Aviation News

General Aviation Modifications Inc. (GAMI) has officially begun selling supplemental type certificates (STCs) for its G100UL 100-octane unleaded avgas. As previously reported by AVweb, the FAA approved STCs for the use of G100UL in all general aviation piston airplanes in September 2022. GAMI says it is looking to have the fuel available in California by […]

Airbus and Qatar Airways have settled a nasty spat over paint that escalated into a multibillion-dollar tit for tat. The companies announced Wednesday that they’ve reached an “amicable and mutually agreeable” settlement over peeling paint on some of Qatar’s brand-new A350s. Presumably that will end the two-years of PR, legal and economic warfare and will […]

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has joined the chorus of industry leaders calling on Congress for more money for the FAA. Buttigieg told Reuters legislators need to “pick up the pace” in approving budget money to upgrade the agency’s decades-old computer systems. A failure of the system that serves up NOTAMs prompted a nationwide ground stop […]

The FAA has apparently bent its own rules and allowed Aeromexico to launch a new route to the U.S. Last year, the agency downgraded Mexico’s safety rating to Category 2, meaning it doesn’t believe its aviation regulators can adequately monitor and enforce safety standards. Only a handful of countries have earned that status, and one […]

Think you’ve seen a UFO (or UAP)? Now there’s an app for that. New York startup Enigma Labs hopes people will download the mobile app (still in beta) and report their sightings in real time, adding to a database the company has compiled that already has 300,000 entries. “At our core, we’re a data science […]

The FAA announced on Monday (Jan. 30) it has added 11 airports to the list of destinations that offer Optimized Profile Descents (OPDs). The procedure enables landing aircraft to maintain a constant descent profile, rather than the traditional “stair-step” format. By eliminating the need to repeatedly descend, then power up to level off (frequently several […]

During the EAA’s Homebuilder’s Week series of seminars, Van’s Aircraft offered an update on the high-wing RV-15’s development, which has been fairly quiet since the airplane’s thunderous reveal at AirVenture last year. Van’s VP Greg Hughes outlined some significant changes to the airplane as the result of the extensive and detailed flight-test program. (The whole seminar is posted to […]

“Sometime in the very near future, airplanes for two and airplanes for two hundred will fly anywhere in the country every day.” So predicted Georgian Ben T. Epps in 1910. The first to fly an aircraft in the state (in 1907, four years after the Wright Brothers), Epps went on to design and build six […]

The first “scratch-built” Enstrom helicopter since new company ownership has flown. “This aircraft wasn’t an unfinished left-over airframe,” said Enstrom, “but was built using components procured, machined, fabricated, and assembled onsite.” A new-build Rolls-Royce 250 C20w turboshaft-powered Enstrom 480B took to the skies just eight months after musical-equipment mogul (and Enstrom helicopter owner) Chuck Surack’s […]

A district court with jurisdiction in Larimer County, Colorado, has filed misdemeanor charges against a then-34-year-old flight instructor who crashed a Cessna 172 on Sept. 11, 2022, after allegedly buzzing two boats on the Horsetooth Reservoir near Fort Collins, Colorado. The pilot, Ahmed El-Kaddah, issued a statement citing mechanical problems during a non-instructional sightseeing flight, […]