News

Owners of certain new and rebuilt turbocharger-equipped Continental 520 and 550 series engines should be aware of a mandatory service bulletin (PDF) issued last week that will ground some airplanes immediately. There have been five instances where the starter adapter on engines produced since the beginning of 2011 have failed due to misalignment of parts […]

Don’t see a video screen?Try disabling ad blockers and refreshing this page.If that doesn’t work, click here to download the video directly. Don’t see a video screen?Try disabling ad blockers and refreshing this page.If that doesn’t work, click here to download the video directly. TED, a nonprofit “devoted to ideas worth spreading,” has released a […]

The pilot of a Turbo Commander that hit a cliff near Phoenix Thursday was an acknowledged expert on the type and familiar with the area. Shawn Perry, his three children Morgan, 9, Logan, 8 and Luke, 6, and Perry’s colleagues at Ponderosa Aviation, Russell Hardy, 31 and Joseph Hardwick, 22, died when their AC690 aircraft […]

Thanksgiving feels like the right time to confirm that the town of Yellville, Ark., this year did break with tradition and did not punctuate its October Turkey Trot Festival by dropping live turkeys from an airplane … though it may next year. According to the Arkansas Times blog, the drop was effectively discouraged when the […]

Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., appears to be taking some heat from online commenters after introducing legislation that would prohibit airlines from charging a fee for a passenger’s first checked bag. The proposed legislation is called the Airline Passenger BASICS, or Basic Airline Standards to Improve Customer Satisfaction Act. Among other things, it would require airlines […]

One of two low-time pilots used a helmet-camera and filmed the crash that killed them both on July 10, 2010, near Oxfordshire, England, according to testimony by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB). The information came to light in court and was reported by British news sources this week. Both pilots had less than 200 […]

United Airlines, which now includes Continental Airlines, is reportedly in talks with major manufacturers to order up to 200 aircraft made up of Boeing and Airbus models, possibly by year-end. The news, reported this week separately by both Reuters and Bloomberg, comes hot on the heals of a “largest ever” order for 230 Boeing aircraft […]

Chinese authorities said last week they plan to open up nearly one-third of the country’s airspace to general aviation flights next year, on a trial basis. Starting in January, airspace below 1,000 meters in northeastern, central, and southern China will be open, as well as the airspace above six pilot cities, according to China Daily. […]

click for larger image It’s not unusual for a pilot to land on a road in an emergency situation, but this week in Florida, a pilot mistook a road for a nearby runway, and landed there in his fully functional Cirrus SR22. The 23-year-old private pilot wasn’t hurt, but the airplane hit a couple of […]

The federal government has reportedly said the case is closed on Hawker Beechcraft’s bid to sell a light attack version of its Texan II trainer to the Air Force. Realistically, that leaves only Brazil’s Embraer Super Tucano in the running for the potential $1 billion deal. Hawker Beech was told last week that its version […]