Wilson Air named best for 2nd year
For the second year in a row, Wilson Air Center Chattanooga has been named the best fixed base operator (FBO) in the country by Professional Pilot Magazine, according to the Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport.
The award is based on the feedback of hundreds of pilots who completed the 2021 PRASE (Preferences Regarding Aviation Services and Equipment) survey, which ranked Chattanooga's custom-designed general aviation campus the best in the United States, the airport said.
"This designation for the second consecutive year further reinforces our shared commitment to providing a world-class experience in Chattanooga," said Glenn Rivenbark, general manager of the Wilson Air Center Chattanooga campus.
The Chattanooga campus includes a LEED Certified Platinum executive terminal, 120,000 square feet of hangar space and many amenities. The FBO also offers aircraft fueling, airline and freight handling, among many other services.
"Despite a tumultuous year for the aviation industry, the Wilson Air Chattanooga team was able to deliver the same excellent customer service and amenities to both pilots and passengers," said Terry Hart, president and CEO of the Chattanooga Airport.
Sanofi, GSK develop COVID-19 vaccine
Sanofi, the French pharmaceutical company, said Monday that it would move the experimental COVID-19 vaccine it is developing with GlaxoSmithKline into a late-stage trial after the shot produced strong immune responses in volunteers in a mid-stage study.
The findings are encouraging news for a vaccine that has fallen behind in development and has so far disappointed those expecting that it would be crucial in combating the pandemic. If the vaccine can become available in the last three months of this year, as its developers hope, it could still play a central role as a booster shot as well as an initial inoculation in the developing world, where the pace of vaccination is lagging.
The vaccine hit a major setback in December, when its developers announced that it did not appear to work well in older adults and that they would have to delay plans to test it in a Phase 3 trial, the crucial test that will assess the vaccine's effectiveness.
But the companies modified the vaccine and in February began testing it in a Phase 2 study that included more than 700 volunteers in the United States and Honduras between 18 and 95 years old. Sanofi said the vaccine did not raise any safety concerns and produced a strong immune response across age groups, a finding suggesting it has been successfully tweaked.
Sanofi announced the findings in a statement and said it plans to soon publish the results in a medical journal.
Varsity closes store in Athens, Georgia
Chili dogs, onion rings and frosted orange milkshakes could soon be in shorter supply for students at the University of Georgia. The Varsity has applied for permission to tear down its decades-old Athens location.
Athens-Clarke Commissioner Melissa Link said the Gordy family, which owns the restaurant, started buying up adjacent properties several years ago and sought rezoning. However, Link and others blocked the demolition of several houses, one of them owned by Annie Burney, an Athens educator who used it as a boarding house for Black female teachers when schools were segregated.
"There were very significant folks in Black history who owned and lived in that house. And I was like, there's no way we can let this be torn down," Link said.
Officials created an overlay district including The Varsity and surrounding houses owned by the Gordy family, limiting building heights, parking and the number of bathrooms per apartment unit, making student housing less likely. The family then transferred four houses to the Athens-Clarke Commission, which passed them to the Athens Land Trust for affordable housing.
"We knew all along that these property owners were adamant about selling the property for the highest commercial value they could," Link said.
- Compiled by Dave Flessner