CHARTER OPERATOR GUILTY OF FRAUD
The co-founder of Platinum Jet Management, whose Challenger business jet went off the end of the runway at Teterboro Airport in 2005, has pleaded guilty to fraud charges for flying more than 100 charters without the proper certification. Andre Budhan could go to jail for up to four years after the investigation into the Teterboro crash turned into a criminal probe. A total of 23 charges were laid against Budhan and he pleaded guilty to the fraud charge. Even though the passengers on those flights got to where they were going, the fraud occurred because Platinum didn't tell them they didn't have the paperwork for conducting on-demand charters, according to North Jersey Crime Examiner. More...

CLEAR LANES CLOSED
Commercial airline travel just got a lot less convenient for frequent travelers who'd paid hundreds of dollars to jump the security line. Verified Identity Pass, the company that operated the Clear security screening kiosks at about 20 major U.S. airports, shut down on Monday night, forcing its customers to shuffle shoeless with the masses through the regular security lines. In a statement issued late Monday, the company said it couldn't reach a deal with its senior creditor to keep going. About 250,000 customers had paid up to $199 a year to zip through the segregated kiosks, which used retinal scans and fingerprints to verify the identity of travelers whose security background information was on a database. The company says the private information will be deleted securely but, unfortunately, so will the fees that have been paid. More...

MARKETS, CUSTOMERS REACT TO 787 DELAY
All Nippon Airways says it's still too soon to reconsider its launch order of the Boeing 787, even though Boeing announced the fifth program delay and pushed the first flight of the aircraft back for an unspecified period. The company says preflight testing revealed the need to beef up the structure of the fuselage where the wings attach and it's going to make sure it gets done right. "Consideration was given to a temporary solution that would allow us to fly as scheduled, but we ultimately concluded that the right thing was to develop, design, test and incorporate a permanent modification to the localized area requiring reinforcement," said Scott Carson, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. As ominous as it all sounds, the mods are described as "minor" and aren't related to the use of composites or the manufacturing processes. More...

FAA'S NEW YORK REGION AIRSPACE REDESIGN WINS IN COURT
The FAA's plan to redesign the New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia region airspace cleared a key legal barrier last week when a court struck down a group of legal challenges, the FAA said on Monday. A federal appeals court ruled on June 10 that the FAA can continue to move ahead as planned. Challenges had been filed by several state and local governments in the region, as well as a citizens group, claiming that the FAA didn't properly perform an environmental impact study of the changes in air traffic patterns that would result from the redesign. The court disagreed. "The FAA's environmental impact analysis was procedurally sound and substantively reasonable," the court wrote in its decision. The FAA says the redesign will help reduce delays by about 20 percent, and NBAA agrees. "This is welcome news for everyone," Steve Brown, NBAA's vice president for operations, told AVweb on Tuesday. "This redesign is absolutely a good thing for airspace users. It will make traffic flow more efficiently, with fewer delays. It will save fuel and increase capacity." The redesign will be completed in 2012, the FAA said. More...

LANCAIR EVOLUTION IN GEAR-UP MISHAP
Lancair International says serial number 01 of its Evolution Turbine kit speedster will be back on tour within a week after a gear up landing at Northeast Georgia Regional Airport, near Winder, Ga. In a news release Monday, Lancair said the aircraft suffered "minor" damage to its rudder and tail cone in the mishap and technicians were dispatched immediately with all the tools and supplies needed to get the plane fixed and back in the air. "True to the nature of high strength composites the damage is expected to be fully repaired in three to five days, the company said. Company pilot Bob Jeffrey was flying at the time.

Related Content:
See video of the Evolution's debut at Sun 'n Fun 2008 here. More...

SAM WILLIAMS, FOUNDER OF WILLIAMS INTL., DIES AT AGE 88
Dr. Sam B. Williams, founder and chairman of turbine engine company Williams International, of Walled Lake, Mich., died on Monday at the age of 88, the company announced in a news release on Tuesday. The small, efficient fanjet engines that Dr. Williams developed and patented were crucial to the development of very light jets and today are widely used on general aviation jet aircraft. The first Williams International jet engine, the FJ44-1A, was certified by the FAA in 1992, and since then, 4,000 FJ44 engines have entered service. Dr. Williams was inspired by a "lifelong dream of making jet travel safe, convenient, and affordable," the company said. He left a secure career at Chrysler Corp. in 1955 and started his own company with limited funds. Besides VLJs and bizjets, Williams engines have powered cruise missiles, the X-Jet flying platform, the V-Jet II designed by Scaled Composites that flew in 1997, and military drones. Dr. Williams was the recipient of many awards for innovation, including the Collier Trophy, the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy, and the National Medal of Technology. He was also inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the National Aviation Hall of Fame. More...

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: SEAREY LSX LIGHT SPORT AMPHIBIAN FLIGHT TRIAL
Aviation Consumer's Jeff Van West takes a SeaRey LSX for a spin on the water. Testing this light sport amphibian turned out to be more fun than we were expecting — what a blast! More...

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

AVWEB INSIDER BLOG: LIGHT SPORT AMPHIBS — IT DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER
If you've forgotten why it is you started flying in the first place, Paul Bertorelli and Jeff Van West suggest you pay a visit to Progressive Aerodyne and fly the SeaRey amphibian. If there's not a law against having this much fun, maybe there ought to be. See why it's all Paul can talk about in the latest installment of the AVweb Insider blog. 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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