News

While the FAA creeps toward releasing regulations for unmanned aerial systems, plenty of entrepreneurs and designers are moving ahead with new products. One new design, the X PlusOne, aims to combine the usual VTOL multi-rotor design with the ability to fly horizontally at high speeds. xCraft, a start-up company, is just wrapping up a successful […]

The NTSB released its annual Most Wanted List for safety improvements on Tuesday morning, and for general aviation the number-one issue is loss-of-control accidents. “The Most Wanted List is our roadmap for 2015,” said NTSB acting chairman Christopher Hart. “This list is grounded in the accident investigations by which NTSB learns safety lessons, and in […]

Indonesian divers have recovered the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder from the wreckage of AirAsia Flight QZ8501. The FDR was recovered Monday and the CVR was retrieved from underneath a wing, which had to be lifted from the seabed using airbags. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that officials were able to successfully […]

With a fresh injection of ideas and a little different focus, the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo gets underway Jan. 14 at Sebring Regional Airport in central Florida. It runs through Jan. 17. The show has been rebranded as the Affordable Aviation Expo and will be a clearinghouse of products and services for those looking to […]

Mooney has made its first delivery to a Chinese customer since coming under new Chinese ownership last year. CEO Jerry Chen said the M20TN was built at its U.S. factory in Kerrville, Texas, and then disassembled for placement in a shipping container. “After the airplane arrived in Zhengzhou in China we reassembled it and then […]

The FAA is deputizing police forces across the U.S. in the fight against illegal drone use. The agency has issued a 12-page guide to law-enforcement agencies enlisting their help in stemming the “considerable increase in the unauthorized use” of small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS). Of course, the police don’t really have the authority to enforce […]

Indonesian government officials say divers have located the cockpit voice and flight data recorders from AirAsia Flight 8501 but they are trapped under wreckage and haven’t been retrieved. Searchers hoped to shift the wreckage enough to get at the recorders Monday. The recorders will likely have clues, if not outright answers, to the questions that […]

SpaceX successfully launched an unmanned supply mission to the International Space Station on Saturday morning, but an attempt to soft land and recover the booster to a barge at sea failed. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk Tweeted Saturday, “Close, but no cigar. Bodes well for the future tho’. Ship itself is fine. Some of the support […]

A Lancair crashed in a busy Los Angeles intersection near Van Nuys Airport Friday afternoon, killing the 47-year-old pilot, identified as Alberto Behar, a flight instructor and scientist with connections to NASA, the Los Angeles Times reported. Behar was the only one on board when it crashed about 1:14 p.m. shortly after takeoff. No other […]

Balloon pilots Troy Bradley and Leonid Tiukhtyaev have put on hold their preparations to launch their helium balloon in Japan today to cross the Pacific Ocean. The team says the winds are favorable for inflation and launch, but too slow to carry the balloonists across the Pacific to the California coast within their available time […]