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Masters of Disaster Rock The House… Speaking of different, awesome and amazing (choose your adjective), AirVenture 2004 visitors have been willing spectators to an airshow routine that can only be described as NASCAR on steroids with (intentional) explosions. In August of 2002, airshow veterans Jimmy Franklin, Jim LeRoy, and Bobby Younkin came up with a […]

Rutan said his plans are in place to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize in early October. He will launch on Septermber 29, and fly again five days later, allowing enough time to make three attempts if necessary within the required two-week time frame. The X Prize Foundation is selling tickets to the event […]

Rutan Road Show… Aircraft designer Burt Rutan and his lead astronaut, Mike Melvill, arrived on the field Thursday in a Beech Starship, and drew an overflow crowd that night to AirVenture’s Theater in the Woods, where they showed for the first time the cockpit video from Melvill’s SpaceShipOne flight in June. The two told the […]

Meanwhile, GAMA is calling the miserable slump the industry has experienced over the past two years, “over.” Although piston sales dropped by about four percent overall (again, likely attributable to the G1000 certification issue) GAMA President Ed Bolen said all segments should end the year on the plus side. “The recovery is well under way […]

Edges Cessna In Second Quarter Sales Alan Klapmeier is the first to admit it’s probably a temporary thing (there are significant technicalities involved), but the CEO of Cirrus Design also doesn’t mind enjoying the distinction of running the top selling GA aircraft company in the world. Cirrus knocked off Cessna for top spot in sales […]

While it used to be the conventional wisdom that if you build it, they will come, the sport aviation industry isn’t buying it … they are already hard at work behind the scenes to develop a marketing plan to let the “great unwashed” know all about sport flying. “Preaching to the choir just won’t get […]

Within a few weeks, all flight-school operators will be required to take an online tutorial developed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Security Specialist Steven Calabro told AVweb yesterday at Oshkosh. The tutorial, called “Flight School Security Awareness,” is on display at the TSA’s booth in the Federal Pavilion. “It will go online in about […]

Perhaps the only significant news out of the VLJ market in recent weeks were the initial flights of Aerocomp’s CompAir Jet. The eight-passenger, single engine kit jet first flew on July 21 and is, shall we say, a more grass-roots approach to the market. “I’d never flown a jet before,” said test pilot Ron Lueck. […]

While the VLJ market generated a lot of excitement at last year’s AirVenture, the various companies are having search for “news” to talk about this year. Eclipse’s news conference was called to unveil the four interior design schemes being offered on the 500. Adam Aircraft, which stole last year’s show by flying the prototype A700 […]

Will The Big Boys Join In? The CEO of Eclipse says he wouldn’t be surprised to see some heavy hitters in the industry join the fun. Vern Raburn, the affable and voluble head of Eclipse Aviation told AVweb he’s heard that Brazil’s Embraer, Europe’s Airbus and even the grandaddy of them all, Boeing, are poking […]