Word: lightness
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Fans of what are known officially as very light jets - sometimes called microjets or "minivans with wings" - predict that this new class of aircraft will democratize private air travel on the Continent much as low-cost carriers opened up commercial aviation to the masses. Microjets start at $1.5 million, a fraction of the $8 million price tag of the cheapest business jets currently on the market. Thanks to their more efficient fuel use, very light jets will also cost some 50% less to fly, allowing air-taxi and corporate shuttle services to sell a seat on one for about...
...flight, Eurocontrol, Europe's air-traffic control agency, has raised concerns over their introduction to already congested airspace. The agency predicts that 100 new microjets will take to Europe's skies each year for the next decade, each of them flying an average of three flights a day. Very light jets cruise at the same altitudes as large commercial craft, but at slower speeds. Under legislation written before such small jets were conceived, they are not required to carry the same collision-avoidance systems as larger jets. Alex Hendriks, Eurocontrol's deputy director of air-traffic management, compares the introduction...
Such challenges aside, there is a palpable excitement in the aviation industry over the new planes. Hendriks himself says he recently spent three days piloting a very light jet from Wichita to Brussels: "As I was cruising over the Atlantic at 41,000 ft., I thought, 'What an amazing experience, flying this little plane up here.' But then the concern came: what happens when everyone wants this experience...
...light of the increasing scrutiny over China’s human rights record, the Harvard College Human Rights Advocates hosted a panel discussion yesterday in Sever Hall that addressed the history of human rights in China, the current conflict in Tibet, and the perception of a Western bias against China. The discussion reflected the diverse opinions about China’s human rights record that have surfaced in light of this summer’s Olympics in Beijing. The panel featured Fairbank Center for East Asian Research associate Merle Goldman, Harvard Law School research associate Lobsang Sangay, Harvard economics graduate...
...speedskater who donated the $25,000 prize from his '06 gold medal to a project that aids Darfur refugees in Chad. (Cheek went on to co-found Team Darfur, a coalition of worldwide athletes committed to raising visibility for the situation in the Sudan. The group is quite light on big-name American summer Olympians...