Aviation News

Phillips 66 announced on Wednesday that it plans to reconfigure its San Francisco Refinery in Rodeo, California, to produce sustainable diesel, gasoline and jet fuels. The conversion would move the refinery from using crude oil for fuel production to using cooking oil, fats, greases and soybean oils. Phillips 66 estimates the “Rodeo Renewed” project will […]

The National Aeronautic Association (NAA) has awarded the 2019 Robert J. Collier Trophy to the United States Department of the Air Force-Boeing X-37B team. According to the selection committee, the team was chosen for “… developing and employing the world’s only reusable, autonomous spaceplane, which logged more than 2,865 days in orbit across five missions, […]

Piper Aircraft has announced that a second group of ten students has begun training in the company’s aircraft manufacturing apprenticeship program. The program includes a mix of technical classes, hands-on training and shadowing aircraft assembly workers at the company’s headquarters in Vero Beach, Florida. According to Piper, the two-year apprenticeship is “designed to qualify the […]

Continental Aerospace Technologies has announced that its CD-170 engine has been granted type certification by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). The four-cylinder, liquid-cooled CD-170 is the latest edition to the company’s CD-100 engine series, which has collectively logged over 7.1 million flight hours worldwide since its introduction. The CD-170 is capable of operating […]

Textron Aviation is pushing ahead with the Cessna 408 SkyCourier test program with a second example taking flight this week. The first article of Cessna’s clean-sheet utility twin flew in May, but this ship, called P1, is what the company describes as the “first conforming production flight test aircraft.” According to Cessna, this example will […]

Robinson Helicopter has delivered its 1000th R66 turbine helicopter, less than a decade after it was certified. An outgrowth of the piston-powered, four-seat R44, the R66 uses the Rolls-Royce RR300 turbine and Robinson’s trademark two-blade teetering rotor system. The RR300 is itself a derivative of the Allison 250 turbine, an engine that Robinson says has […]

Wisconsin-based aviation engine developer Engineered Propulsion Systems (EPS) has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. According to a petition submitted to the Western District of Wisconsin bankruptcy court on July 29, “there are currently no investors willing to continue to support the ongoing operations of the Company outside of a restructuring process” and it is “at […]

International organization of women pilots The Ninety-Nines has named Corbi Bulluck its new president. She succeeds Jan McKenzie, who served as president of the organization from 2016 to 2020. Bulluck flew for the North Carolina Department of Transportation for 20 years before her retirement in 2018. She also served as a flight instructor at FlightSafety […]

Emirates is taking its A380s out of mothballs and is offering prospective passengers COVID-19 insurance to help fill them and its other aircraft. The super jumbos were all parked for four months but the company started flying them on July 15 and now has six long-haul routes using the double-decker aircraft. Filling the 500 seats […]

An independent survey of FAA safety division employees suggests they feel pressure to accommodate industry demands at the expense of safety. The Mitre Corporation survey was sent to 7,000 employees in the aviation safety group and 25 percent responded. Those who took the time painted a picture of a regulatory agency influenced by the financial […]