Business Aviation

Although electric airplanes still inhabit a regulatory backwater, Slovenian-based Pipistrel Aircraft is boosting its production of battery-powered trainers and reports a 50-50 split between gasoline and electric aircraft. In this exclusive podcast, the company told AVweb this week that a new production line is building five to six Alpha Electro trainers per month. “We reorganized […]

Aerospace has always been a boom-bust business, but following the economic downturn of 2008, the robust upswing has proven elusive, primarily because there are simply too many airplanes available for too few buyers. Says Citi aerospace analyst Jonathan Raviv, this sluggish recovery has earned a name: the lost decade. In this exclusive podcast, AVweb spoke […]

Florence “Shutsy” Reynolds of Connellsville, Penn., passed away Thursday, March 15, 2018, at home. She was 95. She took a Civilian Pilot Training Program at her local airport in Connellsville and completed it, receiving her pilot’s certificate at the end. According to the “Fly Girls the Series” blog, “Reynolds was required to sign a document […]

Zipping across the North Pole to connect city pairs in the eastern and western hemispheres happens multiple times a day. But now Norwegian Air Argentina has applied for traffic rights from Buenos Aires to Perth, Western Australia, a 7,839-mile jaunt that will take commercial airline travelers directly over the South Pole. The South American arm […]

As Western democracies ramp up their rhetoric against Russia, White House officials said Thursday that Russia has hacked or at least targeted U.S. infrastructure, including aviation systems. The Washington Post reported Thursday that these new hacking claims are the strongest condemnation yet of claimed Russian attempts to erode Western values and technical infrastructure. Without being […]

Boeing has produced 10,000 copies of the 737, setting a world record for the most-produced model of a commercial jet aircraft ever, the company said this week. Guinness World Records has certified the record. “This incredible milestone … represents more than 50 years of success and achievement on the part of thousands of Boeing employees […]

Effective with this week’s editions, longtime aviation journalist and editor Joy Finnegan joins the staff as editor-in-chief of AVweb. Prior to coming aboard, Finnegan has been—and will remain—editor of Aviation Maintenance Magazine and she served as editor at Rotor & Wing Magazine. She also has experience in the industry in contract administration, flight training and […]

With so many companies working on electric-powered VTOLs and other airplanes of the future, it may seem odd that NASA is experimenting with what is essentially a big RC model of a Cub. The airplane, about 60 percent the size of a piloted aircraft, couldn’t look much more traditional, with its tailwheel, a big wide […]

The initial wind-tunnel testing of the new twin-engine Cessna SkyCourier turboprop is now complete, Textron announced on Tuesday. Engineers will analyze the results from the tests to develop performance and aerodynamic characteristics and structural load data. “We’re making outstanding progress in the development of this clean-sheet aircraft and are eager to continue defining the details […]

Voom, the urban helicopter service operated by Airbus, now has launched operations at a second site, Mexico City. Voom has been flying in Sao Paulo, Brazil, since last April. “We couldn’t be more excited to bring an urgently needed, alternative transportation option to Mexico City,” said Uma Subramanian, CEO of Voom. Mexico City was chosen […]