Flight Safety

UPDATED: An Air National Guard WC-130 Hercules crashed near the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport (SAV) in Savannah, Georgia, on Wednesday. It has been confirmed that there were nine people onboard, all of whom were killed in the accident. A press release from the National Guard 165th Airlift Wing stated that the aircraft was on training […]

Build A Plane, the nonprofit that offers kids a chance to restore an airplane using donated aircraft, now is expanding into rocketry, and with help from a major unnamed donor, recently bought up the assets of XCOR, the bankrupt company that had been working to build the Lynx spaceplane, for $1.1 million. “Our donor heard […]

The rollout of the FAA’s streamlined low-altitude airspace approval for drones rolled out this week with few hiccups, according to an FAA official at the AUVSI XPONENTIAL show in Denver. Wider deployment is expected later this year. The program is called Low Altitude Authorization Notification Capability—LAANC—and is the product of a cooperative effort between the […]

Vashon Aircraft wants to revolutionize light aircraft manufacture with the Vashon Ranger, an all-metal light sport aircraft intended to be both a sort of RV for outback flying and a trainer. In this AVweb video, Paul Bertorelli dives deep into the Vashon story, including an in-depth report on the factory. view on YouTube

A new FAA Airworthiness Directive responding to the recent engine failure on a Southwest 737 will require initial and repetitive inspections of the fan blades in CFM56-7B engines, based on the accumulated fan-blade cycles, the FAA said on Tuesday. The AD (PDF), scheduled to be published on Wednesday, aims to “address the risk of fan-blade […]

It’s a small step, but the Transportation Department on Monday took what could be the first move toward allowing the widespread commercial use of drones to transport cargo, and eventually, passengers as well. The DOT—the parent of the FAA—published a “notification of procedures” (PDF) on Monday stating that it will provide “certificate or exemption authority” […]

As drones multiply, as they are expected to do, incidents of GPS (or GNSS) jamming and spoofing are expected to rise in concert during the next decade. That poses not just a threat of loss of the vehicles, but also to nearby aircraft and unaware people on the ground, according to Jeremy Bennington of Spirent, […]

Richard L. Collins, well-known author of books about aviation and longtime editor-in-chief at Flying magazine, died on Sunday at his home in Maryland. Collins began his journalism career working on Air Facts, a magazine founded by his father, Leighton Collins. He began writing for Flyingin 1968 and became editor-in-chief in 1977. He also worked at […]

Last week the FAA released a notice regarding changes in policy regarding testing applicants for a commercial pilot or flight instructor certificate. The notice states that it is no longer required for applicants for a “commercial pilot certificate with an airplane single-engine rating to provide a complex or turbine-powered airplane for the associated practical test […]