News

Virgin Galactic will make its maiden tourist flight into space next year, Sir Richard Branson announced at the Farnborough Air Show on Wednesday. He also unveiled plans to use WhiteKnightTwo to carry a vehicle called LauncherOne that will deliver commercial satellites into orbit. The vehicle is already in development and is expected to be ready […]

If Garmin is feeling the heat from GPS-enabled tablets and smartphones, it’s not taking the competition lying down. This week Garmin rolls out the GLO, a new self-contained GPS receiver that links to Android and iPad tablets via Bluetooth, wirelessly providing position updates up to 10 times a second. Remote GPS gadgets for tablets aren’t […]

ACR Electronics, which makes the ACR and Artex lines of ELTS, PLBs and related safety and rescue equipment, has been sold to J.F. Lehman and Company, a private equity firm that invests in defense, aerospace and maritime sectors. ACR is based in Fort Lauderdale and employs 180 people. It has been in operation since 1956 […]

Although Superior Air Parts may well end up as the owner of most of Hawker Beechcraft, analysts who’ve now had a chance to sort through the issues facing the Chinese owners of Superior are cautioning that it’s anything but a done deal. Possibly the biggest stumbling block is that there’s a significant defense business embedded […]

Aircraft wreckage that was discovered on a glacier last month by an Alaskan Army National Guard UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crew on a routine training mission has been identified as an Air Force Douglas C-124A Globemaster II. The airplane crashed in November 1952, killing all 52 people on board. “The plane hit the mountainside, exploding and […]

AirVenture at Oshkosh is coming up fast, less than two weeks away, and in recent days EAA has announced more details about what visitors can expect to see at the show. One aircraft sure to attract attention is the one-of-a-kind e-volo 18-rotor multicopter, which will be on display at the Innovation Hangar. The multicopter, built […]

The FAA will extend its comment period on a proposal to make it easier to fly without a third-class medical certificate, EAA and AOPA said on Monday. Pilots now have another 70 days — until September 14 — to add to the more than 14,000 comments that were already filed in the initial 20-day comment […]

Hawker Beechcraft will be sold to Superior Aviation Beijing Co. for $1.79 billion, the company announced on Monday, assuming that a final agreement is worked out over the next 45 days. The transaction will not include the Hawker Beechcraft Defense Co., which produces the T-6 trainer and is developing the AT-6 light attack aircraft. “The […]

In a continued attempt to tamp down high avionics costs, Avidyne this week announced a drop-in replacement competitor for Garmin’s popular GNS430. The new IFD440 is a descendent of a larger model Avidyne introduced last year, the IFD540, a drop-in box to replace Garmin’s GNS530. Both of Avidyne’s products use a combination of touchscreens and […]

A consortium of British companies is now flight testing a see-and-avoid system for drones that it believes will lead to a lot less cockpit manpower in the not-so-distant future. “It is doing all the things a human pilot would be doing,” BAE spokesman Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal told the Daily Telegraph. It would not appear to come […]