FAA and Regs

The effort now underway in Congress to privatize the air traffic control system would be a disaster for general aviation, according to Mark Baker, the president of AOPA. In a podcast interview this week, Baker told AVweb that July is a critical time for aviators to lobby their congressional representatives, if they agree with AOPA’s […]

Mahindra Aerospace has successfully certified its turboprop 10-passenger GA10 Airvan utility aircraft but hasn’t been crowing about it. The FAA accepted the certification May 19, the same day it was certified in Australia and word is only getting out now because of third-party interest in the design. Although the program has been reportedly owned by […]

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved a proposal on Tuesday to separate air traffic control from the FAA and transfer to it a nonprofit corporation over three years, according to a report in The Hill. The bill would create a board of directors with the power to impose user fees; however, general aviation users […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s web site at www.ntsb.gov. Final […]

Every year for the last 39 years, the FAA has conducted a survey to help estimate the level of general aviation activity. Scott Wagner works for TetraTech, the independent research firm that collects the data. “We’re interested in activities for general aviation and Part 135 aircraft,” he told AVweb this week. “We take a sample […]

The House bill to reauthorize the FAA for the 2018 fiscal year—starting Oct. 1—includes ATC privatization, as most general aviation groups had feared. AOPA, EAA, GAMA, NATA, Helicopter Association International and NBAA released a joint statement opposing the bill: “After a thorough and detailed review of Chairman Bill Shuster’s (R-Pa.) proposal to remove our nation’s […]

Air traffic controllers have quite a few options for saying one simple thing: “Turn your airplane.” Each vectoring method, like a hammer or a pair of pliers, is a specialized tool designed to fit a particular situation. As you fly, you may hear a variety of vectoring radio phraseology on a daily basis. Like many […]

“Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.” – Oscar Wilde I can’t think of a better lead in for the latest round of polling that indicates—surprise—the general public opposes the idea of privatizing air traffic control. The latest run at plumbing public sentiment on this topic was […]

The U.S.’s busiest FAA flight examiner was remembered as a generous, humble man whose love of aviation knew no bounds. Services were held last week at Madison County Executive Airport near Huntsville, Alabama, for Clyde Harold Shelton, who died after a brief illness at the age of 86. He stopped flying last Nov. 30, having […]

An identical companion bill to the FLIGHT Act introduced earlier this month by Senators Inhofe and Duckworth has been introduced in the House by Representatives Graves and Bustos. With bipartisan support in both houses of Congress, the bill’s odds of becoming law improve markedly, but will still require the support of Republican leadership to advance […]