FAA and Regs

A coalition of 28 public interest groups led by the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity sent a letter to the FAA asking the agency to refrain from removing the ban on overland supersonic flight or supporting rulemaking that might lead to the revival of supersonic aircraft on Tuesday. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, […]

Congressman Ed Case, D-Hawaii, announced his intentions to introduce a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives designed to tighten regulations for commercial air tours on Thursday. Citing the recent fatal crashes of a tour helicopter in Kailua and a skydiving flight at Mokuleia’s Dillingham Airfield, Case says his proposed “Safe and Quiet Skies Act” […]

The FAA is now requiring all pilots filing flight plans to use of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) flight plan format. The transition, which the agency first planed for October 2015, went into effect on Tuesday. According to the FAA, using the ICAO form (PDF) will allow for a greater variety of entry types […]

Bloomberg is reporting the certification test flight for the changes to Boeing’s 737 MAX flight architecture is expected to occur in early October, paving the way for a return to service sometime in the fourth quarter of this year. Quoting unnamed sources, the news service said Boeing engineers have worked through most of the issues […]

Stephen Dickson was sworn in by U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao as the FAA’s 18th administrator on Monday. As leader of the FAA, which is responsible for a system operating more than 50,000 flights a day, Dickson will oversee the agency’s 47,000 employees and $16.4 billion-dollar budget. He is taking over from Acting Administrator Dan […]

Amazon has formally applied to begin limited drone delivery of packages in the U.S. and comments are being accepted until Aug. 28. Amazon wants to use drones to deliver packages weighing less than five pounds directly to customers within 30 minutes of its distribution center. The aircraft would fly beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), […]

The FAA is investigating whether the pilot of a medevac helicopter fell asleep at the controls while taking a patient to the hospital. In a statement to a Boston television station, the agency confirmed it was looking into an incident June 24 involving the Boston MedFlight flight from Martha’s Vineyard to a Boston hospital. Boston […]

Boeing is fundamentally redesigning the software architecture of the 737 MAX flight control system to take data from both of the system’s computers and to compare the data from the sensors feeding them. The existing system uses data from only one flight control computer and the second serves as a backup. In the new setup, […]

In a vote along party lines, the Senate approved the nomination of former Delta VP of flight pperations Steve Dickson as the next FAA administrator on Wednesday. Dickson, who was a line pilot with Delta before going to the head office, was nominated by President Donald Trump in March. While at Delta, he served on […]

Some pilots and operators will have another series of preflight checks to conduct when the ADS-B mandate kicks in on Jan. 1. The FAA says in a new policy statement it will be up to pilots and operators to make sure the gear will actually work along their predicted flight path. As part of the […]