Business Aviation

About a year ago I began working for a company that does aerial survey (patrol) of pipelines. My job is to fly a Cessna 172 parallel to petroleum-carrying underground pipes while looking for what is euphemistically referred to as conflicts. Conflicts can be a wide variety of issues—leaks, damaged pipe above ground, equipment on top […]

Think how boring life would be without the starry-eyed dreamers, the unshakeable optimists and the grand visionaries who are utterly incapable of allowing even the slightest harsh reality to tarnish that bright future just over the hill. That would pretty much describe the people ushering in the next big thing in aviation: the on-demand urban […]

Uber showed up at AirVenture this year, but it wasn’t toting hardware. Instead, the company was touting its new Uber Elevate proposal that will do for on-demand air taxi what its networking service has done for ride sharing and on-demand transportation. In this podcast, Wyatt Smith and Nikhil Goel explain the details. Duration: 13:23 File […]

There are only some 200,000 aircraft in the U.S.—there are more cars than that in a large town—so why any profit-oriented insurer would enter such a restricted market seems to defy logic. Yet, in the last decade, the number of aviation insurance underwriters has gone from the old, hard core of nine to 14, an […]

The Williams International FJ44-4A-QPM engine, which has been chosen by Pilatus to power its new PC-24 jet, is now type-certified by both the FAA and EASA, Williams announced on Monday. Production deliveries have already begun. Williams says the new engine features an anti-ice and noise-suppressing inlet, an integral pre-cooler to condition engine bleed air and […]

Restrictions imposed in an effort to reduce noise at East Hampton’s busy general aviation airport must be lifted, a federal court ruled on Monday. “We are gratified that the judicial system upheld our position that the restrictions at East Hampton violated federal law,” said NBAA President Ed Bolen. “For aircraft operations to be successful, it […]

As the FAA’s technical testing of unleaded avgas replacements grinds on, owners and manufacturers are still wondering what the approved fuels will look like and whether they will be true drop-ins. At a briefing last month at AirVenture, three members of the FAA Piston Aviation Fuel Initiative offered an overview that warned that the clean […]

As expected, Robert Sumwalt has been confirmed as the 14th chair of the National Transportation Safety Board and he brings a wealth of aviation experience to the job. Sumwalt was a pilot for Piedmont Airlines and US Airways for 24 years and his appointment is being met with enthusiasm from aviation groups. “Robert is committed […]

Flying air taxis from Germany are ready to “conquer the world,” Volocopter announced on Tuesday, thanks to 25 million Euros invested by Daimler and a handful of others. “Using this fresh capital, Volocopter will further expand upon the leading technology in its purely electrically driven VTOLs, speed up the introduction process of the Volocopter serial […]

Boeing has created its own in-house avionics shop, called Boeing Avionics, to develop and produce its own avionics, the Seattle Times reported on Monday. In a memo to employees, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said the move is a “strategy to build targeted vertical capability.” Boeing had created its own in-house avionics until 2003, when it […]