News

Almost twice as many light sport aircraft were sold in 2007 as in 2006, according to numbers compiled by Dan Johnson at bydanjohnson.com. By year’s end, 565 new fixed-wing LSAs had been registered, bringing the total fleet to 1,118 airplanes. Johnson said he expects the numbers to continue to grow. “I’ve forecast 1,000 units in […]

When Congress last year hurriedly passed the Fair Treatment for Experienced Pilots Act, which raised the mandatory retirement age for airline pilots to 65, nobody read the small print, say some age-60-plus pilots who have lost their jobs. About 3,000 pilots who were required to retire between Nov. 23, 2006, and Dec. 13, 2007, were […]

New technology now being studied in Europe can track aircraft by detecting tiny changes in the Earth’s magnetic field, according to a recent report in ICTWeb. Structures that cause “shadows” for today’s radar systems — a problem for ground surveillance at large, sprawling airports — do not impair the magnetic field detectors. Recent tests of […]

A German travel agency says it will offer the country’s first-ever nude tourist flight in July, flying up to 55 passengers to a Baltic beach resort in a chartered aircraft. “It’s an unusual gap in the market,” travel director Enrico Hess told Reuters. Passengers cannot undress until they are on board, he said. “But then […]

When the FAA issued its complex Light Sport Aircraft rule about three years ago, owners of two-seat ultralights were issued a deadline of Jan. 31, 2008, to convert their aircraft to the experimental-LSA category. More than 6,000 owners requested transition kits from EAA. With the deadline looming, applications have backlogged, as owners await required inspections […]

Just a day after five teenagers were killed while speeding down a runway in a BMW at a private Florida airport, a woman was arrested for allegedly driving drunk on a runway at Grand Junction Regional Airport, in Colorado. The 36-year-old woman was found by police just after 3 a.m., when her car got stuck. […]

An Air Canada 767 en route to London diverted to Shannon Airport in Ireland on Monday morning and the first officer was taken off the aircraft by medical personnel. Local news reports said the pilot was taken to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation and may have suffered a nervous breakdown, but officials would not confirm […]

Hawker Beechcraft says its already delivered 10 copies of its King Air C90GTi, which was introduced at last years European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBACE) in May. Fuel prices are driving a surge in turboprop sales and the latest in the line of the smallest King Air model puts a jet-style cockpit up front. […]

Its not every day a new aircraft design is delivered to a paying customer and the folks at Quest Aircraft in Sandpoint, Idaho, were celebrating that milestone last week. The company handed over the first revenue-generating aircraft to Spirit Air in a ceremony that involved the whole plant. Spirit Air was the first to lay […]

Private aircraft may be the ultimate business timesaver but now theres a Web site dedicated to ratcheting up that efficiency a little more. SkyLounge is like Facebook for business travelers. Frequent fliers register their trips before they go and can find out who on their contact list might be in the same city when they […]