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Lobbying For GA Relief… As the FAA’s latest funding bill wends its way through the torturous twists and turns of Congress, amid much noisy debate over privatization issues, another item affecting GA is embedded in the legislation: cash relief to businesses affected by 9/11 and its aftermath. In its latest incarnation, the bill includes $100 […]

On The Ground, And In The Air Sunday, Southern California wildfires merged into a miles-long conflagration in the suburbs of San Diego. By early evening yesterday, 11 people were dead, 650 homes were lost, the FAA’s Southern California Terminal Radar Approach Control center at MCAS Miramar had been evacuated, and San Bernardino International Airport had […]

Johnson said there’s nothing new about huge parachutes being used for big, heavy things like airliners. The space shuttle’s solid rocket boosters weigh more than a Boeing 737 and are recovered with parachutes. Tanks and other military hardware are also dropped safely. Johnson said applying the bizjet technology to airliners is a logical next step […]

BRS Says “Why Not?”… Ballistic Recovery Systems (BRS) says the work it’s doing on emergency parachutes for light jets could one day put a canopy over some airliners. Vice President Dan Johnson said BRS, best known for the chute it developed for Cirrus, has a NASA contract to develop a system that would handle the […]

Perhaps the most unconventional of the so-called personal jets hasn’t left the drawing board yet but those attending the National Business Aircraft Association convention earlier this month got to “fly” Aviation Technology Group’s Javelin. The two-seat twinjet looks (and may perform) more like a fighter than a bizjet but its proponents claim there’s no better […]

As Sino Swearingen launched a new test aircraft, Eclipse Aviation announced it was retiring its first test aircraft, which has told them all it can about the low- and medium-speed handling of the Eclipse 500. The test plane flew a total of 54 hours in 55 flights using a pair of Continental target drone engines […]

Sino Swearingen Replaces Lost Test Aircraft… Actions speak louder than rumors and if there was any question Sino Swearingen would survive the tragic loss of its chief test pilot and an aircraft, the company appears to have answered it with an even more determined development effort. The San Antonio, Texas, firm announced this week that […]

Of course, the soft market for bizjets gets most of the blame for this latest consolidation. With order books gathering dust, industry analysts say the only way for the companies to survive is to trim their operations. “They’re desperate to cut costs and rightly so,” consultant Richard Aboulafia told The Wichita Eagle. Employees at the […]

Bombardier “Streamlines”… Bombardier is streamlining its business jet operations in a series of moves that will affect 1,150 jobs in the U.S. The Canadian-owned company announced last week it is moving production of the Challenger 300 from its Wichita plant to Montreal, where other models of the Challenger are made. The Wichita facility will continue […]

Despite the high-level deal-making, political intrigue and Capitol Hill name-calling the issue has precipitated, the FAA continues to maintain that it has no plans to privatize any of the towers. Communications Director Greg Martin told AVweb the agency just wants to keep the option open in case operational conditions require it. “The FAA wants to […]