For the first time in its history, the Cape Girardeau Regional Air Festival has been cancelled for a second consecutive year. Organizers of the event said there was not enough time to plan for the show given its expanded focus.

The week was not nearly the downer that last week was (as the GAMA numbers showed how badly GA fared in 2011), and in fact, we discovered we still have friends! The week's big stories started with the announcement of the FAA's long awaited re-write of the regs covering minimum Airline pilot experience levels (and associated issues), and was made even more intriguing as the USAF broke months of silence and killed the LAS deal... as Hawker-Beech had hoped. And best of all, we have clear proof that GA has good friends in high places... and they're all, strip, h2) ] from C:/inetpub/wwwroot/clients/aero-news.net/components/utils.cfc

The Ornithopter Zone grew out of a much earlier effort to bring together flapping-wing enthusiasts around the world. In 1983, Patrick Deshaye was trying to find out how to build an ornithopter. No information was available. It was even difficult to find out what had been accomplished so far.

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<strong>PRODUCT</strong>: BRP-Powertrain GmbH &amp; Co KG Rotax 912 S2, 912 S3, and 914 F2 reciprocating engines<br /> &nbsp;

<strong>PRODUCT</strong>: All 328 Support Services GmbH (Type Certificate Previously Held by AvCraft Aerospace GmbH; Fairchild Dornier GmbH; Dornier Luftfahrt GmbH) Model 328-100 airplanes<br /> &nbsp;

ANN's Quote of the Day usually derives from current news, though we reserve the right to pick quotes out of history that have a bearing on the day's events and issues.

Air Force Chief of Gen. Staff Norton Schwartz said Wednesday that the service would move quickly to re-open the bidding for the LAS contract which was abruptly cancelled as of Friday. "There's no way to put a happy face on this," Schwartz said, speaking to a group of reporters Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

Officials at the Aeronautical Systems Center a Wright Patterson AFB in Ohio have issued a Military Flight Release that will allow the F-35A Lightning II fighter to begin initial operations at Eglin Air Force Base, FL. This decision was reached after an airworthiness board conducted an assessment that evaluated potential risks and the corresponding mitigation actions to conduct unmonitored flights.

In a blog post on RedState.com, Brian Darling describes a testy exchange, before the House Homeland Security Committee, between US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Minnesota Republican Chip Cravaack, a former airline pilot. The issue was the Obama administration's proposed 50 percent cut in funding for the Federal Flight Deck Officers Program.

The governments of the US and the European Union, in something of a surrogate war on behalf of Boeing and Airbus respectively, have both won findings in the World Trade Organization that some forms of government subsidy violate trade treaties. Now, a suggestion by Europe to negotiate an end to the battle has been called laughable by Boeing.

Things are bad, but apparently they're not bad all over. Boeing has just delivered the first passenger version of its enormous new 747-8 to an anonymous customer, who's taking it to a completion center to be decked out as a personal VIP transport. Reuters reports the plane will be transformed into a "jewel in the sky."

The ongoing saber-rattling between Europe and the world's airlines over the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme has kicked up a notch, as Hong Kong Airlines said it is considering cancelling an order for 10 A380 superjumbo airliners.

In the midst of airline bankruptcies and labor disputes, it was apparently a pretty good year for employees of Alaska Air Group. The company paid annual bonuses totaling $53.8 million Wednesday to nearly all of its 12,800 employees for exceeding the company's 2011 operational and financial goals.

NASA's Glenn Research Center will host an event March 2nd to commemorate the 50th anniversary of John Glenn's orbital flight, the first by an American.

Asteroid 2011 AG5 has been receiving a lot of attention lately because of a very unlikely scenario which would place it on an Earth-interception course 28 years from now.&nbsp; On&nbsp;a NASA blog, JPL&nbsp;has posted a "scientific reality check" of this relatively nondescript space rock which is currently ranked a "1" on the 1 to 10 Torino Impact Hazard Scale.

It's not unusual for a new aircraft built with composite technology to have production fall behind schedule. But Boeing's 747-8 is a variation on the 747 theme that dates back more than 40 years, stretched to carry up to 467 passengers. The longer version uses of new wings and engines, but has wound up a year behind schedule, an estimated eight-11 tons overweight, and less fuel-efficient than projected.

Pilots for cargo giant UPS took a preemptive action Wednesday prior to a scheduled meeting Thursday between U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and company executives. In that meeting, LaHood was expected to ask that UPS voluntarily opt-in to the new FAA pilot fatigue rules.

You may have wished at some point you could do this, but one budget airline has actually done it - filed a lawsuit against a big oil company for allegedly charging too much for fuel. The Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair claims ExxonMobile has suppressed competition to allow it to inflate prices over a seven-year period. The suit seeks an award of $14.3 million, plus an unspecified additional amount to cover lost profits.

A Cirrus SR22 went down during its final approach to Melbourne, FL International Airport Wednesday. All three people on board the aircraft were fatally injured. Witnesses said that the airplane appeared to develop problems during a landing attempt and nosedived into the ground just after 1700 EST.

The 2010-2011 time-frame has been about as challenging a time as we can recall... but we survive and look forward to 2012 and what we see as a very rewarding (and yes, still challenging) year for ANN. ANN continues to expand slowly but surely and we have some truly intriguing upgrades coming up in just a few months. In other words, we're about to grow again -- and in some novel directions. The much-appreciated debut of "AIRBORNE" is but the tip of the iceberg.&nbsp;We're about as excited about our future, as we've ever been, but we're concerned about finding good people -- the RIGHT people -- for a number of jobs we need to fill now and in the near future.

The actual distance between an aircraft and the terrain over which it is flying.