Free Republic

A PILOT has allegedly stolen a plane and is threatening to slam it into a Walmart, forcing police to evacuate the store, as well as nearby homes and a local Dodge dealership. Police in Tupelo, Mississippi, where the plane is flying overhead received a call from the man around 5am Saturday when he made the threats. The plane is believed to be a Beechcraft King Aire 90, and its erratic circular flight pattern was seen in online flight trackers. The police have asked people to avoid the area until the all-clear is given. "With the mobility of an airplane of...

A two-seater plane whizzed through half a dozen eastern European countries without permission, alerting air forces, before being abandoned in Bulgaria by a mysterious crew, the defence ministry in Sofia said Thursday. The aircraft flew over Hungary, crossed briefly into Serbia and then Romania before entering Bulgarian airspace at 7:09 pm local time (1609 GMT) on Wednesday, the Bulgarian defence ministry said in a statement. The twin-engine Beechcraft with two people onboard had no approved flight plan and its transponders were turned off. The pilot did not respond to radio requests and visual signals, the Romanian defence ministry said. Two...

This is kind of weird… The aircraft was in Uvalde for the first time this year during the shooting. The plane landed 3 minutes before the shooter crashed his vehicle. The plane then left 2 minutes before the shooter was killed. Why was this aircraft in Uvalde for the first time in 2022 at the exact moment that one of the deadliest US shootings was unfolding? Again, the plane landed 3 minutes before the shooter crashed his vehicle. The plane then left 2 minutes before the shooter was killed. The plane left Ft. Hood and it went straight to Uvalde....

FRESNO, Calif. — Two climbers on a Sierra Nevada (search) glacier discovered an ice-encased body believed to be that of an airman whose plane crashed in 1942. The man was wearing a World War II-era (search) U.S. Army Corps parachute when his frozen head, shoulder and arm were spotted on 13,710-foot Mount Mendel (search) in Kings Canyon National Park, park spokeswoman Alex Picavet said Wednesday. --snip-- "We're not going to go fast," she said. "We want to preserve him as much as possible. He's the serviceman may have been part of the crew of an AT-7 navigational training plane that...

KFSN-TV/DT abc30.com October 18, 2005 World War II Airman Found Frozen in Glacier October 18, 2005 - It was a plane crash back in 1942 that wasn't discovered until 1947. Now, hikers made a frozen discovery in connection with a World War II plane crash. Hikers found the frozen body of an airman while scaling Mount Mendel Glacier in the Sequoia National Park. Now, the military is working to find out who this airman is and whether he was ever reported missing. It's believed the airman has been frozen in the glacier for decades until a pair of climbers got...

Beechcraft hopes Congress will get involved to kill a U.S. Air Force contract with its Brazilian rival Embraer to make $431 million worth of fighter planes for Afghanistan.

<p>Of all the sordid machinations conjured up by the sinister, mad-cow-disease ravaged brains that characterize the demented left wing, liberal mindset, the most heinously cynical blood-libel of them all, was the Bush is Hitler meme, that was spread across the political landscape like fresh manure on roaming farmland.An unusual turn of events on a U.S. military procurement contract has lightly side-swiped three of Quebec’s largest aerospace firms.</p>

The Obama Administration has notified Hawker Beechcraft Corp. that its Beechcraft AT-6 has been excluded from competition to build a light attack aircraft, a contract worth nearly $1 billion, the company said. The company had hoped to its AT-6, an armed version of its T-6 trainer, would be chosen for the Light Air Support Counter Insurgency aircraft for the Afghanistan National Army Corps. The chosen aircraft also would be used as a light attack armed reconnaissance aircraft for the U.S. Air Force. The piston planes are designed for counterinsurgency, close air support, armed overwatch and homeland security, The Wichita Eagle...

Five people were killed Wednesday and another person was injured when a twin-engine plane crashed after departing from Long Beach Municipal Airport. The Beechcraft King Air crashed in the northwest portion of the airport at 10:30 a.m., according to the Long Beach Fire Department. An FAA spokesperson said the plane caught fire after crashing. Authorities said the plane, which was owned by local businessman Thomas F. Dean, was headed to Salt Lake City. A spokesperson for Dean says that Dean, Jeff Berger, Mark Bixby, an unidentified pilot and another passenger are among those dead. The spokesperson also said that passenger...

Union officials said Wednesday that Hawker Beechcraft is considering moving work out of Wichita that could shrink its hourly work force 50 to 75 percent over the next two years. Union and company leaders met Wednesday about the future of the Wichita facility and its jobs, the union said. "The outlook given by the company was bleak for the future," Machinists District 70 president Steve Rooney said in a letter to workers. "The picture we are getting is of a Hawker Beechcraft Wichita that will shrink almost immediately down to 25 percent or more within two years, without a guarantee...

Hawker Beechcraft announced Monday that fractional ownership company NetJets has canceled a "significant" number of aircraft it had on order. The cancellations will reduce Hawker Beechcraft's backlog by $2.6 billion and represent 90 percent of the aircraft that NetJets has on order with Hawker Beechcraft. The planes were to have been delivered over several years beginning in 2011. So far this year, NetJets has canceled 12 aircraft it had on order and deferred delivery of all jets it was scheduled to receive this year and next until the end of 2010. Hawker Beechcraft has said that NetJets wasn't expected to...

In his letter, Schuster also cited problems with the government’s stimulus package, which he said fails to loosen credit markets, and a slowing of orders from previously high-volume business segments. Schuster also blamed the media and some politicians who have cast general aviation as “a wasteful extravagance instead of a critical business tool and the source of millions of American jobs.”

US Air National Guard to trial Beechcraft AT-6 for counter-insurgency By Stephen Trimble The US Air National Guard has received special funds to stage a demonstration of the turboprop-powered Hawker Beechcraft AT-6 for the domestic security and counter-insurgency mission. Kansas-based Senator Sam Brownback earmarked $3 million for the ANG to demonstrate the capabilities of the AT-6, which is assembled in Wichita, Kansas. The AT-6 is among at least four contenders to fill an emerging role in US and foreign airborne inventories for a dedicated counter-insurgency aircraft. The US Air Force is conducting a competition for such an aircraft on behalf...

<p>It didn't matter what you put in Robert A. Monaco's hands -- a canoe paddle, a garden shovel, or the controls of a King Air B200 twin-engine airplane. So long as it kept him busy, he was at his happiest, friends and family said.</p>