Aviation News

The FAA funding bill now under consideration in Congress includes allocations for research into single-piloted commercial aircraft, and several pilot advocacy groups are lobbying hard against it, citing safety and security concerns. “The desire by some in the industry to pursue single-piloted or autonomously piloted cargo aircraft seriously places the American public and the flight […]

An investor group based in Maine says it will manufacture the Atol 650, a Finnish-designed high-performance light sport amphibian. Atol USA is a joint venture with the Finland-based Atol Avion mother company. Because of its many lakes, amphib flying is popular in Finland and the company says Maine has similar topography so the company sees […]

DG Flugzeugbau, a sailplane manufacturer in Germany, said recently it got an order to “manufacture a large number of Volocopters from Volocopter GmbH,” but nobody is saying exactly how many a “large number” is. A Volocopter spokesperson told AVweb, “Unfortunately, I am not able to provide you with more details than this,” and Flugzeubau did […]

The Light Aircraft Manufacturers Association (LAMA) is having good luck working with the FAA on initiatives to benefit the LSA community, according to LAMA Chairman of the Board and President Dan Johnson. In this podcast, Johnson spoke with AVweb about LAMA’s process in developing these initiatives and how the association has been coordinating with the […]

Just in time to join AVweb’s firehose coverage of Sun ‘n Fun, aviation journalist Kate O’Connor is now a member of the AVweb news team. A 2009 graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s professional pilot program, O’Connor comes to AVweb from a stint as an associate editor at Plane and Pilot magazine, where she wrote and […]

Elbit Systems, based in Haifa, Israel, has completed the acquisition of Universal Avionics Systems Corp., of Tucson, Arizona, for a price of about $120 million, the companies announced on Wednesday. Universal develops and manufactures commercial avionics for a wide range of aircraft, including flight management systems, displays, communication systems and complete cockpit solutions. These products […]

Sun ‘n Fun welcomed more than100 returning World War II, Korea and Vietnam war veterans back to the warbird area last night after a whirlwind day of visiting war memorials in Washington, D.C. The Flight to Honor continues a tradition of chartering day flights to the nation’s capital so aging veterans can see the monuments […]

A developer in Miami has added a skyport to his high-rise luxury apartment building, anticipating a demand for VTOL flying taxis, according to The Miami Herald. Dan Kodsi, who is building the 60-story, 530-unit Paramount Miami Worldcenter, is designing the rooftop to accommodate a 5,000-square-foot skyport. Kodsi said he got the idea after hearing about […]

Pipistrel has sold 15 Alpha trainer aircraft to a flight school in California, the company’s largest-ever U.S. order. The flight school, WorldWide Wings, operates facilities in California and Florida that train pilots from all over the world, especially India. WWW director Naushad Imam said his flight school had been looking for a “suitable LSA ab-initio […]

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo,VSS Unity, has completed its first supersonic, rocket-powered flight, the company announced last week. The aircraft was carried to a launch altitude of about 46,500 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains by the WhiteKnightTwo aircraft, then released. After a few seconds of glide, Unity’srocket motor was engaged, and the pilots placed the spaceship […]