One of the biggest problems facing spy-types in the war on terror is linguistics. Arabic and English don't look very compatible at first glance. At second glance, that suspicion is confirmed. Throw in French as a wildcard and you have a good possibility for screwing up. That's apparently what happened in the case of six Air France flights between Paris and Los Angeles during the week of Christmas.

Stop us if this sounds familiar. Come Saturday morning, if all goes according to plan, a spacecraft from Earth will speed through the Martian atmosphere in hopes of deploying its rockets, parachutes and airbags all in sequence and touching down on the Red Planet. Shortly after landing the rover vehicle will supposedly deploy and start talking to another satellite from Earth orbiting overhead. It's the same script European Space Agency controllers hoped would unfold without incident in the Beagle 2 mission. So far, Beagle has failed to bark. European officials now hope that its mothership, Mars Express, will be able to talk with Beagle once its in an orbit low enough to facilitate communications. No, in this case, we're talking about the first of two American probes to land o

Al Haynes is something of a god to a lot of pilots -- commercial, charter and GA. He's the man who wouldn't quit, who flew right up to the edge of the envelope, then over. Not that Haynes wanted to. It was probably the last thing on his mind when he took off aboard United Flight 232 on July 19, 1989. Shortly after an engine malfunction severed the hydraulic lines on Haynes' DC-10, he could have given up. He didn't. Only able to make left turns, and sloppy ones at that, Haynes and his crew did the impossible, guiding the crippled jetliner to the airport in Sioux City (IA). The landing wasn't pretty -- 112 people were killed in a ball of fire. But many more were saved, thanks to Haynes determination and resourcefulness. Now Haynes, who is 72, is fighting to save another

"There is good and precise intelligence that there is more than one al Qaeda or al Qaeda-like group operating against the US. One is based in Central America and the other is based in Europe — in London or Paris." Source: British defense analyst Paul Beaver on the recent delays and cancellations of foreign flights coming to or leaving the United States.

From Tioga (ND), Ernie and Alma Knutson came to see the new NASM Annex, along with their son, Gene. Ernie flew C-47’s during World War II and in Korea, and calls the entire NASM facility at Dulles International “Fantastic... fabulous... hard to describe.” He still has the Taylorcraft that his wife and son learned to fly in. It would seem hard to believe, but there is no DC-3 or C-47 on display, yet. As I have mentioned before, the museum is a work in progress, and there are 80 aircraft where 200 will eventually find a home. The museum you see today will be different from the one a year from now, and two years from now.

The popularity of South Florida is by no means confined to the blue hair and false teeth set. No, no. Over the holidays, the rich and famous also piled in, coming in numbers so vast, airport authorities in Fort Lauderdale (FL) were stunned and traffic was stacked up for hours at a time. Blame corporate aviation, says the FAA. And it ain't over yet. "The real issue is that all these people came down and now we have to get them back," said Brad Kost, president of Galaxy Aviation at Palm Beach International. He says Sunday will be an especially busy day.