Aviation News

A report published last Friday (April 8) by British news outlet Reuters suggests that Friday’s reassignment of FAA Aircraft Certification Service Executive Director Earl Lawrence is just one part of an agency-wide management shake-up. Lawrence will reportedly become the deputy assistant administrator of the NextGen Office, which will have significant input on the development of […]

A Santa Monica-area resident—a pilot and a mother—published an open letter in the local newspaper, taking Santa Monica Airport Commissioner Joseph Schmitz to task for claims he made in a March 28 statement regarding the airport’s status and the dangers of leaded aviation gasoline (100LL). Eve Lopez wrote, in part, “As a resident of Sunset […]

Appropriately, it was March 8, International Women’s Day, when Leslie Hull, 24, of Avon, New York, completed her checkride as a Civil Air Patrol (CAP) pilot. What made the flight even more significant was that her mother, Capt. Martha “Mother Goose” Pickard, was her check pilot. Pickard, a flight instructor at Scottsville, New York-based Rochester […]

A Douglas DC-3 retrofitted with Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-65AR turboprop engines veered off the runway in San Filipe, central Colombia on Friday (April 8), severely damaging the aircraft but leaving six passengers and the Aliansa Aerolineas Andinas crew uninjured. It remains unclear whether the 79-year-old transport was taking off or landing. Though described as […]

“We have warning lights flashing,” said Maj. Gen. Ed Thomas, the officer in charge of recruiting for the U.S. Air Force. His warning, issued earlier this year, comes in contrast to the sentiment just four months earlier, when the service achieved its recruiting and staffing goals for the first time in half a decade. According […]

Switzerland-based Pilatus announced on Monday that it set a new production record with 152 aircraft delivered in financial year 2021. The company reported that it saw a 19 percent growth in sales with a total of 1.3 billion Swiss francs (about $1.4 billion) for the year as well as a 35 percent higher operating result […]

Embraer has announced that the global fleet of A-29 Super Tucano single-engine military turboprops has passed the 500,000-flight-hour milestone. According to the company, more than 260 units have been delivered since the model’s introduction in 2003. Developed as a multi-mission aircraft, the A-29 is used for missions such as light attack, armed reconnaissance, close air […]

Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation has announced it will try to build 20 long-range Tu-214 single-aisle airliners in the next two years to replace Boeing and Airbus aircraft that will soon be grounded by a lack of maintenance. The aircraft went into service in 2001 and is roughly equivalent to a Boeing 757. It can seat […]

Two particularly nasty passengers have prompted the FAA’s recommendation of the biggest fines ever levied against individuals for acting out on an airplane. Both of the record-setters are women. The agency has recommended a fine of $81,950 for a female American Airlines passenger for a truly remarkable fracas last July and the other woman is […]

The FAA has replaced Earl Lawrence as the head of aircraft certification with Lirio Liu, who now runs the agency’s international affairs office. Lawrence has run aircraft certification for three years. Liu is an aerospace engineer and has been with the FAA since 1991. Much of that experience has been in aircraft certification and safety […]