Microsphere Technology, the Edinburgh-based technology company, has signed an intellectual property licence deal worth in excess of $1m with Trelleborg Engineered Systems, part of Sweden’s Trelleborg Group AB. Microsphere Technology, which specialises in the coating of hollow glass microspheres, secured the deal with the global industrial group that will ensure the companies collaborate on the development of new paint additives for the global civil aerospace market. The technology firm, based at the Pentlands Science Park outside Edinburgh, has been developing microsphere-related technology for use in a series of applications. In this case, the technology is aimed at weight reduction of aircraft paints with the subsequent advantage of significant savings in fuel consumption and carbon foot-printing.

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Comm1 Radio Simulator, the only audio-interactive pilot communications training CD-ROM, is a wonderful tool for flight students and experienced pilots a like. No other product on the market is designed to interactively teach pilots how to communicate safely and professionally with Air Traffic Control. Comm1 Radio Simulator allows pilots to practice talking to ATC on their computer and ATC talks back! The briefings (tutorials), scenarios, interactive practice exercises and controller dialogue are very realistic — all written and recorded by master flight instructors and certified air traffic controllers.

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WASHINGTON — In honor of NASA’s 50th anniversary, the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and NASA are partnering on this year’s Folklife Festival. The festival will be held Wednesday, June 25 through Sunday, June 29, and Wednesday, July 2 through Sunday, July 6, outdoors on the National Mall between Seventh and 14th Streets. Festival hours are from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. EDT each day, with special evening events including concerts and movie screenings beginning at 6 p.m. The program “NASA: 50 Years and Beyond,” will include presentations, hands-on educational activities, demonstrations and exhibits that will highlight the agency’s activities over the past fifty years, while looking forward to the exploration missions ahead.

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Kelowna, BC, Canada, June 15, 2008 - SkyTrac Systems has been selected to provide satellite communication (SatCom) and flight following to AYR Group. As providers of helicopter and fixed wing charter support in some of the world’s most inhospitable and austere environments, AYR Group will gain an immeasurable safety benefit to their operations by using SkyTrac’s products in their aircraft. Stefan Jocks, Executive Vice President of AYR Group commented: “SkyTrac’s equipment enhances our safety program and increases our accountability, which are important for our crews and our clients. Being equipped with SkyTrac is now a strong component of our technical proposals. In practice, the tracking system has been of particular value on our missions in Sudan – a country in which, to our knowledge, AYR Group is the only operator utilizing tracking systems on their aircraft.”

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Comm1 Radio Simulator, the only audio-interactive pilot communications training CD-ROM, is a wonderful tool for flight students and experienced pilots a like. No other product on the market is designed to interactively teach pilots how to communicate safely and professionally with Air Traffic Control. Comm1 Radio Simulator allows pilots to practice talking to ATC on their computer and ATC talks back! The briefings (tutorials), scenarios, interactive practice exercises and controller dialogue are very realistic — all written and recorded by master flight instructors and certified air traffic controllers. Comm1 IFR Radio Simulator contains over 9 hours of comprehensive IFR radio training and follows a logical progression for instrument students learning IFR operations and the many variables that can be encountered at different stages of flight.

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McMinnville, Ore. –Students, grades 1-12, are invited to join the aerospace adventure summer camps in June, July and August at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum. Featured aviation or space themed camps include: Aileron Adventure, Aviation in Motion, Aviation Academy Camp, Blast-Off Day Camp, Space X-plorers and Aerospace Challenge. Students will have fun learning about the science and history of flight while building gliders, airplanes, rockets and weather stations among the museum’s collection of more than 150 historic aircraft, spacecraft and exhibits. They will also be able to navigate flights and launch satellites on various museum simulators, as well as watch a showing of either Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag, Magnificent Desolation or Space Station 3D at the Evergreen IMAX® 3D Theater. The line up of summer camps also includes two overnight camps in conjunction with Seattle’s Museum of Flight. Students will spend the first part of the camp at the Evergreen Museum and then will travel to the Seattle Museum of Flight for the second part of the camp.

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SEATTLE, June 17, 2008—On June 30, 1908, a small asteroid or comet nucleus exploded over central Siberia, leveling nearly 800 square miles of forest. Called the Tunguska Event, if a similar blast were to happen over an urban area today it would cause a disaster of unprecedented proportions—the city of Seattle covers only 91 square miles. To mark the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska Event, former Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart will lecture at the Museum on Saturday, June 28 at 2 p.m. in the William M. Allen Theater about the challenges of tracking asteroids and comets that could strike our planet and what can be done to prevent a disastrous impact.

