Archive for May 2011

Amanda Franklin

Our thoughts and prayers are with Kyle and all of Amanda’s family. It is with a broken heart that I tell you that my beautiful girl Amanda passed away at 10:10 central time this evening. Beside her was her adoring husband Kyle, her mother Jeanie, her brother Matt, her sister-in-law Michelle and her devoted mother-in-law [...]

AFR447 Update: Why Can’t Airline Pilots Recover From Stalls?

The French equivalent to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board — the (Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile, or BEA) — this morning released an update to its ongoing investigation into the June 1, 2009, crash of Air France Flight 447. The aircraft, an Airbus A330, disappeared over the equatorial Atlantic [...]

Feds embracing GA for disaster response

From an article on Flying Magazine’s website: The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is embracing general aviation as part of its disaster planning preparations after conducting a successful large-scale disaster drill that included private aircraft dealing with a simulated national emergency. … In the exercise, GA aircraft participated in coordination with other relief operations [...]

Wishful thinking in the alternative fuels field.

AvWeb’s Paul Bertorelli does the best job I’ve seen lately (ever?) of describing the state of the art in producing “new” “alternative” fuels. Over a year ago, on the UCAP podcast, we reported our discovery that Swift Fuel was not being made from bio sources. Samples were being made from petroleum derived stock. Bertorelli reiterates [...]

AcroCamp II is coming

Airspeed’s Steve Tupper has announced the “casting call” for the second of his oh-so-cool AcroCamp events. Last May Michigan’s Pontiac Airport hosted four “campers”, two acro CFIs, a video crew, and some groupies (me!) for a total immersion, multiple day course in the basics of acrobatic flight. Now he’s getting ready for the second edition. [...]

A 4G Snow Job has Begun…courtesy of LightSquared…

OK, cynic that life has made me, it was somewhat amusing,even somewhat surprising, to see an ad in my morning Wichita Eagle newspaper proclaiming the enormous benefits headed toward rural America through the magic of 4G broadband — courtesy of LightSquared. Now for those who spend their time in more useful pursuits than monitoring the [...]

Gamera flies

In UCAP 236 Dave schools us on Gamera, both the flying scifi monster, and the human powered rotorcraft.

Travels with Charlie

FlightMonkeys guest blogger Jack Thompson tells us of the day he went flying with hangar neighbor, 86 year-old, veteran pilot, “Charlie”. “I’ve had loves in my life, but the love I’ve had for airplanes and flying has been one of my greatest joys. I got bit by the flying bug as a teenager – I’ve never [...]

UCAP Meetup airport to change name

A rose by any other name. We had a great meetup at Barnes in west central Massachusetts awhile back. Now they’re changing their name to better reflect their situation. “Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport”. “It is primarily perception,” Barnes [sic?] said of the name change. “Companies and their pilots look at a municipal airport as a small [...]

AFR447 CVR recovered

Complementing Jack’s post below, authorities have announced the cockpit voice recorder from Air France Flight 447 has been recovered. Image at this link depicts the recovered device and its memory module being sealed for transport, presumably to France, for the next phase of the investigation into the May 1, 2009 crash. Jeb


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