An 18-year-old database logging every bird strike incident voluntarily reported by airports and airlines may never be publicly accessible if the FAA has its way. The agency abruptly changed course last month after saying it would release the data to the news media, but then took steps to keep it under wraps,
the Associated Press reported. FAA officials say because the data reporting system is voluntary, it would cast a bad light on airports that reported most of their incidents, making it appear as if those facilities had more problems. And, the FAA said, people would try to make erroneous comparisons between airports or airlines using the data. The move has open government and aviation safety advocates riled, especially since more people have taken an interest in bird strike data since a US Airways flight ditched in the Hudson River in January following bird strikes in both engines. The National Transportation Safety Board asked the FAA nearly a decade ago to make reporting bird strike incidents mandatory in an effort to make the database more comprehensive, but the FAA never took action on that.

The Cessna 162 SkyCatcher damaged in a crash March 19 was conducting power-on, cross-controlled spin testing beforehand, the NTSB and Cessna said last week. When the plane couldn’t recover, the test pilot deployed a ballistic airframe parachute, the NTSB’s preliminary report said. But when the plane stabilized, the pilot found he was unable to jettison the parachute and resume normal flight. The plane landed in a field and wind dragged the plane and parachute about half a mile before it came to a rest upside-down against a fence. Two SkyCatcher test planes have now been involved in crashes during spin testing, but that isn’t deterring the company from pushing forward with certifying the model, Cessna said in a news release. The company said it has collected valuable information about the plane’s spin behavior and about the function of the parachute as a result of the two crashes.

A plane similar to Sparky Imeson’s Cessna 180 was flying as low as 30 feet above the ground shortly before Imeson’s plane crashed in Montana on March 17, a witness told the National Transportation Safety Board. The NTSB’s preliminary report into the crash that killed the well known mountain pilot provided few new details about what happened. Imeson, 64, was reportedly flying over a small airport near Townsend, Mont., where he was involved in a 2007 crash that seriously injured him. The witness described seeing a high-wing plane flying fast and low near a set of power lines, then pitching up and turning around 180 degrees. The witness did not see the plane crash, so it’s not clear whether that plane was in fact Imeson’s.

The NTSB is downplaying the role icing played in the Feb. 12 crash of a turboprop that killed 50 people as it approached Buffalo, N.Y. The board’s investigation so far has found that the plane would have encountered light or moderate icing, but that would have had a “minimal impact on the stall speed of the airplane.” And the NTSB’s latest update confirms earlier reports that one of the pilots pulled back sharply on the control column when the stick-shaker engaged. The NTSB will hold a hearing in May to review many aspects of the accident. Besides icing and weather, the board is reviewing the flight crew’s actions, training, recent flights and fatigue, as well as looking more broadly at Colgan Air’s training programs and other procedures for pilots.

Anchorage International Airport remained closed for much of the day Sunday as a thin layer of ash from Mount Redoubt, 100 miles away, covered the airport and the city. Redoubt began erupting intermittently a week ago and erupted twice on Saturday, cancelling dozens of flights at Anchorage and sending cargo flights to Seattle instead, the Associated Press reported. The volcanic eruption came as politicians seized on $140 million in the federal stimulus package tagged for volcano monitoring. But pilots and geologists in Alaska haven’t had to do much to defend the benefits of that system in the last week. The instruments gave scientists a heads-up that an eruption was imminent, allowing pilots to steer clear of the region (a temporary flight restriction had been in place above the volcano for several months). Even before it was clear exactly how much ash had been ejected or where it would travel, many airlines cancelled flights and parked planes in hangars. The last time Redoubt erupted, in 1989, a KLM flight passed through the ash cloud and had all four of its engines fail. The plane descended more than 10,000 feet before the pilots could restart the engines and make an emergency landing in Anchorage; the plane required millions of dollars of repairs to its engines. So far, there have been no aviation accidents or incidents as a result of Redoubt’s most recent eruptions.

