News

According to the San Antonio (Texas) Express-News newspaper, troubled airframer Sino Swearingen Aircraft Corp. is expecting Monday to welcome its fourth chief executive in five years. Although the new, seven-seat light jet is the fastest in its class, its manufacturer has had ongoing management and financial issues, which some blame for the company’s leadership turmoil. […]

Anyone flying an Embraer Legacy or EMB-135/140/145 regional jet should be very careful where they place their feet while airborne. That’s according to the FAA, which earlier this month issued a Safety Alert For Operators (SAFO) [PDF] noting pilots “might inadvertently change VHF radio frequencies or place the ATC transponder into standby mode during flight.” […]

An inquiry conducted by the lower house in Brazil’s Congress just concluded U.S. pilots Jean Paul Paladino and Joseph Lepore, who were flying the Embraer Legacy operated by U.S.-based ExcelAire during a midair collision last September with a Gol Transportes Aereos Boeing 737-800, are partially to blame for the fatal accident. Meanwhile, another congressional inquiry, […]

Honda Aero Inc. and the Alamance Airport Authority yesterday signed an agreement to bring the airframer’s new engine manufacturing facility to the Burlington-Alamance Regional Airport outside Burlington, N.C. The deal, expected to provide 30 jobs by next year and some 140 by 2013, involves the authority’s selling to Honda 90 acres on the airport’s east […]

John McKittrick, 42, of Thousand Oaks, Calif., was killed Sunday morning as he practiced takeoffs and landings on his own for the first time in his vintage P-51D Mustang. McKittrick, an experienced pilot, had been flying with an instructor and landed at Camarillo Airport. The instructor had just gotten out of the aircraft and told […]

Honda Aero (not to be confused with sister subsidiary Honda Aircraft) announced on Tuesday that it will establish its corporate headquarters and a state-of-the-art jet engine manufacturing plant in Burlington, N.C., adjacent to the Burlington-Alamance Regional Airport. The $27 million, 102,400-square-foot facility will include office space, a production plant and an engine test cell. Production […]

If you can’t make it to EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wis., next week, then you’ll be happy to know that AVweb will bring the show to your desktop. We’ll be publishing daily issues, podcasts and video posted directly from the show grounds to keep you up-to-date with the latest news from AirVenture. And for those […]

Aircraft repair businesses in Ohio are lobbying the state to repeal a sales tax on parts and labor they say is causing layoffs and threatening businesses. According to the Dayton Daily News, Ohio aircraft owners are traveling as far as New Hampshire to take advantage of tax-free repairs. “I don’t want to chase jobs away,” […]

Theyve been turned into homes, restaurants and businesses, but a New York firm has found a more scholarly use for discarded aircraft fuselages. LOT-EK, which is described as “urban architect recyclers,” has designed a library in Guadalajara, Mexico, made entirely out of the aluminum tubes. Now its not clear whether the books are stored in […]

Britains Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) is recommending that student pilots on solo flights be identified by a radio call-sign prefix so air traffic controllers can take into account their limited experience and knowledge. The recommendation came from the investigation of a crash on July 19, 2006, that killed a 16-year-old student who had logged […]