A pilot advocacy group has turned its attention to the Grand Lake Regional Airport in Afton, Okla. --an airport used by many Wichita-area pilots.
The airport is slated to be auctioned in August by the U.S. Marshals Service. The airport's owner, Monkey Island Development Authority, could not pay $99,000 it had been ordered to pay in lawyers' fees from previous litigation.
The sale could set a dangerous precedent, said the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
The airport is one of 3,300 U.S. airports the government considers significant to national air transportation, the group said. The airports rely on grants from the Federal Aviation Administration for development and improvements.
Grand Lake Regional has received about $1.3 million in federal and state grants. In exchange, the airport's owner agreed to keep the airport open and accessible for public use.
Allowing the airport to be sold at auction could undermine the purpose of the grant program because a buyer could convert the property to private use or close it altogether, the pilots association said.
That could have a negative effect on the nation's air transport system, it said. The association has filed a "friend of the court" brief on the nation's airport system. The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a motion on behalf of the FAA to stop the sale, the association said.
Student pilots and instructors are less likely to have a fatal accident than pilots already certified, a new study shows.
Flight training accounts for 22 percent of flying but results in only 13 percent of the accidents, said the study by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association's Air Safety Foundation.
The group studied 2,295 instructional accidents in the 10 years from 1992 to 2001. Of the accidents, about 9 percent were fatal.
Of general aviation accidents as a whole, about 20 percent were fatal, it said.
The head of Boeing Wichita's military division, Derek McLuckey, would like to see the Airborne Laser program based in Wichita.
The Airborne Laser weapon system uses a 747-400 as its platform. The system will detect and track incoming ballistic missiles in their boost phase, then destroy them using high-energy lasers.
The 747 test aircraft, which was modified in Wichita, is returning this summer for additional changes.
McLuckey declined to say whether or what he may be doing to try to get the program based in Wichita.
He said he also thinks it makes sense for some of the planes that will make up the Airborne Laser fleet to be based at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita because McConnell is expanding and is in the middle of the country.
"It's my personal desire," McLuckey said. "I would like to see that happen."
Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin have teamed together to build the weapons system.
Raytheon Aircraft Co. has switched to using biodiesel fuel for its trucks and tractors. The fuel, a clean burning alternative fuel, is made from a blend of soybean oil and diesel fuel.
Airbus North America has chosen Global Internetworking Inc. to design and manage a high-capacity system that links its headquarters in Herndon, Va., with other Airbus facilities, including its engineering site in Wichita.
Airbus North America's vice president for information services, Charles Fletcher, said in a statement that the system will help improve its network's ability to support mission critical business applications.