By the middle of this year, 20 percent of all business jets in the air could also be for sale, twice the rate during normal economic times. Dealers of used planes are hoping that will be the peak, and that as the year progresses, some of those planes will start selling, marking a turning point in what has been a dismal year so far for new and used aircraft sales, the Wichita Eagle reported. While there were nearly 3,000 business jets up for sale at the end of February, few of those deals are actually closing, even with prices off as much as 25 percent compared to a year ago. Many buyers are having trouble getting financing, which means some of the planes on the market may never sell. But dealers say they’re getting an increasing number of calls from interested potential buyers, and slightly fewer calls from owners looking to sell their planes. That’s a good sign, however small and anecdotal, for the industry.

The widely respected flight instructor and author of the “Mountain Flying Bible,” Sparky Imeson, died in a crash in Montana Tuesday. Imeson, 64, was circling over an airstrip at Canyon Ferry, where he was seriously injured in a crash in 2007, the Jackson Hole Daily reported. He was apparently taking photos to document that accident when he cleared a ridgeline but then clipped trees, which brought down his Cessna 180. Imeson had accumulated 20,000 hours and wrote 19 books, many of them on flight training, mountain flying and other aviation topics. His credentials included ratings in the United States, Canada and Brazil, as well as experience in dozens of light aircraft models and many turboprops. Imeson developed the Mountain Fury training course, used by the Civil Air Patrol to teach pilots search-and-rescue techniques over harsh terrain. Imeson grew up in Jackson, Wyo., and started flying in 1966. Two years later, he and his parents founded Imeson Aviation, a fixed-base operator at Jackson Hole Airport.

A proof-of-concept plane that can fit in a garage and has wings that unfold at the flip of a switch made a successful first flight earlier this month. Terrafugia announced on Wednesday that the plane had flown a brief series of test flights at the beginning of the month, CNet reported. One video showed the plane taking off and flying down the length of a runway in ground effect at Plattsburgh International Airport in New York. Photos also showed the plane at low altitude flying in formation with a chase plane. Terrafugia aims to have its $194,000 “roadable aircraft” on the market by 2011. Over the last six months, the company has been working slowly through a slew of tests on roads and taxiways. The plane is designed to meet light sport aircraft standards, much like the amphibious Icon A5 that is also in the midst of flight testing. The Terrafugia features a conventional steering wheel for driving on the road and a control stick coming up from the floor for use in flight. While its profile appears bulbous, its designers say the Terrafugia will be able to cruise at 115 mph in flight.

A Cessna test pilot was uninjured Thursday when he pulled the emergency parachute on a Cessna 162 SkyCatcher, bringing the plane down in a field about 20 miles northeast of Wichita, Kan. This was the second crash of a SkyCatcher during flight tests; the pilot in a September crash parachuted out after entering an unrecoverable spin, which prompted a redesign of the plane’s tail section, the Wichita Eagle reported. Cessna has not said what the test pilot was doing leading up to last week’s crash. Now that both flight test planes have been damaged or destroyed in accidents, Cessna said it is likely the plane’s production schedule will be delayed. The company had planned to ship 40 planes later this year, but it is unclear how many will actually be delivered in 2009. One of the last hurdles for the SkyCatcher is completing a regimen of spin testing, but the company is not saying if that’s what the pilot was doing before Thursday’s crash. The $110,000 plane is being certified as a light sport plane aimed squarely at the training market. The two-seat plane will include a Garmin glass cockpit but like all other light-sport planes, it will not be certified for instrument flight.

Diamond Aircraft says it will be able to start shipping DA42 TwinStars with new Austro engines almost immediately now that it has gotten a type certificate from the European Aviation Safety Agency for the new combination. The company spent more than $60 million to bring the 170 horsepower Austro AE300 engine to market after Thielert, the previous engine supplier, went bankrupt last year, Diamond said in a news release. In addition to more powerful engines with more time allowed between overhauls, the DA42s the company will start shipping include Garmin’s GFC700 autopilot and the ability to upgrade to synthetic vision on the G1000 panel. FAA certification for the Austro-equipped TwinStar is likely to come soon. That’s good news for Thielert-powered TwinStar owners who have been unable to get parts for their engines since that company failed. Diamond says it will soon announce an engine upgrade program for existing owners, though it has not yet said how much it will cost.