Aviation News

Pilatus has reported that 2017 was an “exceptionally successful” year. The company, based in Switzerland, delivered 115 aircraft and grew to more than 2,000 full-time employees, the highest number ever for the workforce, according to the annual report, recently released. Most of the new airplanes were the PC-12 NG single-engine turboprop, with 85 delivered. The […]

As I was putting a sharp pencil on last week’s GA production numbers from GAMA, I couldn’t decide if I was looking at a flat calm mill pond or the dead quiet before some kind of storm. So I graphed out a decade worth of production numbers and I’m going with a pond that could […]

A Chicago pilot and his passenger survived bailing out of their TBM Avenger on May 7 over northeastern Arizona. Ron Carlson and Kenny Franzese hit the silk near Fort Apache in Navajo County after an apparent engine failure in the freshly restored warbird. The two were ferrying the big single-engine torpedo bomber from Phoenix to […]

Although the U.S. cancellation of the nuclear agreement with Iran will likely tank big airliner orders from Iran, neither Airbus nor Boeing seem likely to be immediately damaged, according to industry sources. That’s because the Iranian orders were of questionable firmness and were far in the future with uncertain financing. Between the two aerospace giants, […]

On a strong domestic economy, sales of general aviation aircraft rose during the first quarter of 2018 over the same period last year, the General Aviation Manufactures Association said on Thursday. The rosy sales picture was largely driven by increased turboprop and piston helicopter sales, GAMA said. And while both unit volume and sales revenue […]

The U.S. Department of Transportation has chosen ten state, local and tribal governments to participate in the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Pilot Program (UAS IPP). The selected governments are located throughout the U.S and will work with private sector participants to collect information on drone operations. “Data gathered from these pilot projects will form […]

Legislation recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives seeks to create a program to bring more people into the aviation maintenance workforce. If it passes a House vote, the Aviation Workforce Development Pilot Program Bill, H.R. 5701, would provide grants of up to $500,000 for activities that support aviation maintenance workforce development. Twenty aviation […]

Flight sharing via app has been stymied so far for private pilots in the U.S., but the idea has taken root in Europe in the last few years, and is continuing to grow. Rules developed by EASA (the European Aviation Safety Agency) now allow GA pilots to share costs with up to five passengers. Tony […]

A Canadian sister company of Viking Air Limited, which builds the CL-415 Aerial Firefighter, has launched the Viking CL-415EAF, called the Enhanced Aerial Firefighter. The company will convert and modify 11 acquired CL-215 firefighters to the upgraded turbine version that provides the basis of the EAF. The company said finding qualified staff for the project […]

A decade of low interest rates on aircraft loans continues to stimulate aircraft sales, but worries about inflation are pushing rates up, says Airfleet Capital, a leading aircraft lender. While no spikes are expected short term, the market is definitely headed higher, says Airfleet’s Jim Blessing. In this podcast recorded last month at Sun ‘n […]