Aviation News

Fuel Strainer Lottery A significant omission from Jeff Parnau’s very interesting article is the Decathlon’s fourth fuel drain point under the rear fuselage aft of the rear seat that is easily overlooked. It is there because the gascolator is not the lowest point in the fuel system when the aircraft is parked. The plumbing to […]

Bill Cutter, a well-known figure in business aviation died Tuesday at the age of 86. Cutter led Cutter Aviation, taking over from his father William P. Cutter, who founded the business in 1928. Cutter spent his life in aviation and in the Cutter family business, personally interacting with staff and taking a hands-on role in […]

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, completed its first successful trip to space on Thursday morning. As shown in the video below,Unity was initially carried to 43,000 feet by WhiteKnightTwo, an aircraft specifically designed to ferry the spacecraft to launch altitude. After release, Unity reached speeds of up to Mach 2.9 and attained an altitude of […]

A Hawker Hunter crashed during an Air National Guard training exercise off the coast of Hawaii on Wednesday. The pilot was able to eject and was rescued about three miles south of Oahu by a private sailboat. He was then transferred to a U.S. Coast Guard vessel and taken to a hospital. It has been […]

Flight Design partner AeroJones Aviation Technology has announced that it will be building a new on-airport manufacturing plant at Dalu General Airport in Zhenjiang, China. Along with a better location and the ability to develop a more efficient facility from the ground up, the company says the move will provide much needed direct access to […]

A modified Robinson R44 designed and built by Tier 1 Engineering has set a Guinness World Record for the farthest distance traveled by an electric-powered helicopter, the company announced this week. The flight launched from the Los Alamitos Army Airfield in California, and covered 30nautical miles at an average speed of 80 knots, at about […]

Boeing introduced its newest business jet this week at the Middle East Business Aviation Association Show, in Dubai, noting that it can fly between any two points on Earth nonstop, and announced a new order for the airplane. The BBJ 777X, a new Boeing Business Jet model, can fly farther than any business jet ever […]

Children haven’t traditionally been the target of FAA compliance efforts but Buzzy the Drone will lead the agency into the holiday drone-giving season to keep kids from flying their new treasures where they shouldn’t be. The agency rolled out a YouTube video earlier this week featuring the cheerful cartoon creation with the somewhat daunting task […]

Old habits die hard and when retired Air Force Col. Charles McGee took the controls of a HondaJet last week, he banked gently left and right, getting a feel for the ultramodern business jet. It was the day after the former Tuskegee Airman’s 99th birthday and the HondaJet ride, arranged by the National Business Aviation […]

An Oklahoma helicopter company has been fined more than $50,000 for dodging FAA regulations and illegally chartering fixed-wing aircraft. Interstate Helicopters and its owner James Paul Johnson were caught in an FAA enforcement effort to curb illegal charters. The company pleaded guilty to passing off charters as dry lease deals. On paper, customers leased the […]