Flight Safety

I spent a good portion of January conducting interviews and research for a major print piece on electric aircraft to appear in the March issue of Aviation Consumer. My impression is that there’s as much going on in this field beneath the surface as there are known projects. Expect to learn more in 2016. Last […]

If you own a drone that weighs more than 0.55 pounds and less than 55 pounds, and you fly it outdoors, you are required to register it in the FAA’s registry by this Friday. “Besides being required by law, registration provides an excellent opportunity to educate yourself if you are new to aviation, and it […]

Viking, a Canadian company that has been building brand-new Twin Otters for a few years now, this week introduced a new variation, the 400S Seaplane, at the Singapore Airshow. While the twin was previously available with optional floats, the 400S is optimized for water-based operations, with corrosion-resistant packages for the airframe, powerplant and fuel system. […]

For the world’s scheduled airlines, 2015 “was an extraordinarily safe year,” according to an analysis issued today by the International Air Transport Association, based in Montreal. However, the world was “shocked and horrified” by two deliberate acts that caused the loss of two airplanes and all 374 on board — Germanwings 9525 and Metrojet 9268. […]

Phoenix approach asked a GA aircraft:“N1234, how far are you from your present position?” They were greeted with silence. Randy Richmond

A flight simulator enthusiast has answered the question that lingers in the back of the minds of non-pilots everywhere with a video and a fairly detailed narrative he calls How to Land a 737 (Nervous Passenger Edition). Tim Morgan answered a question from a reader of Quora, a popular Q&A site, who wanted to know […]

A 30-year-old man is in jail after causing up to $30,000 worth of damage to a former military aircraft that he thought belonged to Microsoft founding partner Paul Allen. The man was spotted inside the fence at Arlington Municipal Airport, north of Seattle, allegedly breaking pieces off the exterior of a Dornier Alpha Jet, a […]

With the exception of tiny squiggles up and down, the general aviation fatal accident rate remains stubbornly at about 1.0/100,000 hours. That’s down a little from a decade ago, when it was 1.28 and down a lot from the early to mid-1970s, when it was more than 2.0. In GA, we tend to resist the […]

Despite some eyewitness reports, including one from a longtime pilot, it’s still not clear what led to the crash of a law-enforcement version of a Flight Design light sport aircraft in California last week. Sheriff’s Deputy Scott Ballantyne, 52, and James Chavez, 45, a pilot for the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office, died when the specially […]

The controversial FAA reauthorization bill that would privatize air traffic control services made it out of a House committee Thursday in a 32-26 vote that almost followed partisan lines but there will be much more debate and it’s still not clear what’s on the Senate’s collective mind. Bill 4441, the Aircraft Innovation Reform and Reauthorization […]