News

The ever adventurous and publicity-savvy Sir Richard Branson Thursday recognized Felix Baumgartner’s Red Bull-sponsored record freefall by also telling the world his company once considered a jump from 400,000 feet — and might consider it, again. In a blog post at Virgin.com Branson says his people were approached in 2005 by an individual who wanted […]

British farmer and aviation enthusiast David Cundall Tuesday signed an agreement with Burma’s government to unearth a cache of what he expects will be dozens of Spitfires carefully stored and buried in that country at the end of World War II. Roughly 35 Spitfires are still flown in the world, today. Cundall and his Burmese […]

Talks between Hawker Beechcraft and Superior Aviation Beijing Co. have ended without agreement and the company has now announced plans to emerge from Chapter 11 protection as the standalone company, Beechcraft Corporation. A letter to customers signed by Hawker Beechcraft chairman Bill Boisture and executive vice president Shawn Vick said the company’s main goal is […]

Float and amphib aircraft operators throughout the U.S. are rallying to fight a proposal by the state of New Mexico to ban aircraft from the state’s lakes. The proposal is a single line item tucked in a long list of proposed changes (top of page 6 in this PDF) to the New Mexico Administrative Code. […]

A solo yachtsman who ran into trouble in high seas off the north coast of Australia has an Air Canada flight to thank for diverting to low altitude to confirm his location, Tuesday, after he set off his emergency beacon. The sailor set out more than a week ago, and an Air Canada spokesman commented […]

NASA is considering the creation of an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) challenge with the goal of finding solutions to problems involved in integrating drones into the National Airspace System. The challenge would require competing UAS vehicles to maintain separation from traffic while operating in congested airspace and under a range of conditions and failure modes. […]

The big news in aviation film for this fall is the national release of Flight, starring Denzel Washington, on Nov. 2 — early reviews are starting to turn up online — but meanwhile other filmmakers are working to promote the wonder of flight. In Ohio, director Adam White recently won a film festival award for […]

Moving a retired space shuttle from LAX to the California Science Center, 12 miles away through densely populated urban neighborhoods, is no easy task. Residents complained when about 400 trees were cut down (each one will be replaced with two new plantings), but when the huge shuttle actually turned up on their streets over the […]

Those who worry that the next generation has failed to embrace the romance of flight might be heartened by the three flights launched Sunday morning by Drew Gryder, of Hampton, Ga., on his 16th birthday. Gryder, who has grown up in an aviation family — his father, Dan, flies for Delta and instructs in a […]

Cobalt has announced that its new Co50 will feature the SmartDeck system, which was bought from L-3 by the Canadian company CMC Electronics, a subsidiary of Esterline. The Co50 was unveiled at EAA AirVenture as a concept aircraft in 2010 and now, two years later, it has come out of the ground with an announced […]