Follow the link for their web site:

The AOPA has launched an online User Fee petition site. We lost round one to the airlines in the Senate Transportation committee. It’s time to regroup and keep up the pressure and sign AOPA’s petition.

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Sign the petition here:

ATLANTIC OCEAN (May 22, 2007) - An AV-8B Harrier II, with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron (HMM) 261 (Reinforced), readies to touch down aboard USS Kearsarge during a composite unit training exercise. HMM-261 is scheduled to deploy as the aviation combat element for the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit later this year. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Ezekiel R. Kitandwe

The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds fly over the 2007 U.S. Air Force Academy graduation ceremony May 30 in Colorado Springs, Colo. (U.S. Air Force photo/Dennis Rogers)

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Full Story at Air Force Link.

ISS mission 15 crew began a space walk at 3:05pm EDT today. You can watch here.
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Image from NASA TV

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Here’s the press release:

Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov began an almost six-hour spacewalk from the Pirs docking compartment airlock around at 3:05 p.m. EDT today to install Service Module Debris Protection (SMDP) panels on Zvezda and reroute a Global Positioning System antenna cable. The start of the spacewalk, originally planned for about 2:20 p.m., was delayed as the crew resolved issues with the communication system.

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Additional SMDP panels will be installed on a second spacewalk by Yurchikhin and Kotov on June 6. During that spacewalk they also will install a section of an Ethernet cable on the Zarya module and a Russian experiment called Biorisk on Pirs.

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Yurchikhin is the lead spacewalker, EV1. Kotov is EV2. Today’s spacewalk, in Russian Orlan suits, is the first for both.

Pilot was able to walk to police car after joining the caterpillar club (no name yet). Story at WZZM13.

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The NTSB was highly critical of airline management in the 2005 Grumman Mallard accident off the coast of Miami, saying “thin metal sheets” were used to cover a 16 inch structural crack in the wing. Story at Jacksonville.com
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I normally hate liability lawyers and everything they do. But this accident appears as if there was genuine negligence going on so I’m on their side for once.

The Aliance for Aviation Across America documents the deceptions.
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See the ad at YouTube called “You Pay, Corporate Jets Play”.

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Someone from the VLJ market needs to quickly respond to this with a counter ad. Perhaps Day Jet could put up an ad enticing passengers to get out of the airline terminal and into their own jet, and point out that the airlines are trying to kill the new business model in the crib. One response would be to ask the passenger if they would trust a business that overbooks flights and vaporizes employee’s pension funds.

The ACLU is claiming that Jeppesen International Trip Planning organized “torture flights” by the CIA. Story at CBS5.com.

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Somehow I doubt that torture was part of the trip amenities. For that you would have to fly regular coach fare, not a private 737 charter.

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The Jet in question, a Boeing 737 - N313P. An image you can find all over the net.

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The ACLU is undoubtedly trying to dry up companies willing to fly contract flights for the government.

At KOMOTV.com.

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I’m not telling what we used to do on this old runway back in the 70’s. (from RunwayFinder.com)

When an amendment to the FAA funding bill came up in the Senate Commerce Committee last week, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska at first passed on the vote. But when the result was a tie, he cast the deciding vote that kept User Fees alive. Now he’s seeking to find exemptions for Alaska pilots. Obviously his hope is that pilots are too dumb to realize that once Fees are in place, they will be much easier to expand, even to Alaska pilots initially exempted. Story at KTUU
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Stevens has been involved in several controversial issues recently. He was one of the key lawmakers supporting the famous “bridge to nowhere“. His son is implicated in a recent corruption case, and Stevens himself is under scrutiny because of a recent remodel of his house.

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Sounds like someone that Alaska airmen might want to vote against next election.

With 10 warheads, the Russians claim their new RS-24 mobile ICBM can defeat any anti-missile system. At AlaskaReport.com.

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In the Edmonton Journal. Bottom line, there’s no requirement to actually break the wing, so they may not do it. The 777 wing failed at 154% of design load (150% is the requirement), and the Airbus A380 failed at 145%, a bit low, causing more bad Airbus PR and redesign. The 787 wing has already gone to 150%, and is undergoing fatigue testing now.

The story of John Rauch, a Cessna UC-78, and a one wheel landing in Greenville Mississippi.

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Photo by Ed Coates from here:

It’s a complicated story, so check out AOPA for the details. Basically, the FAA rescinded approval for almost all GPS units to be used in the place of required RNAV, ADF and DME receivers for approaches.

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There’s a simple solution to this, really. The government, via the FAA, has accomplished a “taking”, that under the Constitution requires reimbursement.

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This is similar to a case that went to the Supreme Court a few years ago, where someone bought beachfront property that they intended to develop. Decades after purchase of the land, the government declared it a wetlands and development was prevented. The Supreme Court ruled that the government had “taken” the value of the property that was designated wetlands, and therefore the government had to pay the owner to purchase that part of his land, at the value the land would have had were it still buildable.

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The FAA has “taken” the value of 26,000 GPS receivers purchased when they had certification for these approaches. The government should be required to pay the owners for the value the FAA has taken.

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It would make a nice class action lawsuit.