October 31  
Archerfield's DC4 continues to make good progress and for the first time in more than a year, the number 4 engine was rotated with the starter for "hydraulic lock" and then started without drama

The number 1 engine was due to be ground run to-day with the remaining 2 engines to be checked out in the next couple of weeks

It is planned to have the aircraft fully operational just before Christmas (2002)!

 October 23  
A Qantas Boeing 747-300 passenger aircraft was about to land at Nagoya in Japan when the "number 4 main entry door"  started to open

A very brave flight attendant ignored the high risk of been sucked from the aircraft, if the door had fully opened, and assisted by a nearby seated passenger, was able to hold the door handle in the closed position

During the incident "Paper was observed being sucked under the door"


Previous report on a Qantas mishap HERE

 October 26  
In the USA 77 light aircraft paraded through the main city streets of Palm Springs in a Wednesday afternoon public show of strength and pride in ownership of private light aircraft

The US AOPA organised event was well patronised and supported by the locals

   "People wave kids smile and for the better part of an hour we GA pilots are heroes to an entire community"

 October 29  
A Salvation Army Major who started his Cessna C182 by hand with no-one at the controls has pleaded guilty in the Darwin Magistrates Court and handed in his pilot's licence

The court heard the pilot left his three children on board the aircraft, when the battery failed to rotate the propeller, and commenced to hand-start the engine

"It hit two other aircraft causing considerable damage and a third was written off"

 October 28  
A US P-38 wartime fighter recovered from under 300 feet of packed ice in Greenland 10 years ago made it's first flight in 60 years

In the crowd of about 20,000 who watched the historic flight at Middlesboro, Kentucky was one of the pilots who landed on the icepack sixty years ago after running out of fuel in bad weather along with 5 other P-38's and 2 B-17 heavy bombers trying to make their way to Scotland in the UK in July 1942

 October 25  
Two USAF F-16 fighters collided during military exercises in Utah with reports that one pilot has survived

The FAA confirmed one pilot alive but the status of the other pilot is unknown; the recovery of wreckage and pilots from the military training area desert is underway

"The crash happened exactly a week after two US Navy F-18 Super Hornet jets collided off the Californian coast"