Navigation company Garmin International has released a new series of portable aviation devices. The GPSMAP 696 contains all of the features from the older 496 model but adds a slew of new ones, the company said in a news release. The device has a 7-inch screen that displays electronic charts and approach plates, in addition to XM satellite weather like its predecessors. New weather features include plots of lightning strikes, inflight weather reports from other pilots and forecasted icing conditions. A new joystick and soft keys make it easier to view airport, weather and airspace information. But all of that comes with a hefty price tag: $3,595. The GPSMAP 696 will be unveiled at the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association Expo November 6 through 8 in San Jose, California.

Citing lower than expected production rates on Eclipse Aviation’s assembly lines and the very light jet maker’s need for $200 million or more in new investment money, a Connecticut research firm thinks Eclipse could shut down its production lines in the first few months of 2009. Eclipse’s business model relied on producing hundreds of jets each year but production rates have been much lower, and the company may only produce 162 planes this year, Forecast International said in a news release. According to the report, it is unlikely that Eclipse will be able to get the money it needs given the current state of credit markets worldwide. The company is trying to save money by slowing its production rates. And some customers are still paying the old price for the jets, $1.52 million, because they put down large deposits earlier this year. While it is unclear how many planes are being delivered at that price, Eclipse loses money on each of those, Forecast International said. The forecast is more dark news for Eclipse, which has batted back claims for much of the year that it was running low on cash. In September, the company’s largest customer, air taxi operator DayJet, shut down operations and returned its planes. Over the summer, Eclipse also faced scrutiny from the FAA into how the plane was certified in 2006.

Boeing’s production lines could start up again Sunday night if the company’s 27,000 Machinists vote to approve a new contract that officials from both sides have hammered out. If the deal is approved, workers would get a 15-percent raise over the term of the four-year contract, in addition to bonuses of $5,000 or more this year and $1,500 next year, the Seattle Times reported. One of the most contentious issues behind the strike was over outsourcing of work that used to be done in-house by Machinists to workers in other countries. Large portions of the new 787 Dreamliner are made in plants around the world, with final assembly happening near Seattle. Under the newly proposed contract, some workers would be spared layoffs from outsourcing. And except on the 787 production lines, outside vendors would have to deliver parts to designated receiving areas, with Machinists taking them to assembly areas. Analysts estimate Boeing will have lost $2 billion in the strike, which has lasted for nearly two months.

All six people aboard two Cessnas that collided in midair over western Colorado Wednesday survived, with one airplane making a gear-up landing at Grand Junction Regional Airport and another crashing in a field, its vertical stabilizer torn off. The pilot of the Cessna 210, a county-owned plane carrying a sheriff’s deputy and two inmates, said he never saw the Cessna 180 coming straight toward him, but heard a thump and thought the plane had struck a bird, the Grand Junction Free Press reported. Pilot Andy Gordon decided to make a precautionary landing and discovered he couldn’t lower his gear. Beekeeper John Haefeli, piloting the Cessna 180, had only a few seconds to react when he saw the Cessna 210 in his windscreen. He attempted to dive, the vertical stabilizer clipping the underside of the Cessna 210. Haefeli, who was talking to air traffic controllers before the collision, is believed to have a made a radio call declaring, “I’ve got 30 seconds from impact.” He and his passenger managed to escape with only minor injuries after the plane landed upside-down.

The American Airlines Boeing 757 that made an emergency landing at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on Sept. 22 and overran the end of the runway was nearly crippled by the time it landed, the National Transportation Safety Board said last week. Sometime en route from Seattle to New York, a cockpit warning alerted the crew of an electrical bus problem and the crew switched to a battery backup with a 30-minute life, the NTSB’s preliminary report said. One hour and 40 minutes later, as the plane few over part of Michigan, several electrical systems onboard began failing, including some cockpit instruments and the cabin public address system. The crew decided to land at O’Hare, declaring an emergency on final approach. That’s when they discovered the elevator and pitch trim were unresponsive. The plane landed safely, though the thrust reversers and spoilers never deployed and the brakes weren’t fully effective. The captain veered the plane off the runway into grass adjacent to the blast pad at the far end of the runway. There were no injuries. The NTSB later found that part of a critical electrical relay had failed.

