Sat, May 11, 2024
Sale Shortly After Wag-Aero Divested Itself Of Its Interest In Leading Edge Air Foils
An interesting surprise occurred this week as Wag-Aero customers logged on to their site in order to order a few things...no Wag-Aero. Instead, the site was redirected to Aircraft Spruce, which has apparently bought out the once popular Wag-Aero operations shortly after the same operation divested itself of its interest in Leading Edge Air Foils. The following message appeared when the Wag-Aero site was accessed... "Aircraft Spruce is pleased to announce the acquisition of the parts distribution operations of Wag-Aero. Wag-Aero was founded in the 1960’s by Dick and Bobbie Wagner in the basement of their family home in Lyons, WI, around the same time that Bob and Flo Irwin started Aircraft Spruce in the basement of their home in Fullerton, CA. Both companies published their first parts catalogs in 1965, and in 1971 Wag-Aero moved to their permanent facility on North Road in Lyons. In 1995 The Wagners sold Wag-Aero to Bill Read and Mary Myers
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Sat, May 11, 2024
Boeing's Problem Child Says 'Yeah but for Real This time'
NASA will hopefully send off the Boeing Starliner for the first time on May 17th, at 18:16 Eastern time, hopefully showing crowd's Boeing's heavy lift combo in actual launch circumstances. The Starliner's first launch was supposed to take place on May 9th, but an issue nestled within the United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket canceled the entire flight. For Astronauts Sun Williams and Butch Wilmore, it was a nice little dress rehearsal, letting them get snuggled in with preflight jitters until the voice crackled over the comms with the good/bad news that they would in fact be sleeping in their own beds that night... if they didn't have to stay in quarantine, that is.
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Sat, May 11, 2024
Series of Aviation Films Will Run All Week for Nightly Admission
AirVenture audiences will have a fun nightly option to wind down after a long day of walking at this year's AirVenture 2024, with nightly movie exhibitions spanning old classics from the early years of wartime photography to modern biopics. The lineup will start with everyone's fave cold war guilty pleasure, Top Gun, running on Saturday July 20th. Sunday will see 2023's A Million Miles Away, Monday 1948's The Fighter Squadron, then Toward the Unknown (1956), Fire Birds (1990), Captains of the Clouds (1942), The Blue Angels (2024), and capping everything off the last Saturday with The Right Stuff from 1983.
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Sat, May 11, 2024
Galactic 07 Mission Coming Up in June, Delta-Class Spaceships On Track for 2026, and Increased Ops Tempo Top News
Virgin Galactic just keeps crawling its way to profitability, with a 1st quarter results call that painted a company on the upswing with enough irons in the fire that things might just work out. Overall, Virgin Galactic said that its cash position remained strong, with $2 million in revenue driven by commercial spaceflight and membership fees tagged to future astronauts. That's pretty good, compared to last year's first quarter - that one ended with only $0.4 million in revenue, putting Virgin Galactic in the uncomfortable spot of burning cash just to stay alive.
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Sat, May 11, 2024
Also: SkyReach Parts Support, Piper Service Ctr, Airliner Near-Miss, Airshow London
The Judge overseeing Icon's convoluted Chapter 11 process has approved $9 million in Chapter 11 financing and set a June asset auction for the Icon A5 Program -- and said that objections had apparently been resolved (for the moment) by shareholders who claimed (not surprisingly) that Icon was being sold to an 'insider.' Judge Craig T. Goldblatt gave final approval to Icon's (DIP) debtor-in-possession financing and approved the sales schedule... but has yet to approve that previously disclosed stalking horse bidder. On April 12, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky sentenced Morgan J. Wiljanen, former helicopter pilot for Air Evac EMS, Inc., to 8 months of incarceration, 18 months of supervised release, 4 months of home detention, and a $100 special assessment. In December 2023, Wiljanen pleaded guilty to operating an air common carrier while
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Sat, May 11, 2024
Also: NBAA on FAA Reauth, DJI AG Drones, HI Insurance Bill Defeated, SPSA Airtankers
The Beechcraft Denali continues moving forward towards certification, having received its FAA Type Inspection Authorization early this year. Textron advertised that their single-engine turboprop competitor has logged more than 2,000 flight test hours across 830+ flights, on track for completion in 2025. Aerodyne, a new gyroplane manufacturer, will be commemorating its entry into the market with an attempt at setting some records as it runs a lap around the United Kingdom. Founder, executive chairman, and pilot Rangaraja Iyengar will make a full lap around the whole lot with his 8-year-old daughter assisting, aiming to complete a 3-day, 5,000-mile journey. The FAA has issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) that alerts all owners, operators, maintenance technicians, and inspectors of Revo Incorporated Model Colonial C-1, Colonial C-2,
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Sat, May 11, 2024
Also: Vertical Flight Society, NBAA Maintenance Conference, GA Honored, AMT Scholarship
For the first time, students from Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach, Florida, campus took top honors at the AIAA Design/Build/Fly (DBF) Competition, held in Wichita, Kansas. A second Embry-Riddle squad, this one from the Prescott, Arizona, campus, also placed among the top teams, earning eighth overall. The Leadership in Flight Training, or LIFT Academy, has expanded its training fleet with a recent order with Diamond Aircraft, bringing on 56 new planes. The deal sees LIFT gain 50 new single-engine DA40s, and 6 twin-engine DA42s. The training facility has continued to expand thanks to a steady pipeline of students. Epic Flight Academy has officially launched its new aircraft mechanic school at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG), marking a significant advancement in aviation training and workforce development in Kentucky. The opening of this
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Sat, May 11, 2024
Also: 1800th E-Jet, Uncle Sam Sues For Landing Gear, Embraer Ag Plane, Textron Parts
A friend of the family reported that Lt. Col. (Ret.) Richard Glenn Rutan flew west on Friday, May 3, 2024 at 7:08 PM PDT. The last time Dick Rutan flew towards the western horizon was on December 14, 1986 when he and copilot Jeana Yeager set the last great aviation record by flying around the world, nonstop and unrefueled, in nine days, three minutes and 44 seconds in an aircraft called 'Voyager.' designed by Burt Rutan. As we understand it, a 'stalking horse bidder' is the initial bid on a bankrupt company's assets from an interested buyer -- chosen by the bankrupt company. The proposed stalking horse bidder, SG Investment America Inc., has been designated to 'set the floor price for the sale of ICON’s assets.' Icon claims that this step is aimed at maximizing value for the company’s stakeholders and facilitating a smooth transition through the
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Sat, May 11, 2024
General Atomics Begins Integrating Fancy Software Capabilities to MQ-9A
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has embarked on a partnership with Shift5, allowing them to integrate that firm's "onboard onboard cyber anomaly detection and predictive maintenance capabilities" to USSOCOM's MQ-9A Reaper UAS. The Shift5 partnership will "assure AFSOC and SOCOM mission readiness and cyber survivability" by way of some nifty software. Shift5 is understandably vague about the specifics, merely saying that they give "real-time, data-driven insights needed to predict and schedule maintenance effectively, helping avoid critical failures before they happen and ensuring the safety and performance of critical fleets."
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Sat, May 11, 2024
One Down, One (and a Signature) to Go!
Captain Jason Ambrosi, head of the Air Line Pilots Association, International, applauded the United States Senate for passing the 5-year reauthorization for the Federal Aviation Administration. Now, ALPA has urged the House to move quickly to send the bill to the president's desk for signature. "Today's action by the Senate is a major step forward for the safety and security of our nation's skies, and I urge the House to act expeditiously to enact this groundbreaking bipartisan bill.
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