Aviation News

Adding to the list of COVID-19-related shortages, CNBC is reporting that there aren’t enough business jets to go around. The network says a trifecta of factors, including an uptick in private travel by COVID-conscious wealthy travelers, an uptick in suddenly wealthy people able to afford private air travel and a shortage of both used and […]

Authorities in Chambers County, Texas, are offering few details on the crash of a Stearman that was attempting to take off from a highway in the town of Winnie on Saturday. The aircraft was destroyed but the pilot reportedly has only minor injuries. Cellphone video shows the biplane lifting off from County Highway 124 just […]

Honda announced on Thursday that it is developing a hybrid-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The aircraft will be aimed at providing city-to-city transport, a market the company believes will grow significantly in the future. Honda also plans to create a “mobility ecosystem” that will focus on coordinating and integrating the eVTOL with ground […]

Bombardier announced on Thursday that it has received a firm order for 20 Challenger 3500 business jets from an undisclosed customer. The deal, which is valued at $534 million, is the company’s largest business jet transaction so far this year. As previously reported by AVweb, Bombardier introduced the Challenger 3500 model—an updated version of the […]

The FAA and NASA have wrapped up research and testing on software designed to minimize taxi delays and ease ramp congestion along with saving fuel and reducing carbon emissions. The new NASA-developed software capability, which is designed to calculate gate pushbacks to allow aircraft to “roll directly to the runway and to take off,” will […]

GE Aviation announced that the new Catalyst turboprop engine successfully completed its first flight on Thursday. The flight, which took off and landed at Germany’s Berlin Airport, lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes and used a Beechcraft King Air Flying Test Bed. According to GE, its 16 Catalyst test engines have accumulated more than 2,600 […]

A team of National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators is on its way to Hawaii to supervise the recovery of TransAir Flight 810, a Boeing 737-200 that ditched in the ocean on July 2. Both pilots were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard and Honolulu Airport Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting personnel. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy […]

The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded a performance-based logistics (PBL) contract to Boeing for the C-17 Globemaster III sustainment program. Activities covered by the contract will include engineering, field support and material management for the 275-aircraft C-17 fleet. Boeing has been providing PBL support for the C-17 fleet since 1998. “The C-17 continues to […]

The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) Louisiana Wing announced on Monday that it has completed its mission to photograph land- and waterways impacted by Hurricane Ida, which made landfall near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on Aug. 29 as a Category 4 storm. Since the mission launched in early September, more than 130 CAP members have participated, flying […]

Bucking the prevailing trend that characterizes general aviation as “luxury jets” that are no more than play toys of the economic elite, Forbes Magazine recently published an article titled, “What You Didn’t Know About Private Jets.” Cribbing heavily from statistics published in the National Business Aviation Association’s updated 2021 Business Aviation Fact Book, Forbes contributor […]