Sonic Boom Shaping  
The illustration shows an artist's concept of the plume of a shaped sonic boom (left) compared to the plume of a conventional boom (right)

USA's Northrop Grumman Corporation's Integrated Systems Sector will perform the first flight demonstration of a sonic boom mitigated by airframe shaping as part of a co-operative industry and government effort with the Defense Advanced Research Projects

 August 2 
A full emergency was declared at Sydney airport to-day as an Air Vanuatu B737 with undercarriage problems finally landed without incident after dumping fuel to be at the official certified landing weight

The aircraft is believed to have departed Melbourne for Honiara with 108 passengers and then landed Sydney after a low fly-past over the airport so engineers in the control tower could try to determine the damage sustained on take-off

 August 1 
A 55 year old USA Pizza Hut delivery driver, and now ex-student pilot, had been taking flying lessons from a Florida Keys based flying school for about two weeks, and on his first solo flight he failed to land and headed for Cuba where he forced landed the Cessna on a local beach

The US Navy monitored the flight and tried to contact the pilot; but there was no radio response from the aircraft. The Navy broke off the surveillance when the C172 entered Cuban airspace

 August 3 
A joint US-Peruvian report has found that a Peruvian Air Force jet fighter mistook a missionaries' Cessna C185 float plane for a drug smugglers' aircraft and shot it down after having been advised of its presence by the US military

 August 4 
A single engine Beech Musketeer aircraft with three people on board apparently experienced an engine failure and carried out a successful (walk away from) forced landing about 16 kilometres north of Coolgardie in West OZ

The aircraft landed on a gravel road with one of the wings striking a tree during the ensuring roll-out

In a 63 year continuous production for an horizontally-opposed aircraft piston engine, Lycoming USA delivered its 300,000th unit which was the focus of a ceremony held at the high ranking Oshkosh Wittman Regional Airport Air Show and Convention 2001

The engine was a four-cylinder normally aspirated carburettor version of 360 cubic inch capacity developing 180 horsepower at 2700rpm