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Incredible new fully integrted utility, Flitelite makes multitasking at night simple. Read maps, charts, etc. with ease. Developed by a NASA funded program, Lite Detect feature shuts off automatically in lighted conditions (30 minute auto shutoff feature). A rechargeable battery backyp provides 30 minutes of power for emergency situations. The FliteLite is ready to use out of the box when connected to a powered intercom or radio which uses power biased micropohones. To activate or deactivate the light, simply make contact with your lower lip for a minimum of one second onto the light sensor of the FliteLite or if you have one hand free, pusch the FliteLite on the mic boom towards your lip to make sensor contact for one second. This will start the on timer for a one minute interval. For any additional on time, simply reactivate the FliteLite. If your aircraft loses power, follow the activation instructions and you will have a total of thirty minutes of back-up activation time which starts immediatlely after power loss.

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Avcomm International, Inc., the nation’s leading manufacturer and distributor of state of the art noise reduction headsets, intercoms, radios and communications systems for Aviation, Fire/Safety, Racing, Industrial and Military applications, is proud to announce its innovative DSP (Digital Signal Processor) chip technology, THE ELIMINATORTM. THE ELIMINATORTM, which can be integrated into intercoms and headsets, is the ultimate in Active Noise Reduction. When a continuing background noise is detected (like a jet engine or race car engine), THE ELIMINATORTM memorizes the noise pattern and removes the noise digitally.

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Avcomm International, Inc., the nation’s leading manufacturer and distributor of state of the art noise reduction headsets, intercoms, radios and communications systems for Aviation, Safety, Racing and Industrial applications, is proud to announce the innovative FREEDOM Wireless Headset. Other wireless headsets under development cannot match the Freedom Wireless Headset’s 300-500 foot range, and NO other headset comes close to the noise reduction capability, and clarity, of the FREEDOM Wireless Headset.

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SEATTLE, June 11, 2008—The King County Fire and Life Safety Association is hosting the 11th Annual King County Fire Department Day at The Museum of Flight on Friday, June 20 from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. in the Museum Parking Lot. Kids of all ages can view fire equipment on display, climb aboard fire engines, see how tall an aerial ladder extends, talk with firefighters and department personnel, and learn fire and life safety skills through fun activities. The “Safety Zone” will teach children safety skills, while providing adults with life saving information. Outdoor event is free to the public. Regular admission fees apply for entrance to Museum galleries and exhibits.

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Daytona Beach, Fla., June 10, 2008 — NASA has selected a student team from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to fly an experiment of their own design in the annual Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program (RGSFOP). The team’s experiment, titled Project FuSSION (Fuel Slosh Simulation of Induced Oscillatory Nutation), investigates the prediction of liquid behavior in fuel tanks that can cause destabilization of spinning spacecraft. Over the course of six months, the team members have been developing and testing their experiment in preparation for their flights on NASA’s modified C-9 aircraft, which simulates weightlessness by performing consecutive parabolic arcs at high altitude above the Gulf of Mexico. During the program, which runs July 10-19, 2008, the team will be based at Ellington Field near Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston. The fuel-slosh experiment is a continuation of a previous Embry-Riddle project that flew in the NASA program in 2006, NESST (Nutation Experiment Slosh Simulation Test). NESST team leader James Ristow, who is now a NASA engineer, remarked, “It’s good that this topic is being revisited. There’s much more that can be investigated.”

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SEATTLE, June 10, 2008—Thelma Ritchie, a 5th grade teacher at Mercer Island’s Island Park Elementary School, is one of five recipients of the 2008 Challenger Center for Space Science Education “Teacher of the Year” award. The national award is given to teachers who exemplify the spirit of the Challenger 51-L crew’s educational mission and have made a noticeable impact on students and their community through their commitment to teaching and learning in science, technology and mathematics. Randy Brasfield of Marysville-Pilchuck High School was a winner in 2007.

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5 June 2008, London – – OAG (Official Airline Guide), the world’s authority on flight information, has announced that five members of Air Canada’s Heathrow based Customer Services department have been awarded the Outstanding Service Award at the 26th OAG Airline Industry Awards held on Wednesday, 4 June at The Bloomsbury Ballroom in central London. The Air Canada team, who received their award from Robert Atkinson, Air Canada’s General Manager UK, Ireland and Scandinavia, have helped make a real difference to the lives of young children living in South Africa by helping to refurbish a school. “I am extremely proud of Air Canada’s Heathrow-based employees who took the initiative to pursue this worthy cause,” said Gary Cross, Air Canada’s General Manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa, at the Award ceremony. “Their dedication and can-do attitude is a lesson for us all in assisting children less fortunate than our own. I am equally proud of their colleagues who joined them in a team effort to show they care and make a positive difference to others.”

