Flight Safety

The FAA has updated its policy on experimental-amateur built (E-AB) aircraft to allow pilots who build their own airplanes to bring along a qualified additional pilot on their initial test flights, EAA said on Monday. “This policy change comes after years of data suggesting that the most accidents in the E-AB fleet occur in aircraft […]

After watching FAA administrator Michael Huerta interviewed on network news last night, I felt so much better. For all the administrators I’ve covered in some way, and that’s about nine, he is absolutely the most skilled at giving polished, content-free answers and he doles these out not just to us ink-stained wretches in the GA […]

Following a fire that knocked out ATC equipment at a facility in Aurora, Illinois, on Friday, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said on Monday the agency will conduct a 30-day review of its contingency plans and security protocols to be sure they address system efficiency as well as safety. “I do understand the traveling public’s frustrations,” […]

I was arriving in the Washington, D.C., area with a destination of Manassas Regional in Virginia. There was a mid-morning thunderstorm that was causing aircraft, including Air Force One, to request deviations when I heard the following. After being denied a 20-degree deviation to the right to avoid weather and given an alternative of 30 […]

Capacity is steadily increasing at airports affected by the sabotage of critical communications equipment at Chicago Center on Friday. As of late Sunday (PDF), the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said 72 flights per hour were getting into O’Hare International Airport and departure delays of 15 minutes in the afternoon were expected to increase to […]

The pilot of Searey homebuilt that was in a mid-air collision with Cessna 172 during a Young Eagles event in western New York said his training kicked in after the two aircraft hit.”I just knew I had to keep flying the plane,” Kevin D’Angelo told a news conference. “As a pilot you train over and […]

Air traffic was slowly returning to normal late Friday after an early-morning arson fire at the FAA Chicago Air Route Traffic Control Center (Chicago Center) facility in Aurora, Illinois, affected at least 1,950 flights. Chicago Center handles IFR traffic over some or all of the states of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. As of […]

As we reported Tuesday, the FAA has taken the first steps to allow commercial use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in what it referred to as the National Airspace System by granting limited exemptions from the Federal Aviation Regulations to six aerial photo and video production companies to use UAS below 400 feet AGL on […]

AVweb’s weekly search of the latest developments in aviation uncovered news of the all-electric Sun Flyer’s flight tests, Sporty’s new ATP training course, two new vice presidents at Cirrus and a free trial of Aspen Avionics’s synthetic vision product.SunAero Electric Aircraft Corp. has entered the next phase of development for its high tech solar-electric training […]

It’s getting to be that time of year-the leaf-peeping flights are beginning in the far north and the high country, as are associated fly-ins and poker runs. Thanks to SocialFlight, we found out about the first of the fall color fly-ins, two poker runs and a fly-in dedicated to the “Grasshoppers” of World War II. […]