News

As his administration prepares to leave office, President George W. Bush on Tuesday announced that he intends to designate Lynne A. Osmus, of Virginia, to be acting administrator of the FAA, effective Jan. 16. The choice was revealed without fanfare near the end of a long list of new designees and appointments to a range […]

Plenty of student pilots and instructors have spent hours of ground time amusing themselves with flight simulator software, but the programs are not generally used as actual training aids. But some researchers at Middle Tennessee State University are working on a study to evaluate the effectiveness of Microsoft Flight Simulator in private pilot training. One […]

General aviation got some positive press last Friday when the NBC Nightly News aired a segment about Pilots-N-Paws, an outfit based in South Carolina that helps transport dogs from overcrowded shelters to places where they can be cared for in temporary housing or placed in new homes. The year-old organization doesn’t actually arrange the flights, […]

Cirrus Design will hold a mandatory staff meeting on Thursday to discuss the company’s state of affairs. WDIO TV is reporting that “major staffing changes” are in store for the company, which, like virtually all aircraft manufacturers, is seeing sales drop in the current economic crisis. The TV station quotes vice president of business administration […]

The Transportation Security Administration was urged Tuesday not to apply a one-size-fits-all approach to aircraft security by essentially transferring measures used for airline security to business aviation. The first of a series of public hearings into the Large Aircraft Security Program being proposed by the TSA was held in White Plains, New York and National […]

Cessna is warning its workers to brace for another round of layoffs as the deepening financial crises puts the brakes on aircraft orders. The Wichita Business Journal says Cessna spokesman Doug Oliver confirmed earlier reports that Cessna CEO Jack Pelton had sent an e-mail to employees saying the company’s production schedule was being changed in […]

Although a new commercial airport due to open soon in Branson, Mo., will be privately run, and hundreds of small GA airfields are operated by private owners, efforts to convert existing government-run airports in the U.S. to private management have met resistance. Since 1997, only six airport operators have applied to an FAA program to […]

Last week, analyst Richard Aboulafia predicted Boeing and Airbus’s production backlogs would largely evaporate as airlines grapple with the various crises before them, and now another industry-watcher is predicting the same in the business jet market. Brian Foley, who runs his own consultancy firm in New Jersey, said in a news release that much of […]

The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, a historic outfit known around the world for providing health care and transport to patients in remote regions since the 1930s, now faces a uniquely 21st-century problem — the obesity epidemic. Stretchers on new aircraft for air ambulance service in Australia are now required to handle patients weighing […]

Superior Air Parts says it’s continuing to fill and ship orders following its bankruptcy filing of last week and the acquisition of most of its assets by Textron Lycoming. Superior’s Kent Abercrombie told AVweb this week that although the company laid off staff following its Dec. 31 bankruptcy filing, it is maintaining sufficient staff to […]