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Bilbao, June 4 2008. In 2007, the Basque Aeronautics and space sector recorded excellent results in terms of turnover, contracts for a new programmes and growth in employment, reflecting the satisfactory trends in air traffic, motivated by world growth. These positive figures contrast with the concern felt in the sector about the euro/dollar exchange rate, with a 15% devaluation in the dollar this year, reducing the profitability of contracts, increasing the cost of raw materials and making access to long-term financing extremely difficult. The sector grew by more than 16% last year and reached an overall turnover of €963 million of which 96% (a joint volume of business of €913 million) corresponded to the sales of the 35 companies grouped under the Aeronautics and Space Cluster Association of the Basque Country, HEGAN. According to area, 47% of sales corresponded to structures and 45% to engines, followed by systems and equipment, with 6%, and space with 2%.

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(Friedrichshafen, GERMANY) – The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), organizer of the AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and Messe Friedrichshafen, organizer of AERO Friedrichshafen in Europe, have announced a strategic relationship between the two organizations in order to further expand their presence globally and to increase the awareness of general aviation throughout the world. “Both organizations recognize the need for such cooperation in order to expand each other’s global reach and to provide additional benefits to EAA members - and to open up more market opportunities in Europe and the North America’” as noted by the AERO Friedrichshafen project manager, Thomas Grunewald. “We’re proud to step into this long term cooperation with one of the largest aviation organizations in the world. We’re convinced that this will lead to more aviation enthusiasm and additional value for our common customers on both sides of the pond,” said Grunewald.

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4 June 2008, London – Singapore was the major winner at the 26th OAG Airline Industry Awards with the country’s airline, Singapore Airlines, voted “OAG Airline of the Year”, and the country’s main international airport, Singapore Changi, voted Best Airport. The Award winners were announced on the night of Wednesday, 4 June in the art deco setting of The Bloomsbury Ballroom in central London. “This is a very special night for Singapore,” says Alan Glass, CEO of OAG. “Our congratulations go to the airline, the airport, the Government and the people of Singapore. The level of service and innovation that Singapore Airlines and Singapore Changi have consistently offered the travelling public is reflected by the way OAG subscribers, the world’s frequent fliers, have voted. The slogan for Singapore Changi is ‘Enjoy the experience’. Travellers who use the airport and the airline clearly do.” Singapore Airlines last won the coveted Spirit of Flight trophy for “Airline of the Year” back in 2003. The trophy was presented by President of Boeing UK, Sir Roger Bone, which sponsored the Awards. Singapore Airlines has now won the “OAG Airline of the Year” award on six occasions since the inception of the awards in 1982, more than any other carrier and one more than British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. Other airlines nominated this year for “OAG Airline of the Year” included American Airlines, British Airways, Emirates and Lufthansa.

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On March 19, 1945, the fighter my father was flying crashed in Germany. My mother was 17 years old. She turned 18 less than a month after he was declared missing and presumed dead. I was born three months later. By the time I was old enough to understand he was gone, my mother had remarried and my father was not talked about. When I was eight years old, my father was declared “unrecoverable”. I do not know if my mother knew this, but if she did, she never mentioned it to me. When I became an adult, I had no knowledge of my father and no hope of ever finding information about him. When I was contacted by the Army and asked to come to the Family Update, I was skeptical; after all these years, why would anyone have any new information? I had literally spent my life wishing and wanting to know more about my father, but I did not realize that anyone else cared or was still looking for him. I went to the Family Update with high hopes and low expectations; it just didn’t seem possible that anyone could tell me anything because my family had not even mentioned my father. My search for my father was a personal search to find some kind of inner peace with the belief that he was gone and I would never understand what happened and why.

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(OLYMPIA, WA – May 29, 2008). FACTS Training, a division of AirCare Solutions Group, recently announced the award of two major contracts from the United States Air Force (USAF) training VIP Flight Attendants in the proper execution of emergency and safety procedures. The long-term agreements with the USAF are a result of first time bids by FACTS Training for these highly contested awards. Flight Attendants from all major USAF bases are expected to participate in the customized FACTS Training programs. Each will include a combination of classroom instruction and hands on exercises using FACTS innovative training devices. The USAF Gulfstream training (C-20B, C-20H, C-37A) will be conducted at the FACTS Northeast Training Center located within the CAE/SimuFlite Training facilities in Morristown, New Jersey. This training venue includes FACTS VII, the latest full motion, cockpit and cabin emergency procedures simulator.

