Grant-Valkaria, a small town on Florida's Atlantic coast, voted late on Monday night to go ahead with an effort to restrict flight training activities at the Valkaria Airport. "Basically it's a travesty, it's an absolute travesty," one unidentified pilot told the local WFTV News. Town attorney Karl Bohne adjusted the ordinance on Monday to clarify that the town is not trying to regulate flying, which the FAA wouldn't allow, but is trying to prevent flight schools from opening facilities at the airport, according to Florida Today. The proposal has brought opposition from AOPA, the National Air Transportation Association, and other aviation advocates. AOPA says the county owns the airport, and it has agreements with the FAA that obligate it to allow aeronautical activity on the field. "Flight training activities cannot be legislated out of existence at Valkaria by the town government," wrote John Collins, AOPA's manager of airport policy, in a letter to the town mayor, Del Yonts. More...

AVWEB INSIDER BLOG: GOOD GOV, BAD GOV
Sometimes the federal government rolls in and complicates a simple task beyond belief. Other times, it puts its bureaucratic muscle to good use by making things happen that would otherwise be stalled out by local politics. In the latest installment of our AVweb Insider blog, Paul Bertorelli muses on the feds' role as both wicked stepmother and fairy godmother. More...

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: FIDDLING AROUND AMERICA, PART 5 — FINAL THOUGHTS
These days, the bright light of favorable publicity doesn't shine much on aviation. AVweb's "Fiddling Around America" tour with Dan Gryder's Herpa DC-3 changed that, at least for one week. More...

AVWEB'S NEWSTIPS ADDRESS ...
Our best stories start with you. If you've heard something 200,000 pilots might want to know about, tell us. Submit news tips via email to newstips@avweb.com. What have you heard? More...

WHO'S WHERE? YOU TELL US
Get a promotion or a new job? Your colleagues want to know about it, and AVwebBiz can get the word out. Drop us a line about the staff appointment, with a nice recent photo, and we'll do our best to include it in our new section, "Who's Where." The items will be permanently archived on AVweb for future reference, too. More...

MEET THE AVWEBBIZ TEAM

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

The AVwebBiz 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

Webmaster
Scott Simmons

Contributors
Jeff van West

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