UCAP Blog

By way of AvWeb, here’s a company that claims to have developed a micro-organism that can convert sunlight and water into petro fuels. Joule Unlimited | Solving the energy crisis with affordable, renewable clean fuel.

Thanks to Wired’s Autopia Blog, we have a look-see inside one of the Red Bull hangars in Salzburg, Austria. (Image: Wired.com.) Life’s a bitch. Then you die. Jeb

This story from a southern Colorado television station details a successful Cirrus airframe parachute system deployment. Pilot refused medical attention. Nothing earth-shaking here, just a post for the record. Jeb

The latest entry in the growing effort to beat back the TSA’s powers comes out of Albuquerque, N.M. There’s a lot going on in this case — and readers are cautioned to consider the extent to which, if any, this case is a legal precedent for other locations — but the punchlines are: Passengers have [...]

Don Weaver, one of the two exceptional Acro instructors from last spring’s AcroCamp, is now blogging for his IAC Chapter. Check it out. IAC88 Blog: This Is the New IAC 88 Blog.

From the Flying Magazine eNewsletter: Lasers are getting cheaper and more powerful, and that’s bad news for pilots. The FAA posted 2,836 laser incidents last year – nearly double the amount for 2009. Perhaps scarier, whether you’re a pilot or not, Class 4 lasers, capable of blinding or burning someone almost instantly, have entered the [...]

Guest: Amy Laboda. Future and roadable aircraft… Reports from the Sebring LSA Fly-in… Resolving one of aviation’s great controversies. Shownotes page.

AOPA’s eBrief newsletter ran this poll recently to see how long it took their readers to complete their Private Pilot training. I’m well outside the bell curve cause it took me more like 18 months, but almost half of the respondents said they did it in 6. And we all know pilots never exaggerate.

This story from the Helena (Mon.) Independent Record exemplifies economical headlines. It was later updated to include the word “small.” I’m waiting for a similar headline: “Dog barks at man.” Jeb

By the time you read this, according to USAToday (yeah, I know…), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security should have announced it is ditching the color-coded “terrorism alert system” with which we’ve been plagued since 2001. Good riddance: Its elimination is long overdue. The system was vague at best, and really did little more than [...]