News

The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation has awarded to Virgin Galactic the operator license it needs to move forward with taxi and flight tests for SpaceShipTwo, the company announced this week. SpaceShipTwo is the passenger-carrying vehicle that ultimately will be carried to about 50,000 feet by WhiteKnightTwo. From that altitude, SpaceShipTwo will be released […]

NTSB investigators wrapped up their on-site investigation today of Saturday morning’s hot-air balloon crashin Texas, in which 16 people were killed. In a news briefing at 4 p.m. local time, NTSB member Robert Sumwalt said their preliminary investigation had not revealed any pre-existing failures or malfunctions with the balloon system. He also said investigators had […]

The NTSB said Sunday that the hot air balloon that crashed in Texas early Saturday killing 16 people likely hit power lines before the balloon’s basket crashed to the ground. Although witnesses reported hearing popping sounds and seeing a fireball, it still hasn’t been determined whether the fire occurred before or after the balloon appeared […]

The Martin Mars water bomber, one of the main attractions at this week’s AirVenture show in Oshkosh, made a precautionary landing on Lake Winnebago Friday evening and was damaged. The incident forced the Canadian operator of the seaplane to cancel today’s demonstration flight at the afternoon airshow, according to a report in the Oshkosh Northwestern. […]

A twin-engine Piper PA-31 Cheyenne being flown for a medical transport mission crashed in Humboldt County, California, near the Oregon border, on Friday morning, killing all four on board. The pilot had reported smoke filling the cockpit at about 1 a.m., according to FAA spokesman Ian Gregor. The airplane had taken off about 30 minutes […]

NASA took delivery this week of a Tecnam P2006T, which will undergo transformation into an electric-propulsion testbed called the X-57 Maxwell. The Scalable Convergent Electric Propulsion Technology and Operations Research (SCEPTOR) project, the latest in NASA’s X-plane experiments, seeks to develop technologies to make flying quieter, cheaper and emissions-free. Sean Clarke, one of the leaders […]

Witnesses in Texas say that a fiery balloon crash that killed 16 occupants Saturday may have been caused by contact with high-voltage power lines at the crash site. The balloon’s envelope was found nearly intact three quarters of a mile from the crash site and the gondola was completely charred nearby. The balloon crashed about […]

Our annual canvass of vendors at AirVenture seems to suggest 2016 has been a bumper year for booth traffic and sales. With only one exception, the vendors we spoke to on Thursday reported the best year they’ve seen in recent memory. “We’re the distributor for the TBM for the northeast and eastern Canada. Traffic has […]

TruTrak is a mainstay in the experimental market with its well-regarded, sophisticated autopilots at affordable prices. Now, following the lead of EAA and Garmin, TruTrak aims to make its new Vizion autopilot available for certified airplanes, starting with the Cessna 172. And this is no stripped-down wing leveler, but a full-featured three-axis autopilot that even […]

China will soon be getting a new general aviation organization to promote industrial expansion in China. At AirVenture last week, Z-Park Sky Innovations General Aviation Alliance told reporters that the organization is aimed at helping expand GA in China, which is expected to total about $150 billion by 2020. The alliance is headquartered in Zhongguancun […]