Most controllers today who work in larger air traffic control towers know both how to handle planes by looking through the windows of the tower cab and how to vector planes in the air in the nearby radar room. But under a new program the FAA will test in Memphis, Tenn., and Orlando, Fla., newly hired controllers would be trained in either the tower or the radar room but not both, the Associated Press reported. That would speed up the certification process by only having to put controllers through the most relevant parts of training. But it could also leave facilities in a staffing bind with less flexibility to shift controllers between the tower and radar room. About 20 of the largest airports in the nation already operate that way, but another 100 facilities with towers and radar rooms share controllers between both. After facing pressure from lawmakers on Capitol Hill worried that enough studies hadn’t been done, the FAA scaled back its plans to split controller training. It had previously contemplated doing it at six other mid-size facilities as well. The new training regimen at Memphis and Orlando will start Jan. 1.

When the air taxi company DayJet shut down its operations last month, the 1,500 Eclipse jets it had on order vanished from the books. But the 28 that DayJet was flying were very real and now Eclipse, which was leasing them to DayJet, is selling them to the public, the company said in a news release. The planes are some of the first Eclipse produced, so none have the most current version of the Avio flight deck and some have the very first iteration of Avio up front. None of the planes are approved for flight into known icing, and depending on configuration, the planes have a range of 950 to 1,125 nautical miles. Some of the planes have weather and terrain warning systems installed, while others don’t. Buyers get the planes as-is (some have partial warranties remaining), complete with DayJet livery and leather seats with the defunct company’s logo. None of the planes have more than 450 cycles on them. Eclipse did not return a call asking for the price range of the used jets. New ones sell for $2.15 million and used jets are currently on the market for as much as $1.8 million.

There’s a new contender in the realm of online flight planning applications. FlightAware, the flight tracking Web site, launched a beta version of its flight planning system this week, which looks for the most efficient routes and altitudes, even estimating the cost of a trip. The system compares your flight plan with current winds aloft and other flight plans to calculate the best possible routes. Once you select the route of flight and altitude, you can file an instrument flight plan from within the site and download all of the departure and approach plates you’ll need. The tool automatically highlights routes that take the least amount of time, use the least fuel and cost the least. Expenses take into account not just fuel for the trip, but the plane’s dry operating costs as well. The tool currently covers just the continental United States, though FlightAware says it plans to expand the service to Alaska, Hawaii, Canada and the Caribbean. Once you select a route, the program also displays the current METARs and TAFs at your departure and arrival airports.

Pointing to a drop in the number of general aviation pilots making calls to flight service stations, Lockheed Martin announced last week that it is shutting down four stations in the West and one in Georgia. Pilots used to talking to briefers in Seattle, San Diego, Denver or Albuquerque will instead be routed to one of several flight service hubs run by Lockheed, including one in Prescott, Ariz., the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association reported. The FAA and Lockheed faced plenty of heat over last year’s privatization and consolidation of the flight service station network. AOPA is asking pilots who experience any problems with the level of service from Lockheed’s stations to call a special FAA hotline, 888-FLT-SRVC. The five stations slated to be closed won’t actually be decommissioned until Feb. 1, 2009. Even though pilots had come to trust briefers in local offices for details on local weather patterns and flight procedures, Lockheed says briefers in its nationwide hubs will still have local knowledge.

Two weeks after stepping down as the CEO of Mooney Airplane Co., Dennis Ferguson has also resigned his post as the company’s president. Robert Gowens, whom the company announced last month would be its new CEO, will also now be the president of Mooney, the San Antonio Express-News reported. Ferguson appears to have left the company on good terms and “to pursue other interests,” according to news reports. But his departure comes just two years after he took over the company and after months of declining sales. Mooney laid off 20 percent of its workers, a total of 80 people, in June as the number of planes in its order book shrank. While the company delivered almost 80 planes per year in 2006 and 2007, just 33 had sold in the first half of this year. Ferguson oversaw the launch of the Mooney Acclaim during his tenure, regarded as the fastest single-engine piston plane on the market. The Acclaim made up the majority of Mooney’s deliveries last year. The company’s new CEO, Robert Gowens, had previously been an executive for several maritime manufacturing companies, including Evinrude/Johnson Outboard Engines.