With more than 70 employees now employed at its Kerrville, Texas, facility, and about to restart the assembly line to produce the first M20TN Acclaim Type S, Mooney has announced that its management leadership team is in place.

News this week includes Garmin's announcement of new capabilities for G1000-equipped King Airs, and Team AeroDynamix expanding its partnership with Whelen Aviation to provide lighting kits for homebuilt aircraft. Two companies celebrated milestone birthdays, with Zenair Limited turning 40 and Executive Flyers Aviation turning 50.

Sun 'n Fun launches for the 40th time, in Lakeland, Fla., on April 1 -- less than four weeks away -- and with aircraft sales back in positive growth mode, the mood is expected to be upbeat. The event will host its first-ever Job Fair, on Wednesday, April 2, at the Florida Air Museum, with recruiters in search of pilots, engineers, mechanics, flight ops personnel and more. The U.S. Navy Blue Angels will fly Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and the popular night airshow is back for Saturday night.

This weekend's aviation events highlight Women of Aviation Worldwide Week with open houses in addition to traditional fly ins for food and camaraderie.

Ten out of every 100 Army helicopter pilots are women -- but they account for only three out of every 100 accidents. That's the bottom line in an Army report that, in an effort to study the impact of women on the front lines, compares accident rates of men and women flying U.S. Army helicopters from 2002 to 2013.

Technology in development at Tufts University in Boston could detect when an air traffic controller's over-tasked brain is nearing the saturation point and instantly redistribute the workload, according to a report this week in the Boston Globe. Computer scientist Robert Jacob and biomedical engineer Sergio Fantini are working together to create a headband that reads brain activity and transmits that data to a computer that can tell if the wearer is bored, fatigued or sharp. The computer could automatically distribute the workload to keep each controller working at peak efficiency.

A new federal budget plan released by the White House on Tuesday includes a proposal to "establish a surcharge for air traffic services of $100 per flight." NBAA President Ed Bolen said similar proposals in the last three budgets were stopped when the aviation community mobilized and asked elected officials to oppose the fees. "There is bipartisan opposition to user fees on Capitol Hill," Bolen said.

Global business aviation activity grew by 4 percent in 2013 according to Jet Support Services Inc.'s (JSSI) annual report. While the solid increase was in itself encouraging, the company noted the uptick outpaced the 2.9 percent the International Monetary Fund's predicted the global economy would grow last year.

The Fantasy of Flight Museum, which has operated for 18 years in central Florida, will close on Sunday, April 6, owner Kermit Weeks announced on Tuesday. The venue will continue as a private-event business, and Weeks said he plans to design and develop "a new future destination attraction." The facility will continue to provide aviation restoration and maintenance services. "For those who wish to enjoy the historical aspects of aircraft, plans are to open an aspect of the collection in a reduced capacity and admission price later this year," according to the news release.

When arriving at the first stop on our pilots association's annual poker run, one of our pilots said on the frequency, for all to hear: "Geez. There's more than one runway here. That makes it kinda confusing." -- Gene Clifford, via e-mail (We love a pilot who accidentally says over the mic something everyone has thought at one time or another.)

Lycoming says it won't certify the IO-390 for mogas, so the Panthera will get an IO-540 instead.

A U.S. Navy pilot was killed when an F/A-18C training aircraft crashed Saturday afternoon about 70 miles east of the Naval Air Station in Fallon, Nev. "Initial reports from the scene indicate the aircraft is a total loss," said Lt. Reagan Lauritzen, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Pacific Fleet in San Diego. "It took Navy personnel several hours to reach the crash site, as it was located in remote, rugged, mountainous terrain. A snow storm overnight in the area also hindered the effort."

Operators of about 500 Boeing 737 aircraft would have to replace or upgrade autothrottle computers to comply with a proposed airworthiness directive published by the FAA on Monday. The AD would mandate actions that Boeing already has recommended to operators via service bulletins. The AD was "prompted by reports in which a single, undetected, erroneous radio altimeter output caused the autothrottle to enter landing flare retard mode prematurely on approach," the FAA said.

The FAA says an airworthiness directive banning most early Cessna twins (except 337s) from flight into known icing is necessary because too many pilots were ignoring a mandatory service bulletin issued by the company in 1997 that says the same thing.

While regional airlines are definitely falling short on recruitment goals, this may be caused because low salaries aren't attracting enough applicants.