Business Aviation

A suite of satellites that launched on Saturday are the first of 66 that will expand real-time global coverage for tracking airplanes in flight. Ten IridiumNext satellites, which weigh about 1,900 pounds each, were successfully deployed into low-Earth orbit, about 485 miles above the surface. The satellites will be the first to launch for Aireon’s […]

“There’s something very special about a Boeing 747,” United Airlines President Scott Kirby said in a blog posted online Wednesday. But he went on to say the company has decided to retire its 747 fleet from scheduled service. “It’s the one aircraft that even casual travelers can easily identify,” Kirby said. “And we know that […]

The good thing about having advanced ADD is that the distractions can you lead you on some fascinating forays into the obscure, the esoteric and the downright bizarre.The other day, I was paging through our archives looking for something—I can’t even remember what—and I found an article published in a 1992 issue of Aviation Consumer […]

Piper Aircraft has received an order for 50 Archers from their dealer in China, China Air Shuttle, the company announced this week. The airplanes will be manufactured and certificated at Piper Aircraft’s factory in Vero Beach, Florida, and then shipped to Rizhao, China, where they will be reassembled by a China Air Shuttle affiliate company. […]

The next-generation Airbus airlifter, the Beluga XL, is now under construction in France. The company recently posted a photo of the first of the fleet, on the assembly line. “It will take some 12 months to shape the core airframe of our next airlifter,” Airbus said. The company said it plans to build five of […]

The FAA is working toward allowing more freedom for drone operators, and at the same time is working with NASA on a plan to develop technology that will manage drone traffic, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said last week. Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Huerta said “the next step” in the agency’s […]

The Supreme Court has taken a look at the Flytenow case to decide if a lower court’s interpretation of the law was correct, and on Monday they announced their decision — the Court will not hear the case. That decision leaves in place a lower court’s ruling that it would be illegal for Flytenow to […]

Divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder, human remains and debris from a Cessna 525 Citation that crashed in Lake Erie on Dec. 29. There were six people on board the business jet when it crashed just after taking off from Burke Lakefront Airport in downtown Cleveland for Columbus. The aircraft was owned and flown […]

The newest iteration of the Cirrus SR22 model, the G6, is now launched, Cirrus Aircraft announced on Wednesday. The 2017 G6 offers an updated Garmin flight deck — the Cirrus Perspective-Plus — with a times-10 boost in processing speed, plus new wingtip lighting that incorporates ultra-high-performance LEDs. “Perspective-Plus instantly adds game-changing capabilities to G6 – […]

A baggage handler was trapped inside the baggage area of a United Express Embraer 175 regional jet on Sunday while the jet flew from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Dulles Airport, in Washington, D.C., according to various news reports on Tuesday. The flight took off about 3 p.m. and landed on schedule about 90 minutes later. […]