Flight Safety

All three students taking part in Redbird Flight Simulations’ One Week Ready To Solo campaign at Sun ‘n Fun are slated to fly their supervised solo flights Saturday morning. Nik Osterman, Chris Graves and Sherry Rosenkranz, all zero-time beginners, started daily training just before the show. So far so good; they will have completed their […]

Textron Aviation will provide Cessna Skyhawk 172s to four universities this year and offer internships with a new program, Top Hawk. The initial partners announced include Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Kansas State University, Liberty University and the University of North Dakota. Under the program, Cessna will provide a Skyhawk for the remainder of 2015 for the […]

The turbocharger is a useful part of a pilot’s toolbag. When flying an airplane with one installed, it can increase our rate of climb, boost our groundspeed and lift us above a lot of the weather. It also can be used to pressurize the airplane’s cabin, allowing us to enjoy a shirtsleeve environment in the […]

Pilots should be extra-vigilant when doing preflight inspections prior to a first flight after maintenance work, the NTSB says, and this week the board released a 14-minute video on the topic. The video also addresses the crucial role of mechanics in ensuring that an aircraft’s flight-control system is rigged correctly after maintenance is done. The […]

A ballistic parachute from an ultralight that had been collected as part of a spring clean-up exploded as a public-works employee was sorting materials, causing injuries to his hand, a Pennsylvania newspaper reported this week. The 25-year-old worker, in New Garden Township, suffered a “serious but non-life-threatening injury to his left hand” on Monday, according […]

California-based FlyThisSim (FTS) was the first company to develop and manufacture an FAA-approved, touchscreen basic aviation training device (BATD). Its latest TouchTrainer can instantly switch between multiple aircraft with a wide variety of avionics systems and is also available as a Robinson R44 helicopter simulator. Aviation Consumereditor Larry Anglisano flew the devices at Sun ‘n […]

The FAA is exploring the idea, and the small airplane groups are gathering the information. AVweb’s Russ Niles spoke with Dan Johnson of the Light Aircraft Manufacturers Association (LAMA) at Sun ‘n Fun 2015. Duration: 5:35 File Size: 5.1 MB download here

In a low-key event at Sun ‘n Fun’s opening day Tuesday, Mooney took the cover off a mock-up of its new M20T proposed training aircraft. Although it was developed in Mooney’s new facility in Chino, California, the airplane first saw the light of day last fall in the big Chinese aviation trade show in Zhuhai. […]

Purdue University announced plans on Tuesday to create a 980-acre aerospace research facility in West Lafayette, Indiana. “This district will be a game-changer for our students and Purdue’s outreach efforts to partnering corporations,” said Dan Hasler, president of Purdue Research Foundation. “We are looking for research collaborators to complement the commercial and industrial aerospace work […]

A twin-engine Swearingen Merlin III that crashed last week in the mountains near Vancouver may have broken up in flight, officials have said. The aircraft, which was carrying cargo, was flown by a two-pilot crew. “The radar track showed a very steep descent,” Bill Yearwood, an investigator with Canada’s Transportation Safety Board, told reporters last […]