News

If you think your flying job is stressful sometimes, consider the Monday morning that two Australian pilots had this week in Papua New Guinea. They were flying a chartered aircraft — the reports don’t specify what kind of airplane — carrying $2 million in cash for a bank, with two security guards on board. The […]

Most pilots love the sound of engines in the morning — and have little patience with airport neighbors who complain — but in Vancouver, one airline pilot who chose to live close to the airport has had it with early-morning engine tests and middle-of-the-night jumbo-jet takeoffs. “Some areas of [the city] are absolutely blasted,” Neil […]

It wasn’t that long ago that female pilots here in the U.S. were an uncommon sight — and unsettling, to some. Now in other parts of the world, women are just starting to find their way into the front seat, and not everyone is happy about it. In Qatar, the first Arab woman to fly […]

When famed aviator Steve Fossett went missing in Nevada last September, the scale of the search was humbling to many pilots who wondered, if I disappear one day, will the whole world come looking? Thanks to the Internet, it’s easier for even us regular folks to get the word out when a beloved pilot fails […]

All three occupants of two aircraft that brushed each other over Commencement Bay, off Tacoma, Wash., on Tuesday walked -and swam- away from the mishap. Cessna 182 pilot Bud Williams said he felt a thud that sent his charts and paperwork flying all over the cabin and looked out to see another aircraft in a […]

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) placed two half-page ads in USA Today, yesterday, drawing a connection between “falling levels of experienced controllers and the rising number of arrival delays,” according to NATCA Director of Communications Doug Church. The actual graph associates a 105-percent increase in arrival delays with a 12-percent decrease in veteran […]

Comprehensive pilot and ground crew training for customers of the eight-person Phenom 100 very light and nine-person Phenom 300 light jets will soon be available following formalization of a joint venture agreement between Embraer and CAE. Embraer CAE Training Services LLC will provide initial and recurrent training for pilots and maintenance crew with a program […]

In support of an expansion for the VLJ air-taxi market currently budding in the East, key industry players will meet in San Diego Nov. 27 and 28 to continue discussion (initiated in a May forum) of popular business models for VLJ operators. The event offers an opportunity to interact with industry peers and business partners […]

Charter operators have been the FAA’s target for random unannounced audits for more than 19 months. Recent audits show there are curveballs operators may not expect but for which they must be prepared. It has recently been demonstrated that companies operating with dba names approved through local FSDOs should still be concerned. If those dba […]

Early next year, TAG Aviation (which has traditionally specialized in management of mid-size to VIP airliner business aircraft), plans to begin pushing its light jet management program as an alternative for customers currently flying anything up to the size of a Cessna Citation CJ3. The company plans next year to formally launch its “VLJ Flying […]