Business Aviation

The 149 federal contract air traffic control towers previously targeted for closure beginning June 15 will remain open through Sept. 30 the FAA said Friday, as other programs also found funding. The Department of Transportation said Friday it would fund air traffic technology and maintenance programs with $21 million by moving funds within its budget. […]

Honda Aircraft Co. confirmed this week it will delay until late 2014 its certification effort for the HondaJet light business jet to accommodate more testing for the aircraft’s GE Honda Aero engines. The company announced last October that it was aiming for full FAA certification in the first half of 2013 with deliveries to customers […]

United Airlines will start using the Boeing 787 on domestic routes on May 20, USA Today reported on Wednesday. A flight from Houston to Chicago will be the airline’s first flight for the jet since it was grounded by the FAA in mid-January, after two incidents when the airplane’s lithium-ion batteries overheated. It’s also the […]

The FAA already has approved a fix to allow operators to re-launch the 787 fleet within weeks, but meanwhile the NTSB is still searching for the root cause of the battery problem. In a solicitation notice posted online Friday, the board said it is planning to conduct “teardown examinations as soon as possible of several […]

Don’t see a video screen?Try disabling ad blockers and refreshing this page.If that doesn’t work, click here to watch on YouTube. Harvard University researchers have demonstrated a fly-sized UAV that actually mimics insect flight. The researchers spent 12 years developing the robo-fly, which uses piezoelectric devices that contract and release when power is switched on […]

It appears the three crew members lost in the overseas loss of a KC-135 tanker were from Spokane, Wash., but the aircraft was based in Kansas. Two of the three bodies have been recovered after the loaded tanker apparently exploded in flight and crashed in Kyrgyzstan. The aircraft was on its way to support the […]

The Solar Impulse team sent their solar aircraft out from Moffett Airfield near San Jose, Calif., Friday at 6:12 a.m. Pacific time, for Phoenix, Ariz., on the first leg of a transcontinental U.S. flight. It landed in Phoenix at 12:30 a.m. Saturday. The aircraft is powered by four 10-horsepower electric motors that draw energy from […]

Cessna has flown the production version of its updated Sovereign mid-sized business jet and, as expected, everything went well. The two and a half hour flight tested all the systems, including the new G5000 avionics suite that includes autothrottles. “The aircraft handling characteristics and performance were exceptional, just as we had anticipated after flying more […]

Russia has ordered its airlines to avoid Syrian airspace after a charter airliner with 159 passengers and eight crew aboard escaped a possible missile attack Monday. Russia Today quoted Interfax as saying the the Nordwind Airlines A320, on a flight from an Egyptian resort to Kazan in Tatarstan, was over the mountains of Syria when […]

Don’t see a video screen?Try disabling ad blockers and refreshing this page.If that doesn’t work, click here to watch on YouTube. The first powered flight of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo propelled the passenger spacecraft faster than the speed of sound in a milestone test flight over the high desert of southern California Monday morning. “The first […]