A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

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Curt Epstein

Classic Lear Jet Foundation—the nonprofit Wichita-based group that seeks to return the first production Learjet (S/N 23-003) to <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2023-09-05/bringing-lear-003-back-flight">flight</a>—reached a milestone in its progress with the removal of the twinjet’s interior. The group intends to restore the aircraft to its original appearance when it was delivered in 1964, and noted that the removed seats, sidewalls, carpet, cabinets, and partitions will be retained and used as patterns for the aviation companies that have volunteered to build and donate a period-accurate cabin for the project.
“This is a big step in the preparation of the aircraft for the non-destructive testing required to get the aircraft airworthy again,” Bill Kinkaid, the foundation’s president, told AIN.
Included among the recently accomplished work, which is being performed largely by local industry volunteers and retirees, some of whom worked on the Lear Jet production lines, was the removal of the wing flaps, spoilers, and ailerons. One of the latter revealed a large, fortunately unoccupied, wasp’s nest—a souvenir of the aircraft’s quarter-century in storage.
Currently ongoing is the removal of the cockpit instrumentation, with each unit being documented and carefully bubble-wrapped for storage until eventually required for refurbishment and/or recalibration before reinstallation.

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