News

A blue-chip organization of industry groups and businesses has collectively asked that the Government Accountability Office be directed to study what many regard as a serious looming pilot shortage. The group says a confluence of factors appears to be lining up that will make pilots in short supply. It wants the GAO to determine if […]

John McGinnis’ grass-roots Synergy five-place efficient aircraft project has attracted critical attention as well as tens of thousands of donated dollars, and now a flying prototype may be coming to AirVenture 2013, but challenges remain. McGinnis told AVweb Thursday that his successful kickstarter.com campaign had attracted about $80,000 to the project. It was “a huge […]

A bleed valve installation on some 300 General Electric turbofans powering Bombardier CRJ700/900 and Embraer 170/175 regional jets has caused two engine fires, prompting an Airworthiness Directive (AD) Thursday. The offending part is a specific operability bleed valve installed on certain GE CF34-8C and CF34-8E series turbofan engines. Failure of the valve ring lock fuel […]

Newly released footage of the non-fatal F-18 crash at a Virginia Beach apartment complex last April captures the jet’s last moments as an instantaneous grey streak on film, but the camera’s proximity conveys much more. The video was collected from a security camera at Mayfair Mews Apartments where the jet crashed through two buildings on […]

The state of New Jersey confirmed Wednesday that six automotive gas stations received and sold leaded aviation fuel to drivers before the mistake was discovered and the sales were shut down. The fuel was delivered by eight tankers between Dec. 5 and Dec. 7 to six gas stations owned by the same company. In a […]

The EAA this week published a list of CFIs authorized to offer training in experimental aircraft, as the NTSB requested in a study released in May. The study showed that experimental amateur-built aircraft have a fatal accident rate 3 to 4 times higher than the rest of the general aviation fleet, and four recommendations were […]

Military investigators say a sticky piston in the fuel control mechanism of a Royal Canadian Air Force CF-18 was likely the root cause of a spectacular crash of the jet during rehearsal for an airshow in Lethbridge, Alberta, in July of 2010. The pilot, Capt. Brian Bews, ejected from the aircraft less than 300 feet […]

New aviation weather forecasts are helping pilots to avoid storms over remote regions of the world’s oceans, NASA said this week. A prototype system developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colo., and funded by NASA, combines satellite data and computer weather models to produce eight-hour forecast maps, which are updated every […]

A bankruptcy court on Tuesday reversed an earlier decision and said Hawker Beechcraft can go ahead and sell the last 20 of its Hawker 4000 business jets, the Wichita Eagle has reported. Current owners of the jets have protested the sell-off, asking the court to slow down the process to help preserve the value of […]

Epic Aircraft is planning to expand its Bend, Ore., operation as it goes for certification of the LT single-engine turboprop. The Associated Press reported the kit builder is negotiating with Cessna to buy the building Cessna abandoned two years ago when it consolidated manufacturing of its Corvalis high-performance singles in Wichita. The Bend City Council […]