News

Bell Helicopter has flown its 505 Jet Ranger X for the first time, the company announced this week. “The Bell 505 performed exactly as anticipated today,” Yann Lavalle, senior flight test pilot for the company, said on Monday. The 30-minute flight, at the company’s facility in Mirabel, Quebec, comprised two laps around the pattern, a […]

Chinese officials flew their J-31 twin-engine stealth fighter in public for the first time at this week’s Zhuhai airshow, and said they plan to market the airplane globally as a lower-cost alternative to the Lockheed Martin F-35. “It is our dream to break the monopoly that foreign countries have on new-generation jet fighters,” said Li […]

Just months after resuming production at its Kerrville, Texas, factory, Mooney International has unveiled two new models, both diesel-powered and both aimed at the global training market. Surprisingly, rather than riveted metal, the company said the new aircraft — the M10T and M10J — will be of composite construction. The company made the announcement at […]

The new version of Eastern Air Lines, based in Miami, is recruiting cabin crew this month, to be ready for a start of operations early next year, the company said on Friday. “This is another important step as we prepare to launch the airline,” said CEO Ed Wegel. “We are eager to move forward.” The […]

A Learjet 36 carrying a prominent religious leader and eight others hit a construction crane while landing at Grand Bahama International Airport Sunday, killing all on board. Among those killed were Pastor Myles Munroe, his wife Ruth and other passengers and crew. Munroe was leader of the Bahamas Faith Ministries, among the largest religious congregations […]

The pilot who survived the in-flight breakup of SpaceShipTwo in late October told his father he was unconscious for about half of his parachute descent from 50,000 feet but he managed a thumbs-up for the occupants of a chase plane that circled him on the way down. The Mail quoted Peter Siebold’s physician father Klaus […]

Boeing says it will have a replacement for the 737 by 2030 and it’s likely to have a composite airframe. CEO Jim McNerney told Reuters the aircraft will be a little bigger than the 737 but will be much the same as the world’s best-selling airliner. “It will be slightly bigger, there will be new […]

NASA has flight tested a flap design that can be bent and twisted in flight to improve aerodynamics and reduce noise. The Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge flap has shape-changing assemblies that seamlessly bend and twist rather than running in one dimension along rails or guides. The plan is to be able to contort the trailing […]

An analysis of the Air France 447 disaster in June 2009 by author William Langewiesche, published in Vanity Fair, provoked reactions from readers as well as fellow pilot and writer Patrick Smith of AskThePilot.com. Langewiesche, in his detailed narrative of the Airbus A330 crash that killed 228 when it stalled into the Atlantic Ocean, argued […]

Four people, including one who was hit by a propeller blade, were taken to hospital with what were reported as minor injuries after an apparent gear collapse on an Air Canada Express Q400 at Edmonton International Airport late Thursday. Christina Kurylo was hit on the head by a propeller blade that pierced the cabin and […]