News

There’s been a lot of talk lately about a shortage of pilots for both military and civilian jobs, and now the U.S. Air Force says it has to hire private contractors to fly its drones. The contract drone pilots are not allowed to fire weapons, but they can operate reconnaissance missions, according to a story […]

Researchers at NASA are “investigating promising advances” in high-temperature materials that can be used to make turbine engines run more efficiently, the agency said last week. The materials, called ceramic-matrix composites, or CMCs, are lighter and stronger than the metal alloys used today, and can withstand the extremely high temperatures of 2700 degrees Fahrenheit and […]

Icon will establish a production plant in the city of Tijuana, in Baja, Mexico, company spokesman Brian Manning told AVweb on Tuesday, confirming an online report published over the weekend at a Tijuana news site. The new facility will produce composite airframe components for the A5 assembly plant in Vacaville, California, Manning said. It’s scheduled […]

Air traffic controllers need better training in how to assist aircraft in distress, the NTSB says in a report released this week. The safety recommendation is based on an analysis of five general aviation accidents, from 2012 to 2015, in which seven people were killed. In each case, the pilot was communicating with ATC but […]

The U.S. Air Force has created a new kind of testing regime for evaluating military aircraft, and recently announced that Textron AirLand’s Scorpion jet will be the first product to go through the process. The process, called a cooperative research and development agreement, or CRADA, is open to any industry partner, on a first-come, first-served […]

The Red Bull Air Race series moves to North America in a few weeks and the last race on its European leg set the stage for drama on this side of the Atlantic. Australia’s Matt Hall won Sunday’s race at EuroSpeedway Lusitz in Germany followed by Germany’s Matthias Dolderer. Canada’s Pete McLeod was third for […]

The producers of “Sully,” the movie based on the ditching of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009, are apparently so confident of its authenticity they’ve invited a theater full of pilots to a preview screening on Sept. 7, two days before it opens to general audiences. Warner Bros. has given free tickets to […]

 The Wall Street Journal is reporting the FAA is considering reducing the number of hours military pilots must have before they can be airline first officers. An industry-labor panel has recommended that military pilots with as little as 500 hours be allowed to slide directly into the right seat of airliners. The current minimum […]

A National Guard Apache helicopter got a little help from a bigger and stronger friend Thursday after it became mired in a muddy rice field near Baytown, Texas. The helicopter was on a training flight late Tuesday when it had what the Guard says was a minor mechanical issue. The pilot put the attack helicopter […]

The fallout following this week’s fiery destruction of a SpaceX rocket during a test at Cape Canaveral include delayed satellite launches for customers around the world that had hired the company to send equipment into orbit. It was the second total loss of a rocket since June of last year for SpaceX, which had one […]