News

Aviation groups are warning that the FAA’s inflexible requirement for ADS-B equipage by 2020 could force an exodus from general aviation. In statements issued as the FAA hosted a “call to action summit” on the looming issue, both EAA and AOPA said the costs are too high for the minimal benefits to individual aircraft owners […]

An unmanned supply rocket bound for the International Space Station exploded shortly after liftoff from a Virginia commercial launch facility Tuesday. The Antares rocket operated by Orbital Sciences Corp. lifted off the launch pad at the Wallops Flight Facility at 6.22 p.m. EDT and exploded seconds later. It was carrying about 5,000 pounds of supplies […]

With a year and 1,300 hours of operation behind them, Redbird says its converted diesel Skyhawks have delivered bulletproof maintenance reliability and significant savings in direct operating costs. At a short briefing during the company’s fourth annual training conference in San Marcos, Texas, Redbird’s Darren Bien told a small group that thus far, customer response […]

Surf Air, which calls itself an “all-you-can-fly private membership airline,” is expanding its service from its base in Santa Monica, California, to include Carlsbad and Oakland, the company has announced. The added service coincides with the arrival of three new Pilatus PC-12NG aircraft, the first in an order of 65 airplanes to be delivered over […]

A report in Monday’s USA Today about the danger of lethal post-crash fires in GA aircraft is “sensationalistic,” according to GAMA President Pete Bunce. “Once again, USA Today‘s Thomas Frank has not told the full story about general aviation aircraft safety,” Bunce said in a statement released Tuesday morning. In the USA Today story, Frank […]

Buyers waiting for cheaper or at least more solutions to satisfy the 2020 ADS-B mandate have another choice to shop. Garmin this week announced a new ADS-B box that will interface with its Flight Stream onboard data network, satisfying the ADS-B Out requirement. The GDL 84 appears to be a downscale version of the company’s […]

Redbird Simulations opens its fourth annual Migration training conference in San Marcos, Texas, today, with two days of forums and industry discussions about training issues critical to the aviation industry. On the agenda will be a brief review of Redbird’s experience in operating its Redhawk diesel Skyhawk conversion and a progress report on the company’s […]

The job of aircraft dispatcher may not get much attention, but dispatchers are essential to flight departments around the country, and the FAA has decided it needs to be more vigilant about how they are trained. There are 44 FAA-approved dispatcher certification courses in operation, the FAA said last week, but the FAA has no […]

GA pilots on the go-especially business aircraft crew-find themselves betwixt and between when it comes to acquiring and loading the latest nav data for sophisticated avionics. At NBAA last week, Jeppesen added some new capability to its cloud-based app that essentially allows pilots to quickly assess the status of nav, terrain and chart databases and […]

Britain’s Nigel Lamb won the 2014 Red Bull Air Race series in a nail-biting final race in Spielberg, Austria, on Sunday. Lamb came second in the race behind France’s Nicolas Ivanoff (it was Lamb’s sixth second-place finish in eight races in 2014) and the nine points he earned for the finish vaulted him above front-runner […]