News

A total of 18 of the worlds best pilots will meet in New Zealand later this month to compete in races through mountainous courses up to 200 miles long, reaching speeds of up to 200 mph, sometimes flying only a few feet above the ground. Imagine what they could do if they had engines. The […]

Have you come across something thats arcane, anachronistic or just plain useless in your travels through the regs? Well, the FAA says it wants to know about it. The agency has issued a Review of Existing Regulations that invites anyone with a beef about how the law of the air is now set to drop […]

If youre flying commercial this holiday season, the Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights (CAPBOR) wants to try and ease your misery and maybe help you win cash prizes. CAPBOR, you may recall, was founded after a series of high-profile airline passenger “strandings” in which planeloads of people were kept bottled up on […]

Despite FAA efforts to improve safety, the rate of runway incursions has not decreased in the last five years, according to a report released Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office. The report also notes that air traffic controller fatigue continues to be a matter of concern. As of May 2007, at least 20 percent of […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is being flooded with petitions from various sources to do more to curb greenhouse-gas pollution from aircraft. While the called-for measures are mostly aimed at airlines and large aircraft, general aviation, especially the business sector, is not likely to escape scrutiny. On Wednesday, a consortium of state and regional governments […]

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, has been named to succeed Sen. Trent Lott on the Senate Aviation Subcommittee. When longtime Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., announced last week that he will leave the Senate at year’s end, that raised questions about what will happen next in the user-fee fight in Congress. Lott is the ranking member […]

Sir Richard Branson is among the latest graduates of a two-day training program for space tourists. Future passengers who have reserved seats to fly into space aboard SpaceShipTwo have started their training at the National Aerospace Training and Research Center, a private company based in Bucks County, Pa. Sir Richard Branson completed his course this […]

The Red Baron Squadron, a team of four vintage Stearman biplanes that has flown formation aerobatics at air shows for 28 years, will fly no more (PDF), the team’s sponsor, the Schwan Food Company, said this week. “The Red Baron Squadron has been an incredible asset to our company and we are very proud of […]

That’s the question that Steve Kahn and dozens of other pilots are wondering about, after being hit by the state of Maine with tax bills in the thousands of dollars for flying into the state. Kahn, an investment advisor who lives in Boston, flies his Cirrus SR-22 frequently into Maine to visit a summer home […]

It may seem obvious that the surface of an airplane should be as smooth as possible to minimize aerodynamic drag, but that’s not really the case. A bit of roughness can break up the boundary layer and improve efficiency. Sharks, with skin formed of rough scales called denticles, can slip through the water at speeds […]