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Both AOPA and EAA are lobbying Congress to exempt aviation gasoline from two proposed amendments to the Clean Air Act. The bills propose making it mandatory for all motor vehicle gasolines (with a few exceptions for collector cars) to contain at least 10 percent “renewable fuels” by 2010. About the only viable alternative fuel now […]

AVweb always pulls out all the stops for its coverage of AirVenture and this year we’ve added a new dimension to our coverage. In addition to our four complete AvwebFlash and NewsWire editions from Oshkosh (Monday, July 24; Wednesday, July 26; Friday, July 28; and our wrap-up on Monday, July 31) we’re producing three in-depth […]

Meanwhile, the NTSB says that earlier fixes aimed at preventing sparks from igniting vapors in aircraft fuel tanks don’t work. In a news release last week, the board said the wing tank of a Transmile Boeing 727 exploded even though it had been properly fitted with electrical shields designed to prevent the electrical arcing that […]

Although UPS has so far declined to confirm just what was on board the DC-8, the NTSB probe is looking at whether lithium ion batteries, of the type used to power laptop computers, might have caused the fire. Although problems are statistically rare (339 battery-related fires out of the tens of millions of batteries in […]

Groups representing cargo pilots are calling on the FAA to give fire safety the same priority on cargo aircraft as in passenger planes. During a two-day hearing into the fire that destroyed a UPS DC-8 just after it landed in Philadelphia last February, Shannon Jipsen, a UPS pilot and official with the Independent Pilots Association, […]

The fact that owners of standard category aircraft are actively campaigning to have their planes included in the LSA movement is an indication that naysayers who predicted LSA/Sport Pilot would attract the same level of interest as the recreational certificate (virtually nil) may be looking up crow recipes. By all accounts the new category, initially […]

The FAA has turned down a request by the International Cessna 120/140 Association to allow certain modified versions of the singles to be flown under the rules governing light sport aircraft (LSA). The popular taildraggers, in normal configuration, have a gross weight of 1450 pounds, 130 pounds heavier than the maximum of 1320 pounds allowed […]

Diamond also used the event to unveil a jazzed-up version of the DA40 that might be a competitor for the likes of Cirrus, Mooney and maybe Columbia (if you don’t mind going slower with Diamond). With a Powerflow exhaust and a new composite three-bladed Scimitar prop, Diamond’s been able to coax a maximum speed of […]

Diamond Aircraft announced Sunday that its D-Jet personal jet will have an introductory price of $1.38 million — 40 percent more than the $850,000 figure that was named when the plane first went into development. Company officials also told reporters attending the annual Diamondfest at the company’s North American headquarters in London Ontario, Canada, that […]

For DeLaurier, a recently retired professor, the quest to fly the ornithopter took 30 years. “I hadn’t planned on this taking most of my career, but I don’t regret it,” DeLaurier told The Star. “It has been exciting and interesting. Also it’s been a worthy project, a worthy quest. You know that age-old saying: ‘What’s […]