Business Aviation

Lancair International announced last summer it would sell off its older designs and focus on its newer Evolution aircraft, and recently the company, now known as Evolution Aircraft Company, said it has found a buyer. Mark Huffstutler, founder of the aircraft modification firm Sierra Industries, based in Texas, and his son Conrad Huffstutler will assume […]

General aviation pilots have several auto-fume modes. One of them is ADS-B and anything to do with medicals is a good way to get people spun up. So is the argument that the administrator of the FAA should be a pilot. This is a perennial and it came up last week when President Donald Trump […]

The accident rate for helicopters has fallen for the third year in a row, the FAA said on Monday. In raw numbers, there were 106 helicopter accidents in 2016, including 17 fatal accidents, a 12 percent decrease compared to the previous year and a 27 percent decrease compared to 2013. “The FAA and the helicopter […]

The first civil version of the latest Lockheed Hercules transport, the LM-100J, closely modeled on the military C-130J, rolled off the assembly linein Marietta, Georgia Thursday morning. Lockheed Martin told reporters they expect customers will use aircraft for oversized cargo transport, aerial spraying and firefighting, austere field operations, and search and rescue applications. Although demilitarized, […]

The majority of Americans across gender, political affiliation and age groups oppose privatization of the U.S. air traffic control system, according to a recent poll. Although voters surveyed were evenly split on the merits of privatizing government services generally, when asked about operation of the air traffic control system, those surveyed were opposed to privatization […]

The FAA has pushed back by a week the effective date of new rules allowing increased use of enhanced flight vision systems (EFVS) during takeoff and landing. In a Federal Register notice issuedWednesday, the agency said it is delaying the effective date “to allow for the review of this final rule in accordance with the […]

Uber has gotten a lot of media attention for its experiments with autonomous cars, and now it’s ready to explore the potential of moving people around urban areas using electric-powered VTOL aircraft, creating a new project last year called Uber Elevate. NASA engineer Mark Moore, who has been with the agency for nearly 30 years, […]

The FAA on Tuesday published an emergency Final Rule that requires the operators of certain Piper twins to check the wiring for defects. “This AD [Airworthiness Directive] was prompted by a fatal accident where evidence of thermal damage in this area was found,” the FAA said. The AD requires the initial inspection within 30 days […]

When two hikers recovered debris from the 1985 crash site of Eastern Airlines Flight 980 in Bolivia last year, including some recording tapes, the find raised hopes that a cause for the 727 crash might finally be identified — but the NTSB said on Tuesday its investigators have determined the materials “do not contain any […]

Pilots should be wary when operating close to the boundaries of Class B airspace, the FAA said recently in a Safety Alert for Operators. Flight crew who are on a visual approach may sometimes stray outside the boundaries of the designated airspace, the FAA said. In addition, the published approaches may sometimes take an airplane […]