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S-LSAs Arrive On Market In Lakeland, Fla., this week, aviators are gathering for Sun ‘n Fun, and the FAA is making the most of it by getting past a huge bump on the rocky road to light sport aviation — as of Friday, manufacturers that build fixed-wing airplanes can now get airworthiness certificates for them […]

One route to building the Sport Pilot numbers is to convert pilots who now fly ultralights. EAA said Tuesday it has developed an inexpensive new kit to help with that transition. The all-inclusive kit sells for under $20 and helps guide an owner through converting an ultralight aircraft to the experimental light-sport aircraft (E-LSA) category. […]

While the technical committees work on getting the aircraft OK’d to fly, gaggles of marketing types are working equally hard to make sure the public is ready to buy them when they do. EAA has announced a partnership with Sportsplanes.com to promote sport flying. Josh Foss, president of Sportsplanes.com, is working to establish a nationwide […]

So Close, And (Maybe Not) So Far When the new Sport Pilot rules were announced last summer at Oshkosh, many saw Sun ‘n Fun as the next crucial waypoint in the implementation of the rule. With that annual Florida event less than a week away (April 12-18), the sport aviation world is gearing up to […]

That’s not to say that cities aren’t still threatening to shut down airports, if they think there’s profit in it. In Rialto, Calif., on the far western edge of the Los Angeles metro region, a new highway bypass is spiking property values, and the city is looking for ways for close its GA airport and […]

Among the latest to feel the squeeze is Gibbs Air Service, a venerable FBO at Montgomery Field, a municipal airport in San Diego. The FBO is operated by Buzz Gibbs, whose father started the airfield back in 1937 (the field was later acquired by the city); it provides hangar space, a flight school, fuel and […]

Props Seen As Occupying Valuable Space A new threat to GA airports is appearing more and more frequently, and it’s a twist on the old familiar story of residents moving in, deciding they don’t like the airport noise and turning the field into a subdivision. Instead, those same residents seem to be realizing that a […]

Another Effort To Open DCA To GA Legislation that would re-open Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) to GA aircraft was introduced yesterday in the U.S. House, the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) told AVweb last night. It’s not the first bill to make that attempt. But this bill was introduced by the leaders of […]

While U.S. officials celebrated an improving safety record, a couple of Aero Kenya pilots were actively contributing to improving their country’s stats. Capt. Kai Tinga and First Officer Mary Mukulu performed two emergency landings (one as a reaction to an onboard fire) in less than two weeks, but we won’t likely get to hear about […]

The broader picture seems to be following the same pattern, although one airliner accident is enough to skew the stats in the commercial category. Fortunately, there have been no crashes of large passenger airliners in the U.S. since 2001. In 2004, there was a single Part 121 accident involving an American Connection Jetstream 32 turboprop […]