News

The FAA will issue a Notam on Thursday that will essentially exempt general aviation aircraft operators from an ADS-B preflight requirement when the ADS-B mandate kicks in next January. The Notam specifically exempts ADS-B Out transmitters that use WAAS GPS receivers as a position source from the preflight requirement described in an FAA policy statement […]

There appears to be widespread agreement that the Boeing 737 MAX won’t return to service until at least the early part of 2020 as regulators and the company struggle to come up with solutions to a variety of problems that have been flagged in the process to make the aircraft airworthy. United and American Airlines […]

The bane of search and rescue personnel is the unintentional ELT activation but officials in Portland had to admit they were intrigued with the result of a three-day search for a bogus signal earlier this year. They found their quarry in the rafters of a brew pub after the ELT in a 50-year-old Canadian-registered Cessna […]

The first airplane some new Air Force pilots will fly might be a Pipistrel Alpha trainer. The first cohort of 20 potential pilots, all of them either about to become USAF officers or freshly commissioned, completed a course that led to 17 them soloing the light sport aircraft. The new program, called the Aviation-Character-Education (ACE) […]

A new issue with the Boeing 737 MAX autopilot has emerged in the European Aviation Safety Agency’s bottom-line position on returning the airliner to service. Bloomberg, citing an unnamed source, is reporting EASA listed five major issues that need resolution and four of those have been widely discussed publicly. But the European regulator has also […]

The International Civil Aviation Organization will hold meetings in Montreal next week to review pilot licensing requirements. ICAO officials said the meeting was organized to review whether current training standards are relevant for pilots of modern highly automated airliners. “Recently, with current events, people are discussing whether the minimum requirements or experience are still valid, […]

The European Aviation Safety Agency has issued a “special condition” for the certification of eVTOL aircraft up to a maximum takeoff weight of 7,000 pounds carrying up to nine passengers. The two-tiered regulation on so-called “small” eVTOLs is described by EASA as a “first building block” to integration of hybrid and electric VTOL aircraft that […]

A spokesman for the union that represents some of the workers who build Boeing airplanes claims the company’s shift to a “cost-cutting” corporate culture has isolated employees, alienated suppliers and customers and ultimately underlies the problems it’s having with its current airplanes, including the 737 MAX. Stan Sorscher, of the Society for Professional Engineering Employees […]

uAvionix has received technical standard order (TSO) authorization for its tailBeacon ADS-B Out system that could offer a last-minute solution for GA operators who haven’t yet complied with the Jan. 1, 2020, mandate. The tailBeacon could replace the rear position light on dozens of light aircraft types and includes an integrated complying GPS, barometric altitude […]

Some Cessna 177 and 210 owners will need an immediate inspection of the spar that holds their wings on after Textron reported potential corrosion and subsequent cracking problems on some aircraft. The company issued a mandatory service letter requiring inspection and repair of the carry-thru spar on the aircraft. The spar is a main structural […]