Aviation News

Bye Aerospace announced today (May 29) that Hopscotch Air, an on-demand air-taxi operator serving the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and eastern Canada with a fleet of Cirrus piston singles, has signed a letter of intent for four all-electric Bye aircraft. The LOI includes a single eFlyer 2 trainer and three four-place eFlyer 4s. Having begun operations in […]

The General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) released a “mixed report” today on aircraft shipments and billings for the first quarter of 2024. Sales of piston fixed-wing aircraft were essentially flat compared with Q1 2023, with 292 delivered vs. 290 for last year. Piston helicopters likewise showed little change. Deliveries of turbine helicopters and turboprop airplanes […]

Multiple news outlets are reporting that former President Donald Trump has sold his 1997 Cessna Citation X. The buyer is a company associated with Mehrdad Moayedi, an Iranian-American real estate developer based in Dallas. Federal Election Committee records reveal that Moayedi has contributed close to $250,000 to Trump’s reelection campaigns in 2019 and 2020, as […]

Bell Textron announced Tuesday that its jet-assisted next generation tiltrotor design has been picked to continue development in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Speed and Runway Independent Technologies (SPRINT) X-Plane program. DARPA will fund the design of an aircraft that can take off and land vertically but also fly at 400 knots or more. […]

CBS is reporting a “developmental model” of an F-35B crashed shortly after takeoff at Albuquerque International Sunport on Tuesday. The pilot flying the aircraft was seriously injured after ejecting from the fighter. He was described as being in stable condition at the University of New Mexico Hospital. Two people on the ground were also checked […]

The FAA has confirmed that Lirio Liu, the executive director of the Aircraft Certification Service, will retire next month. “Lirio Liu plans to retire from the FAA at the end of June after 33 years with the agency. The FAA has not selected a permanent replacement,” the agency said in a statement. “We continually develop leaders […]

Passengers aboard a Spirit Airlines flight from Montego Bay to Fort Lauderdale May 26 were told to “prepare for a water landing,” but the plane landed safely back in Montego Bay. The airline said in a statement to various media the captain made the announcement “out of an abundance of caution” after the crew got […]

A measure tucked into the latest FAA Reauthorization will establish a pool of $240 million to lower the cost of flight training and expand the pool of prospective candidates. The new money was championed by Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock. “This is a long-term issue,” Warnock told Yahoo Finance. “We’re pulling from too short, too […]

One of Northern Canada’s largest air freight companies is cutting its rates to supply remote communities whose regular river barge service has been canceled for the summer because of low water in MacKenzie River. Buffalo Airways announced last week that it would operate a weekly “air barge” service to communities along the MacKenzie River in […]

All seven people aboard a turbine-powered Cessna 206 safely parachuted from a skydiving plane in Missouri on Saturday. The modified Cessna Super Skywagon, with a 550-horsepower Pratt & Whitney turboprop, was at 14,000 feet over Butler County when a “premature parachute release” fouled the tail and possibly damaged it. Everyone, including the pilot, got out […]