News

The FAA is painting a dismal picture of its own performance in an unvarnished attempt to gather support for its controversial proposed aviation user-fee funding system. In a fact sheet released last week, the agency ties the funding package directly to modernization of airspace management, which has been nicknamed NextGen. The Administrations NextGen Financing Reform […]

Spokane Airways is taking Spokane International Airport and its board of directors to court, claiming the airport owes it new digs to replace the buildings it was forced to vacate to make way for a new control tower. According to the Spokane Spokesman-Review, the FBO says its deal with the airport stipulates that if it […]

It looks like Europes space-based navigation system will be government operated after the consortium of companies that were to build and run it effectively quit the project on Thursday. The consortium, led by Airbus parent EADS, had until May 10 to come up with a plan to get the Galileo project back on track and […]

Two Norwegian pilots have developed a system to warn pilots if theyre on a collision course with obstacles like cell towers, wind turbines, radio masts or just about any other thing that sticks up in the air. The difference with this system is that its the obstacle itself that broadcasts the warning and theres no […]

Columbia Aircraft founder Lance Neibauer is suing his former company for severance and for payment for rights to manufacturing processes he invented when he owned the firm. The company, which makes the certified Columbia 350 and 400 high performance aircraft (and is not to be confused with Lancair, the kit-build company Neibauer also founded) was […]

If youre waffling on which very light jet suits you best, Embraer has 130,000 reasons for you to make up your mind by July 1. Thats when the price of its Phenom 100 four-passenger (six-place) jet will go from $2.85 million to $2.98 million (January 2005 dollars). That puts the actual outlay for the Brazilian […]

The FAA seems intent on closing the Palm Springs, Calif., terminal radar approach control (TRACON) in three weeks despite unusually strong public and political opposition. It intends to transfer the workload to the Southern California TRACON near San Diego on June 6. In recent weeks, local, state and federal politicians have asked the FAA to […]

Lockheed Martin is looking for a 10-percent increase in the fees it’s being paid to take over flight services. According to a report from the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General, the company, which was awarded a $1.8 billion contract to assume the function, says it’s owed another $177 million, mostly because the FAA […]

The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) and the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) are calling on Brazils federal police to drop criminal charges against two American pilots, in part because of concerns about the effect of the prosecution on future crash investigations. Jan Paladino and Joe Lepore, who flew the Embraer 600 that collided with a […]

It now appears that at least three Brazilian air traffic controllers could be charged with involuntary manslaughter for their role in the collision between an Embraer Legacy 600 bizjet and a Gol Airlines Boeing 737, which killed all 154 aboard the Boeing last Sept. 29. Earlier reports from Brazil said a federal police investigation ignored […]