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London, 28 May 2008 - OAG (Official Airline Guide), the global flight information and data solutions company, today announced the launch of OAG Travel Planner Pro, its new intelligent online tool for people who need to search, plan and book business travel quickly and efficiently, and a completely rebuilt web site www.oag.com for people who need to control their travel arrangements. OAG Travel Planner Pro is a brand new online business travel planning application which enables business travellers and professional travel arrangers to plan, book and manage multiple trip plans for multiple travellers, and to create highly complex itineraries in an easy to use and intuitive online environment. OAG Travel Planner Pro enables users to do everything from a simple look-up for flights, hotels, car rental, trains and destination information, right through the trip building process using the trip builder wizard, to checking flight status and printing off a full itinerary including appointment details.

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Kelowna, BC, Canada, May 27, 2008 – SkyTrac has been selected to provide satellite communication (SatCom) and flight following systems to Taiga Air Services of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Using a fleet of Bell 206L-1 Long Rangers, Taiga provides helicopter charter services including aerial surveys, firefighting and inspection of hydro lines and pipelines. Taiga will use the SkyTrac solution to track the locations of its aircraft and provide timely responses to any emergency situations that may arise. “Safety in remote areas was our main driver for satellite communications and flight following,” said Shane Jordan, Director, Sales & Marketing at Taiga Air Services. “As a provider of thermal scanning and forest fire specialty services we regularly work under challenging conditions right across the country, where communication is limited and standard flight planning just isn’t an option. By using SkyTrac we can have our main base track our fleet even when conditions and mission change suddenly in the field. With dependable satellite communication our pilots and crew know that important messages will get through the first time.”

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(OLYMPIA, WA – May 28, 2008). FACTS Training, a division AirCare Solutions Group, recently completed its first emergency procedures training exercise in Russia. Contracted by SAT Airlines, based in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, FACTS provided Hypoxia Awareness Training to eighty crewmembers over a four day training period. Using the FACTS Hypoxia Awareness Training device, the world’s only computer controlled hypoxia trainer, in a safe classroom environment, FACTS delivered real-time computer assessments of the psychomotor and cognitive impairments resulting from the created hypoxia. The device is capable of simulating operating altitudes to 30,000 feet familiarizing crewmembers with the dangerous and paralyzing effects of hypoxia in a safe, classroom setting. During the training, crewmembers have the opportunity to experience and learn to recognize their own individual symptoms of hypoxia. The FACTS HAT™ changes the composition of the gas mixture inhaled, thereby eliminating the potential risks and after effects involved in using a decompression chamber.

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Dublin, 27 May 2008 – The strength of the fractional market, new countries ratifying and organic growth helped fuel an increase of over 25% in registrations on the International Registry of Mobile Assets in its second year of operation, it was announced today. The facility to register fractional interests in aircraft went live on the Registry, a global database that records security interests in and determines legal priority of interest in aircraft, helicopters and engines, in June 2007.. Since then, there have been over 2,700 fractional registrations, representing 13% of all airframes registrations and 7% engine registrations sessions. The Registry also saw its busiest single month on record in December 2007, with a record-breaking 5,000 searches being made.

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22 May 2008, London – OAG (Official Airline Guide), the world’s authority on flight information, today unveiled the shortlist for Best Airline Lessor and Best Airline Finance Deal, two new categories at the 26th OAG Airline Industry Awards (www.oagairlineawards.com ). The winners will be announced at the Awards ceremony on Wednesday, 4 June in the opulent art deco setting of The Bloomsbury Ballroom in central London. Boeing is the Awards’ headline sponsor. Both new categories are in association with OAG’s sister company Aviation Industry Group.

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May 22, 2008 — The 2008 edition of the Golden West Regional Fly-in and Air Show at Yuba Count Airport (MYV) in Marysville, California, June 6-8, will offer a wide assortment of fun and educational activities in the Kid Qwest hangar for children, from toddlers through teens. The Kid Qwest hangar at Golden West will feature a real airplane that children will be allowed to touch and explore. Young guests will also be able to design airplanes on a computer, print them on cardstock, and cut them out and fly them. Another activity involves seeing pictures of nuts and bolts and trying to assemble real nuts and bolts the same way. At the Aviation Hero stage children can ask aerobatic and military pilots questions. A Tiny Pilot’s Lounge provides toddlers a place to wander around in a safe environment while parents can take a break as well.

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