News

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 […]

Owners of Garmin weatherlink-capable portable navigators found themselves flying blind over the weekend because of an as-yet-to-be diagnosed technical fault that may be days away from a solution. Spokespersons for both Garmin and WxWorx, which massages the weather data for delivery through the XM Radio system, told AVweb on Monday morning that no one seems […]

It outlasted the Second World War and survived 40 years on the bottom of the Pacific but a heavy snowfall has felled the last remaining Handley Page Hampden bomber. Volunteers at the Canadian Museum of Flight in Langley, British Columbia, are appealing for help to put the little-known but historically significant aircraft back together again […]

The NTSB has released its preliminary report on the Piper Turbo Saratoga crash on approach to Akron-Canton airport Dec. 19, 2008, that killed Michael Connell, Republican media consultant and chief IT consultant for Karl Rove. The crash ignited the minds of conspiracy theorists aware that Connell had been subpoenaed for expert testimony regarding alleged electronic […]

Cirrus Design Corp. begins production Monday after a month-long winter hibernation prompted by slow sales. The company’s awakening means 500 furloughed employees will gradually be recalled and that means suppliers will soon be stirring in their dens as well. The ramp-up is not expected to be light-switch quick, but rather will take some time. Cirrus […]

On Dec. 31, 2008, Phil Boyer stepped down as AOPA’s third president and handed the reins of the general aviation advocacy group to incoming president, Craig Fuller, who spoke of the challenges and opportunities he sees ahead. Fuller has already met with the Obama administration’s transition team and written the incoming president to express AOPA’s […]

Currently sitting on more than five years worth of unfilled orders, both Airbus and Boeing may hope that backlog could carry them through even a moderately prolonged economic slump, but orders on paper don’t always become flying aircraft and at least one analyst sees much less certainty than the order books suggest. The Teal Group’s […]

Twenty years in development, the new geared turbofan engine from Pratt & Whitney is currently nearing the completion of tests and the company sees big things in its future. The engine is designed to cut fuel burn by 12 percent, compared to the most modern engines currently available, and should be scalable. “We see the […]