Aviation News

Two counts of fraud against former Boeing 737 Max Chief Technical Pilot Mark Forkner were dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Fort Worth Division on Tuesday. The counts alleged that Forkner “knowingly and with the intent to defraud, made and used a materially false writing, entry, certification, document, record, […]

Sikorsky and Boeing have selected Honeywell’s new HTS7500 turboshaft engine to power the Defiant X advanced military helicopter. According to Honeywell, the 7,500-SHP engine is 42 percent more powerful and yields an 18 percent reduction in specific fuel consumption compared to the T55-714A. The company says the HTS7500 also offers the lowest total weight compared […]

Textron Aviation announced on Thursday that it will be returning the Cessna Turbo Skylane T182T to its piston product lineup. A turbocharged version of the Cessna 182 Skylane, the Turbo Skylane T182T was introduced in 2001 and production was paused in 2013. The company says it is current taking orders for the model with plans […]

NASA has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to build a lightweight rocket designed to carry samples from the surface of Mars back Earth. The Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) will be part of the NASA’s Mars Sample Return program, which is working to retrieve rock, sediment and atmospheric samples collected by the agency’s Perseverance rover. If […]

Bell Textron announced on Wednesday that the global Bell 505 Jet Ranger X helicopter fleet has passed the 100,000-flight-hour milestone. The model flew for the first time in November 2014, receiving its Transport Canada type certificate in December 2016 and FAA type certificate in June 2017. According to Bell, it has currently delivered more than […]

Flying squadron colors as a form of establishing camaraderie and teamwork is a tradition that goes back to “pursuit” (later called “fighter”) pilots of World War I, the first air war. The legacy picked right back up in World War II, with the added incentive of enabling fighter pilots to instantly identify squadron mates by […]

Incidents involving lasers illegally aimed at aircraft increased by 41 percent last year over 2020. Pilots reported a total of 9,723 laser incidents in 2021, according to an FAA report. Over and above the danger of temporary incapacitation that could result in an accident, pilots have reported 244 laser-related injuries since 2010 when the FAA […]

The pilot of a Cessna 172 that crashed into one of Iceland’s largest lakes was Haraldur Diego, 50, president of AOPA Iceland, that country’s branch of the worldwide pilots organization. All four onboard the Feb. 3, two-hour sightseeing flight were killed and their bodies later located about 150 feet underwater in Lake Thingvallavatn, roughly 30 […]

U.S.-based budget air carriers Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines announced on Monday that they have signed a definitive merger agreement. In a move that would create the fifth largest airline in the country, the companies plan to combine to form a single “ultra-low fare” air carrier. Following the merger, which is valued at approximately $6.6 […]

The FAA is telling the NTSB to mind its own business and butt out of investigating spaceflight crashes. Last month the NTSB issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking adding space transportation to the list of methods of locomotion that it oversees. The commercial space industry pushed back, fearful that the new layer would curtail the […]