Business Aviation

Which came first: the chicken or the Federal Egg Administration? Impossible to say. Physics teaches us that when Bernoulli found lift, his nemesis, Newton, said there must be an opposing reaction. So, when the Wright brothers flew, government pondered how to keep them from impacting all those other aeronauts. Little happened because of Newton’s Law […]

NASA is now evaluating five proposed designs for an X-plane that will test new technologies that could help airliners to fly more quietly, burn less fuel and release fewer emissions than aircraft flying today. The concepts aim to address NASA’s goals for 2035, such as a 60 to 80 percent reduction in fuel consumption, greater […]

The CEO of Qantas has challenged Airbus and Boeing to build an airliner that could fly nonstop from Sydney to London with a full payload, by 2022. “This is a last frontier in global aviation,” said Alan Joyce, in an address to investors on Friday. “The antidote to the tyranny of distance. And a revolution […]

The Airbus team A^3, or A-cubed, based in Silicon Valley, plans to start flight tests of a prototype of its full-scale VTOL air-taxi, Vahana,in November, according to a report this week by KUOW. The flight tests will be conducted from the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport, in Pendleton, where the company recently occupied a new 9,600-square-foot […]

A seaplane business in Sausalito, California, in operation since 1945, has been growing since new owners took over in 2012, and that’s starting to cause some problems with the neighbors, who have requested a hearing with the County Planning Commission, set for next Monday, Aug. 28. “What began decades ago as a small tourism business […]

A Global 7000, a Bombardier large-cabin business jet currently undergoing test flights, lost an engine last week while flying at 41,000 feet, according to a report in the Wichita Eagle this week. A report from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said the jet “experienced an inflight flameout of the right engine following high vibration […]

If you have comments, questions or suggestions regarding the FAA’s recent Emergency Airworthiness Directive now in effect for hundreds of Lycoming engines, the FAA is ready to hear from you. The AD, which was published on Aug. 10 and officially took effect Aug. 15, went straight to Final Rule, meaning there was no prior public […]

I’m just back from a few days at the Cirrus factory in Duluth, delivered back home via the company’s new SF50 Vision Jet, and I’ll immediately unpack this first impression: It’s no exaggeration to say that the Vision Jet is a fugitive from the law of averages. It’s not much to be impressed with how […]

The San Jose Mercury News, one of the first news outlets to report on the story of the Air Canada near-miss in San Francisco last month, said in an editorial this week that the FAA has “hindered the investigation” of the event by “dragging their feet in the aftermath.” As a result, “key evidence from […]

Members of Congress are back in their home districts this month, leaving Washington quiet and empty, but that doesn’t mean the efforts of general aviation lobbyists who oppose ATC privatization are on hold. “The GA community can’t let its guard down,” said Mark Baker, president of AOPA, in a statement issued last week by several […]