On The Fly…

Goodyear’s Spirit of America took an unexpected bath in a compost pile…Manchester Airport fire chief in hot water over Concorde…John Glenn to be honored at 56th Annual Wright Memorial Dinner…O’Hare may this year show a traffic increase for the first time since 1999…Canadian airports have banned fruit cakes.

Goodyear is short a blimp after the almost-new Spirit of America crashed into a compost pile in California last week. The year-old blimp slipped its moorings at its home base in Carson, Calif., and drifted 300 yards before hitting the heap of fertilizer. The pilot was uninjured but a cameraman on board suffered bruises. The blimp had a large tear in the front of the envelope and the front window of the gondola was smashed…

Manchester Airport's fire chief is in hot water after he breached security to give his friends a sneak peak at the Concorde. Chris Formby used an official car to go through a gate used by fire trucks responding to emergencies to take two colleagues for an airside view of the Concorde, which was on one of its last flights in October. He was called on the carpet by airport authorities...

Aviator, senator and world's oldest astronaut John Glenn will be the guest of honor at the 56th Annual Wright Memorial Dinner. The dinner, held to honor a "living individual for significant public service of enduring value, as a civilian, to aviation in the United States," will be held at the Aero Club of Washington on Friday. John Travolta and FAA Administrator Marion Blakey will attend...

For the first year since 1999, O'Hare International may show a traffic increase this year. Through Oct. 31, nearly 58 million passengers had passed through the airport, up 4 percent over last year. By the end of the year, the total is expected to hit about 70 million...

Canadian airports have banned fruit cakes -- apparently the much ... beloved ... holiday treats are too dense for security devices to see through.