Also: Commercial A/C Certification, GMR Adds More Bell 429s, Helo Denial, John “Lucky” Luckadoo Flies West CAF’s Col. Mark Novak has accumulated more than 1,000 flight hours in the two remaining airworthy B-29 Superfortress aircraft, Fifi and DOC, a feat that has not been accomplished in at least 65 years. Col. Novak has been a member of the CAF for more than 30 years and began flying Fifi in 2012 as the Second in Command. One year later he upgraded to Pilot in Command and flew the aircraft until 2022… On Friday, September 5, Texas pilots learned the hard way exactly how important it is to use tie-downs, with one plane being flipped by 75-mile-per-hour wind gusts and coming to rest on another. Several planes and hangars were damaged in the storms, but fortunately, no injuries were reported. The FAA has pushed back the expiration date for the Port-au-Prince flight ban from September 8, 2025, to March 7, 2026. The restriction, originally set to last just 30 days, was implemented in November 2024 after multiple American aircraft took gunfire while attempting to land in Haiti’s capital. The FAA order bars US civil aviation from operating below 10,000 feet in designated Haitian airspace around Port-au-Prince. All this — and MORE in today’s episode of Airborne-Unlimited!!!
