Aviation News

Diamond Aircraft’s DA50 program has been on-again, off-again since 2007 but has regained momentum with the first flight of the retractable DA50 this week. Diamond’s five-seater uses a 300-HP Continental diesel and is part of a revitalized DA50 program announced at Aero Friedrichshafen this spring. The fixed-gear version of the DA50 flew in March of […]

The F-35 Joint Program Office and Lockheed Martin finalized an agreement for the production and delivery of 478 F-35s on Tuesday. The $34 billion contract represents the lowest cost per aircraft in the F-35 program’s notoriously expensive history, with the F-35A unit price dropping an average of 12.8 percent over the three lots (Lots 12-14) […]

A Cessna 414A crashed into an unoccupied home in Colonia, New Jersey, on Tuesday, setting the house on fire and damaging nearby residences. No one on the ground was hurt, but the pilot, identified as Dr. Michael Schloss, perished in the crash. Weather at the time of the crash had deteriorated from 10 miles’ visibility […]

Piper Aircraft introduced the next generation of its M600 single-engine turboprop on Wednesday. The M600 SLS—standing for safety, luxury, and support—will come equipped with Garmin’s newly announced Autoland system, which Piper says will make it “the first general aviation aircraft in the world to be certified with Autoland capability.” It also features Piper’s HALO Safety […]

Garmin says it is forever changing aviation with its Emergency Autoland system, which is the third layer of autonomous automation in the Autonomi suite that’s built into the G3000 integrated flight deck. In an emergency the pilot and passengers can engage Autoland with a single button push (or the system will activate itself if it […]

India-based airline IndiGo placed a firm order for 300 aircraft in Airbus’ A320neo passenger jet family on Tuesday. According to Airbus, the order includes a mix of A320neo, A321neo and A321XLR aircraft. In addition to bringing IndiGo’s total A320neo family aircraft orders up to 730, the agreement represents one of the largest single-operator orders in […]

The U.S. Air Force’s unmanned X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle successfully completed its fifth mission on Sunday, landing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility after 780 days in orbit. The X-37B was launched on Sept. 7, 2017, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, onboard a Space X Falcon 9 booster. The longest the […]

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation grilled Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg and Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Engineer John Hamilton on “actions taken to improve safety and the company’s interaction with relevant federal regulators” during a Tuesday hearing related to two fatal accidents involving Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. The hearing, titled “Aviation Safety and […]

Transport Canada issued an emergency airworthiness directive (AD) on Friday limiting the Airbus A220, formerly the Bombardier C Series, to a maximum setting of 94 percent N1 above 29,000 feet. According to Transport Canada, the directive is due to several occurrences of inflight engine shutdowns on Pratt & Whitney-powered A220s. The AD (PDF) covers A220s […]

Aircraft manufacturer Daher announced the three winning concepts from its first general aviation hackathon this week. According to the company, the “General Aviathon” challenged participants to develop flight safety-related solutions for Daher’s TBM turboprop family on two themes: “advanced features and capabilities to make the aircraft more connected, intelligent and autonomous; and innovative solutions to […]