Aviation News

The United States Air Force has released the results of a branch-wide operational safety review, which identified a series of safety risks for Air Force flight crews. The report pinpointed stress posed by high operations tempos, a lack of time to properly focus on flying basics and decreased aircraft availability as potential safety concerns in […]

With Hurricane Florence heading for the Carolina coast, the FAA is warning unauthorized drone operators to stay out of the skies around areas impacted by the storm even if no Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) is in place. The agency emphasized that unauthorized flights during and after the storm could disrupt emergency response flights, which often […]

Vertical Aerospace, based in the United Kingdom, has built a full-scale eVTOL technology demonstrator and recently announced the aircraft began flight testing in June. It’s the first of its type to complete a flight test in the U.K. The single-seat aircraft, which weighs about 1600 pounds, is controlled by a remote pilot. It has a […]

How about a wager? Which comes first, the FAA’s vaunted NextGen collapses in scandal and budget overruns or someone—anyone—actually launches a space tourist without turning him or her into a cosmic cinder? Although there’s a Voodoo doll with my name on it at 800 Independence Ave. and restraint has never been a long suit of […]

The European Aviation Safety Agency has adopted a new rule, known as the “Basic Regulation,” which updates the mandate of EASA and sets out more pragmatic methods to regulate the sector appropriately, GAMA said this week. “This lays the foundations for an EASA 2.0, the result of a mammoth effort from EASA, the EU institutions […]

The U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says drone encounters accounted for almost the entire 58 percent increase in air proximity reports (airproxes) in the past five years. The BBC analyzed data from the CAA that says the airprox total jumped from 172 in 2013, when there were no drone complaints, to 272 in 2017, including […]

Lockheed Martin has reached a deal to shift production of F-16 wings to India, sparking speculation it might be planning to build the entire aircraft there in the near future. Tata Advanced Systems Ltd., of Hyderabad, already makes airframe components for the C-130J and Sikorsky S-92 helicopter but the F-16 deal is a major step […]

Altiscope, the Unmanned Traffic Management group from A3 by Airbus, released a document that it is calling a “roadmap for the safe integration of autonomous aircraft” on Wednesday. Airbus says its Blueprint for the Sky is designed to open conversation on industry evolution and the policies and rule-making that can regulate autonomous operations. “The shift […]

The FAA has granted a Supplemental Type Certificate to Boeing’s KC-46 tanker, the company announced this week. The STC is the second of two FAA certifications required for the aircraft. Next, Boeing will seek a Military Type Certificate from the U.S. Air Force, which is expected in the next few months. The required testing already […]