Airbus has recently announced a price increase across its range of aircraft. The company cited rising metal prices and the weakness of the US dollar as reasons. The list prices of single-aisle planes will rise $2M, while wide-body, long range and A380 aircraft will jump up $4M on top of the annual rise of 2.74%.

The average price for an A380 is $327.4M. An A320 is about $76.9M. Prices paid for aircraft vary, depending on the specifications and the deal reached by the airline.

The Cassini spacecraft was the first orbiter to study planet Saturn in detail and has been in orbit around Saturn for almost four years. In 2005, the European Space Agency’s piggybacked Huygens probe plunged through Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and was the first probe to land on the moon’s surface. Cassini-Huygens had shown birdseye and ground-level views of Titan, an Earth-like world which features river valley networks and lakes filled with hydrocarbons. Cassini has discovered water-ice geysers spewing from Saturn’s smaller moon, Enceladus, and has detected five new moons and observed a very dynamic ring system.

Joe Burns, a Cassini imaging scientist at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York and a guest co-curator of the American Museum of National History, will feature an exhibition on April 26, 2008 of the best images of Saturn. Burns stated:

“We are excited to have the opportunity to show these breathtaking photographs to the broader public in one of the world’s greatest science museums.”

Burns, along with colleagues at Cornell University and on the Cassini project, have been collaborating with museum curators for the past year on the image selection, scientific captions and exhibit design.

Six passengers were saved from a possible disaster when Pilot Michael Rushton had kept his composure during an aircraft emergency yesterday at 11am in Hilo. Rushton had managed to maneuver the Australian-made Gippsland GA8 Airvan, owned by Island Hoppers safely landed on Highway 130.

No passengers were reported injured in this incident. “The landing was perfect,” he said. “not a scratch. Nothing.”

Rushton had declined to talk about what caused the mechanical problem and had made a humorous comment instead. He told the police, “I got no tip” after the passengers left.

Racers, make way to the new sky rocket! The Rocket Racing League, a long-promised attempt to create a kind of National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) of the skies, will hold its first exhibition races this year, its founders said. The races are guaranteed as a kind of living video game — but louder — with a virtual raceway laid out in the sky that will be visible on projection screens at the site of each event.

Racers in rocket-powered aircraft will fly 4 laps at approximately five-mile “track” at anywhere from 150 feet to 1,500 feet above the ground. The planes, designed to fly at 340 miles an hour, will start side by side, two at a time. The pilots incorporate professional test pilots who received their training in the military and a former astronaut. As pilots follow the course, spectators will be able to see alternate views from remote cameras and the cockpits. The league has signed up six teams so far.

“We’re taking the business of auto racing and the business of air shows and we’re combining them,” said Granger Whitelaw, the league’s chief executive and a partner in professional auto racing teams. The races will consist of four heats, each of which will take about 15 minutes, he said.

The announcements are to be made at a news conference planned for Monday at the Yale Club in Midtown Manhattan. The first public taste of rocket racing will take place August 1 and August 2 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Whitelaw said, at the annual Experimental Aircraft Association air show. It will involve two of the sleek aircraft developed for the league. The racers will also perform at air shows in Nevada and New Mexico.

The founders alleged that competition should begin in 2009. For more information, visit their website: rocketracingleague.com