Cessna’s light sport plane, the Model 162 SkyCatcher, is supposed to have a built-in ballistic airframe parachute. The test plane that crashed and was heavily damaged Sept. 18 also had one, but it never deployed, Wichita’s ABC affiliate reported. The SkyCatcher was going through a series of spin tests on the day of the crash, and the plane entered a cross-controlled flat spin from which the test pilot couldn’t recover, Cessna officials said. The pilot bailed out of the plane and deployed his own personal parachute, landing without injury. The plane was heavily damaged when it tumbled to the ground, landing in a rural area south of Wichita. Officials from Ballistic Recovery Systems, which makes the SkyCatcher’s chute and many like it in other general aviation planes, said they did not know why the rocket-powered airframe parachute did not deploy in the spin.

Hurricane Ike’s storm surge several weeks ago left Scholes International Airport in Galveston under 9 feet of water, damaging artifacts and some planes at the museum there and obliterating the airport’s electrical system. But now officials are cleaning up and vowing to do as much as they can to protect the airport and the Lone Star Flight Museum from future hurricanes, the Galveston Daily News reported. While the airport’s control tower was not damaged, a ground-level electrical vault was flooded, cutting off power to the entire airport, including the runway lights and the general aviation terminal. Despite that, the airport opened to daytime flights two days after Ike passed. The airport is expected to open again for night takeoffs and landings this week once a new elevated electrical vault is installed. Several of the flight museum’s vintage planes were flown to safety ahead of Ike, including a DC-3, a B-17 Flying Fortress and a P-47 Thunderbolt. But other planes inside the museum’s hangar were damaged by salt water and had to be cleaned inside and out to prevent corrosion. Some of the museum’s artifacts and displays also went missing as the storm surge pushed in everything from trees to refrigerators where exhibits once stood. As they continue to clean up, museum officials said they want to get it open again as soon as possible.

The A700 very light jet, formerly made by Adam Aircraft, was in Yuma, Ariz., last week for a series of hot-weather flight tests. The very light jet is slated to be certified by late 2009, and reports that it has restarted its testing regime appear to confirm that AAI Acquisitions plans to follow through with bringing the plane to market. During its time in Arizona, the A700 was subjected to high temperatures on the ramp to make sure critical systems like avionics could withstand baking in the sun and still perform correctly, the Yuma Sun reported. Test pilot Jeff Peer has now logged more than 1,200 hours flying the A700 test plane. The Adam 700 has had a rocky start as its former parent company struggled to find enough money to certify both it and the now-extinct A500 centerline-thrust twin-engine turboprop. While that plane and the jet share many parts in common, the A700’s two engines are mounted on either side of the rear fuselage, like many other jets. A Chinese company ordered 50 A700s before Adam went bankrupt, but it is unclear where AAI’s order book for the plane now stands, since it is modifying the jet’s specifications and pricing.

Expect to see Sierra Super II Citation jets screaming into the flight levels soon now that the company has gotten FAA approval for its modifications. Sierra Industries has begun fitting Williams FJ44-3A engines on older Cessna Citation S550s, replacing 20-year-old Pratt & Whitney engines with new ones that are quieter and faster, the San Antonio Business Journal reported. The Super II can climb to 43,000 feet in under 25 minutes, compared to over an hour for the original Citation II. Fuel burn is much lower, too, with the Super II using about 27 percent less fuel than the original. The conversion isn’t cheap, coming in at about $1.9 million just to replace the engines and add FADEC controls; Sierra will also replace the plane’s avionics with all-glass displays for another $490,000. Sierra sees its competition as Cessna’s CJ3, which uses the same Williams engines and costs $8 million new. Sierra said it has six Super II conversions in the works right now and an unspecified number of them already booked to keep it busy through 2009.

Working from his office near Monterey Municipal Airport on the California Coast, Martin Hollmann has a slew of airplane designs to his credit and some of the only books published on designing gyroplanes and other aircraft. Hollmann, 67, has been running his own aircraft design business for more than 20 years, taking calls from people who want their own custom kit planes and turning those ideas into flying experimental models, the Monterey Herald reported. His most well known is The Stallion, a six-seat composite piston plane with a top speed of about 200 knots and a range that could take it from one coast to another without refueling. Hollmann’s career started in designing small, high-tech parts for aircraft and cruise missiles. With his engineering and aeronautics degrees before that, he soon set off on his own to design planes. His self-published books cover any array of advanced topics on designing different types of planes and in dealing with complex aerodynamic issues. But for all his experience, Hollmann says he’s afraid of heights and seldom flies his own planes.

On Oct. 4, 1958, a pair of British Overseas Airways Corporation de Havilland Comets took off from New York and London, marking the beginning of fast flights across the Atlantic. While transatlantic flights weren’t new at the time, being able to make the trip in just six hours from west to east was revolutionary, the London Times reported. The flight from London to New York took about 10 hours with headwinds, and required a refueling stop on Newfoundland. While the jets were about the size of a Boeing 737, BOAC’s transatlantic flights had just 36 seats split between “first” and “deluxe” classes. The cheapest seats on those first flights were the equivalent of $10,000 in today’s dollars. Then again, for the fare, passengers got cocktails and appetizers before their meals, and cigarettes and liqueurs afterward. Three weeks after BOAC’s flights began, Pan American Airways launched transatlantic jet service on its Boeing 707s.