News

Lockheed Martin has developed an unmanned aerial firefighting system that it expects to have ready for service in about five years. Full-sized unmanned Kaman K-MAX and Sikorsky helicopters (both can also be flown by pilots) were used in a demonstration that showed the system not only picking up water from a pond and dousing a […]

Lieutenant General Jimmy Doolittle described Robert A. “Bob” Hoover as “the greatest stick and rudder man who ever lived.” He was also among the most loved, as evidenced by the memorial celebration held in Hoover’s honor. More than 1,500 people gathered at Van Nuys Airport on a perfect CAVU day to remember the legendary aviator, […]

NavWorx says it’s working on solutions to the airworthiness issues it has with some of its ADS-B products and will have a fix as soon as the FAA deals with the airworthiness directive (AD) it has issued against those devices. Last month the FAA issued a proposed AD that would require the removal of Model […]

A Piper PA-31 on an air ambulance flight crashed and burned in a parking lot Friday night in Nevada, killing all four people on board. The aircraft had departed Elko Regional Airport with three crew members and a patient, bound for the University of Utah Medical Center, the Elko Daily Free Press reported. Firefighters responded […]

An out-of-the box approach to flying airport traffic patterns is the subject of a new study launched by the University of North Dakota. UND has partnered with the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s Air Safety Institute to explore comparisons between the standard rectangular traffic pattern and an oval-shaped one the study is calling a “circular […]

House Republicans have approved a bill that would cancel proposed deals for Boeing and Airbus to sell up to 200 aircraft to Iran. Doubts have been raised about whether Iran Air could actually afford the $40 billion in orders but the House vote is a clear challenge to the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran. […]

EAA Vintage Aircraft Association board of directors member Ron Alexander was killed Thursday in the crash of his recently restored Curtiss Jenny at Peach Tree Airport in Williamson, Georgia. An unidentified passenger was also killed. A local newspaper is reporting that the passenger was an FAA official but that has not been confirmed. Initial reports […]

Developers of the Sun Flyer electric airplane have begun power-on testing with a series of ground, taxi and preflight tests. Aero Electric Aircraft Corp. said this week the FAA also recently granted the prototype its temporary registration, another step in the process toward an airworthiness certificate. “We have been preparing for the power-on tests for […]

The fatal accident count for experimental aircraft fell in the past year, continuing a downward trend, EAA said Wednesday. There were 33 fatal accidents in this category reported by the FAA for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, a 17 percent drop from 40 accidents for the prior year. The latest numbers also are down […]

The NTSB this week completed its investigation of two fatal midair crashes that occurred in 2015, and on Wednesday they issued a Safety Alert (PDF) urging pilots to make use of cockpit technologies that can help them to see and avoid other aircraft. The alert reviews the two recent crashes as well as two earlier […]