Benefits include more efficient airspace designs in metro areas.

What would happen if Ryanair's Michael O'Leary was put in charge of British Airways or if Southwest Airlines' Herb Kelleher was running United Airlines? It seems like a crazy idea, but a similar situation occurred (for a time) in Malaysia—between AirAsia's Tony Fernandes and Malaysia Airlines (MAS).

Three Apollo commanders put their weight behind legislation that would force NASA to move quickly to choose a single commercial crew vehicle to elicit public support. Neil Armstrong, Eugene Cernan and James Lovell, commanders of Apollo 11, 17 and 13, respectively, told Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee that funds the space agency, that they endorse his panel's approach to commercial crew vehicle development that passed the House last week.

Synthetic-vision displays are moving down-range to light jets and turboprops.

Fly-by-wire controls are commonplace in fixed-wing aircraft, but a rarity in rotorcraft. Cost is usually cited as the reason for not using FBW, despite its performance advantages, but now Kazan Helicopters is removing fly-by-wire from its light twin-turbine Ansat because of safety concerns.

Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) is following in the footsteps of his father, Bud, as a champion of transportation funding. In many ways, the younger Shuster is dealing with a far different Congress—one stuffed with members who lack legislative experience and were elected as agents of change.

In an article on the Mitsubishi Aircraft MRJ program in the May 7 issue (p. 41), the number of options was misstated; the correct number is 60. The title of Hirofumi Takahashi, president of Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. of America, was misstated. Further, the manufacturer now advises that about 1% of the first aircraft needs to be remanufactured.

For most air travelers, access to high-speed Internet at 30,000 ft. is neither easy nor cheap. It's not that inflight broadband is unavailable to commercial and business jet passengers—a number of airlines are gradually adding connectivity options to their fleets. But despite the uptick in broadband-enabled tablets and smartphones in recent years, WiFi in the sky has been slow to gain traction in the broader airline community, where it can be sluggish, spotty and expensive.