News

The first three quarters of 2008 showed 2,977 aircraft shipped compared to 2,918 shipped over the same period last year, but those 59 extra airplanes made a big difference. The 2 percent increase in the total number of shipments accounts for a $3.1 billion (or 20 percent) increase over the value represented by last year’s […]

Albuquerque television station KOB is reporting that Eclipse Aviation failed to meet its payroll for the first two weeks of this month and that at least some employees have “emptied their desks and left.” Eclipse public relations manager Alana McCarraher did not immediately respond to two voicemails and an email request for comment from AVweb. […]

photo: EAA Jerry Smith Jerry Smith, regional sales manager for the Garmin’s aviation division in the south and central U.S., died on Tuesday in an accident, while piloting his personal airplane on business. Smith was flying his Cessna Cardinal 177 when he crashed near Rich Mountain, in Mena, Ark. He was a commercial pilot with […]

While many general aviation manufacturers are cutting back and laying off to cope with the economic downturn, China’s Aviation Industry Corp (AVIC) said recently it is in the market to buy up a foreign GA manufacturer, to boost its own technological capabilities. The deal is already in the discussion phase and is expected to close […]

A lot of things will be happening in Washington, D.C., over the next two months, and AOPA said this week that one of those things will probably be a final rule making the D.C. Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) a permanent fixture. The Bush administration is set on pushing the rule through before they leave […]

Airworthy B-17 bombers are rare birds indeed, and one of the few that remain is now in danger of becoming homeless. Texas Raiders, a B-17 owned by the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) Gulf Coast Wing at Houston Hobby Airport, lives in a hangar whose owner has decided not to renew the lease when it expires […]

ince we wrote about ChartGeek in this week’s AVwebBiz, we’ve heard from an AVweb reader who uses a site called RunwayFinder.com, also based on Google Maps. This site doesn’t have the cool 3-D graphics that ChartGeek has developed, but it’s free to all comers. Pilots can zoom in to an airport and check out the […]

The NTSB will hear from the full spectrum of personnel involved in emergency medical services using helicopters at a three-day public hearing planned for its headquarters in Washington Feb 3-9. In 2006, the NTSB issued a special investigation report that found that more than half of all EMS accidents (41 helicopter and 14 airplane) in […]

It’s not just airframers feeling the pinch from the current economic situation. Avionics giant Rockwell Collins has announced the layoff of 300 employees in operations and the termination of 100 contract employees, most of them in engineering. “Like many other companies, we’re dealing with significant challenges in meeting our business objectives,” CEO Clay Jones said […]

Dassault Falcon will build a nearly 40,000-square-foot West Coast service center at Reno-Tahoe International Airport to handle an uptick in business from North America for its aircraft. “The western United States has experienced a sharp increase in demand for new Falcons over the past five years,” CEO John Rosanvallon said in a news release. “This […]