Air Shows & Events

Every airshow, no matter where or when, has its share of challenges, and hopefully its share of good luck, too, and this year’s edition of Sun ‘n Fun, in Lakeland, Fla., seems to have plenty of both. No military jet team will appear to split the sky with a pure booming roar, thanks to the […]

The president of the Light Aircraft Manufacturers Association says the industry has been underreporting the impact of the LSA sector on aviation as a whole and is remedying that with new numbers. Dan Johnson told AVweb at Sun ‘n Fun in Lakeland, Fla., that his group took a conservative approach to reporting LSA numbers by […]

Well, it’s not entirely new, but it’s the first time this no-nonsense pickup truck of an airplane has appeared at Sun ‘n Fun and in the U.S. The Discovery 201 is an offshoot of a Russian design called the Akord 201, which found some service in Russia as a heavy-hauling utility airplane. The aircraft has […]

The FAA’s decision to delay its tower shutdowns until June was a save for Sun ‘n Fun, but the federal government still has declined to pay all the expenses of sending 50 extra controllers and 20 technicians to cope with the traffic, so the bill — an estimated $285,000 — is going to the Sun […]

MyGoFlight, which sells cases, mounts, bags and other accessories for iPads, is offering a “Mastering the iPad” seminar at Sun ‘n Fun 2013. The company says the seminars will help pilots choose the best apps for their needs and identify strategies for optimizing use of the tablets in both preflight and in-flight scenarios. Specific topics […]

The Aircraft Electronics Association opened its 56th convention and trade show in Las Vegas Tuesday with an eye-opening number: $6.3 billion. That’s the current size of the avionics industry — including new installation and retrofits, but not repairs — according to a recently compiled economic study done by the association based on 2012 sales. The […]

Twenty seven years after the fact, Dick Rutan says he’s somewhat astonished that he and Jeana Yeager made it around the world in the Burt Rutan-designed Voyager, given the rudimentary avionics of the day and the fact that the airplane had so little surplus load factor that moderate turbulence would have torn it apart. As […]

Although the tower at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport in Florida is on the FAA’s list for closure (so is Wittman Regional’s in Oshkosh) the facility will be manned as usual by FAA controllers through Sun ‘n Fun. Under the sequestration closure plan, Lakeland is among 149 towers being closed due to sequestration cuts and was […]

As federal agencies scramble to cope with looming federal budget cuts, GA advocacy groups are pressing to minimize the impact on flight operations. NBAA President Ed Bolen this week asked FAA officials to consider more factors than simply the total number of operations at an airport in deciding which towers will close. For example, Tracon […]

The Sam LS, a new kit airplane with a retro look, flew for the first time on February 26, near Montreal, Canada, the company announced last week. “Liftoff was perfect, in about 300 feet,” said Thierry Zibi, president of Sam Aircraft. The all-metal airplane features tandem seating and a narrow fuselage with a choice of […]