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Safest GA Plane Ever?… It’s not uncommon for superlatives to be flying when a new airplane is certified but Liberty Aerospace spokesman Mike Fabianac says the FAA has bestowed a coveted title on the company’s new XL2. “Their primary concern is safety and they told us this is going to be the safest GA airplane […]

The soon-to-be-created Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) class will not be affected by the rule. EAA spokesman Earl Lawrence explained that Light Sport Aircraft will not go through the regular certification process, even though they will be delivered as complete aircraft. Because the NPRM specifically includes only type certificate and supplementary type certificate applications, LSA aircraft […]

The FAA insists only the eardrums of airport neighbors, and not the flying public, manufacturers or aircraft modifiers, will be affected by the rule. “The FAA believes that this proposed rule would impose minimal, if any, costs on supplemental type certificate applicants and would impose no cost on type certificate applicants, because airplanes in current […]

“New” Reg Is Old News… Sometimes a regulation sits in the FAA’s in-basket for so long that when they finally get around to issuing it, it looks new again. Such might be the case with the FAA’s Noise Stringency Increase for Single-Engine Propeller-Driven Small Airplanes, which will amend Part 36 to cut the allowable takeoff […]

But while the training gives a pilot’s mental ammunition a workout, there are, of course, practical lessons in how best to put the 9-mm Heckler and Koch semiautomatic to use in saving an airplane full of people — and maybe hundreds or thousands on the ground. Trainees learn hand-to-hand combat (moves designed specifically for the […]

A Focus On Decision-Making… Since the debate over arming airline and, finally, cargo pilots began two years ago, the focus has been on the gun. Where it’s kept, how it’s carried, who gets to have one. But when approved pilots finally get to a remote federal training center in New Mexico to become Federal Flight […]

Honda America spokesman Jeffrey Smith told the Dayton Daily News the current market for mini-jets (most of which will be employed as air taxis) is about 150 to 200 planes a year, rising toward 250 units a year over the next decade. However, Cessna spokeswoman Jessica Meyers said she’s not aware of any contact between […]

As significant as the competitive aspects of the deal are, the announcement also helps to validate the somewhat speculative nature of the mini-jet market. There’s more than opportunism at work in Honda’s official entry to the aviation market. According to Honda CEO Takeo Fukui, it was the dream of company founder Soichiro Honda to build […]

Corporate Powerhouses Join Forces… The light-jet engine market is becoming almost as crowded as the mini-jet market itself. The collaborative effort of General Electric and Honda (which flew its own aircraft in November) to produce and market the HF 118 turbofan with a thrust rating in the mid-teens (the prototype is 1650 pounds but engines […]

HEADING 3 HERE The NPRM resulted in so many public comments (1535 to date) that the FAA extended the comment period to April 19. AOPA demanded public meetings, but the FAA said it couldn’t afford the traveling road show required to hear from all affected operators. So, it proposed something called the “virtual public meeting” […]