FAA and Regs

How Not To Botch The FAA Medical John Yodice wrote a column once on the legal perils of making a falsification on the medical application, even unintentional ones (such as accidentally forgetting a hospital stay). It results in a felony and can become years of jail time as well as a heavy fine (like $25k). […]

The last piece of the FAA’s Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC) system, which allows “near real-time processing of airspace authorizations” for drone operators, went live last week, according to a statement made by FAA Acting Administrator Dan Elwell. LAANC was rolled out incrementally by region, beginning with the south central U.S. at the […]

It seems likely legislators will miss a Sept. 30 deadline to pass an FAA reauthorization bill but they may not require yet another short-term extension. The Senate sent its suggested revisions of the House version of the bill back to the House for consideration last week. But the House is adjourned all next week and […]

A man whose pilot certificate was revoked 21 years ago for lying on his medical application was the presumed pilot of a Cessna 335 high performance twin that crashed near Palm Beach County Park Airport a week ago, killing him and his wife. Philip Castronova, 70, and his wife Mandy, 39, were on their way […]

Canadian researchers say they have debunked the long-held belief that facial hair interferes with the seal on pilot oxygen masks and at least one airline has lifted its decades-old beard ban. Air Canada, which commissioned the Simon Fraser University (Vancouver) study, says its pilots can now sport beards “to a maximum length of 12.5 millimeters […]

The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) says that its Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certification (MOSAIC) rulemaking initiative has made substantial progress after a meeting with FAA officials in Washington, D.C., earlier this week. EAA also met with the FAA during AirVenture to discuss MOSAIC, which is designed to “relieve builders of well-proven homebuilts of some of […]

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 […]

The FAA’s Piston Aviation Fuels Initiative (PAFI) will resume testing a possible unleaded replacement for avgas this fall, according to AOPA. The FAA suspended most PAFI testing operations in June to assess issues related to the differences between 100LL and the two unleaded test fuels—one developed by Shell and one by Swift Fuels. That announcement […]

In the last two years, 596 aircraft in the U.S. landed or almost landed on the wrong runway or wrong airport, and 85 percent of those events involved general aviation aircraft, according to the FAA. At a recent Safety Summit held in Leesburg, Virginia, the FAA said these types of incidents are one of the […]

Bloomberg is reporting that Pratt & Whitney has been quietly assessing excessive vibration in its new-design geared turbofan engines in the latest of a string of teething problems with the fuel-sipping design. Bloomberg says a vibration issue has caused cockpit alerts in A320neos that have been delivered to airlines all over the world. Pratt told […]