NASA has successfully completed testing of a new high-aspect ratio wing for its X-57 Maxwell all-electric research aircraft. The goal of the wing tests, which took place at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, was to “calibrate installed strain gauges for real-time loads monitoring and to verify the wing has met design specifications.” The […]
Thrush Aircraft has filed for bankruptcy and is in the process of reorganizing to continue operations. The Albany, Georgia-based company filed the paperwork Sept. 5 and laid off 113 employees. The company is a well-known producer of turboprop aerial application aircraft and recently jumped into the single-engine air tanker (SEAT) market with a model that […]
A helicopter giving rides to fairgoers at the Bloomsburg Fair in Pennsylvania crashed Saturday night, injuring the pilot and two passengers onboard but missing everyone in the parking lot where it came down. The Enstrom 28F was close to the ground, either taking off or landing, when something went wrong and it came down on […]
Pilots are trained to recognize stalls and recover from them, but are they as well trained at avoiding them in the first place? In this, our second in a five-part series on stall accidents, veteran instructor Dan Gryder says no. Taking a page from the airline world, where there’s a number and a procedure for […]
As airliner seats get smaller and Americans get bigger, the FAA has decided to quantify the effect seat size (on the airplane) has on safety. Deputy Administrator Dan Elwell announced the agency will conduct 12 days of emergency evacuation testing at the end of November to see if stuffing ever growing, uh, masses into progressively […]
SpaceX has formally unveiled the massive retro-looking spacecraft it intends to use for interplanetary flights and CEO Elon Musk says it could be doing earth orbit flights within six months. The Starship is made of stainless steel, stands 164 feet tall and is 30 feet in diameter and that’s just the spacecraft. The massive booster […]
The FAA has ordered operators of some of the hard-working fleet of Boeing 737NGs to conduct inspections for cracks in a critical structural assembly that have shown up in some NGs. Boeing found cracks in a plane that had about 35,000 cycles on it, less than half the 90,000 that the “pickle fork” is designed […]
The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) unveiled a new program on Thursday designed to provide hands-on opportunities for young people to build and fly radio-control (R/C) aircraft. According to EAA, the Young Eagles Build and Fly “program-in-a-box” will partner local EAA chapters with AMA clubs to create youth-oriented build […]
With only three months to go before the 2020 ADS-B deadline, avionics shops are backed up three to nine months and most expect the backlog to increase next year. The ADS-B mandate has ignited demand for panel upgrades in general and many customers are scheduling ADS-B now, and full panels later. “I am currently scheduling […]
The GA accident rate has improved dramatically during the past two decades and with it, the stall/spin accident incidence has also decreased. Yet stalls account for nearly 20 percent of all light aircraft fatal accidents, amounting to about 35 a year. In this, the first of five podcasts on the subject of preventing stalls, we […]
Get the latest stories & special offers delivered directly to your inbox
SUBSCRIBE
