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Virgin Atlantic CEO Richard Branson said last week his company is investing in technology that will develop low-carbon jet fuels from the waste materials produced in the steel industry. Virgin Atlantic aircraft will be using the new fuel within two to three years, Branson said. “With oil running out, it is important that new fuel […]

Piper Aircraft interim CEO Geoff Berger is out, the company announced on Monday, and Simon Caldecott has been appointed the new interim CEO, effective immediately.Berger had been with the company since July 2010, when he replaced Kevin Gould, who had been appointed CEO in June 2009, replacing James Bass, CEO since 2005. Piper also said […]

Can an airplane covered with duct tape actually fly? That question seems to have already been answered in 2009 by an Alaska pilot who fixed significant bear damage to the fuselage and tail of his Super Cub with the fabled repair-all and reportedly flew it away, presumably toward a more permanent solution. The tale and […]

Russian media is reporting that investigators believe the crash of a Yak-42 that killed all members of an elite Russian hockey team last month may have been caused in part because the brakes were on during the takeoff run. As we reported at the time, the chartered trijet aircraft crashed in the Volga River moments […]

Embraer and Hawker Beechcraft have another adversary in their competition to supply a light attack version of their training aircraft to the U.S. military. Both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have rejected a $17 million proposal to deploy four turboprop aircraft outfitted with precision-guided munitions to Afghanistan to see how they worked in […]

The FAA needs to do more to ensure safety on the surface at airports around the country, according to a report issued this week by the Government Accountability Office. The agency should develop and implement plans to track and assess runway excursions and extend its oversight to ramp safety, the GAO said. Also, the report […]

One pilot ejected, but another crewmember of the JH-7 “Flying Leopard” jet performing in an airshow in China was killed on Friday when the aircraft nosedived into the ground and burned. The jet, operated by China’s air force, was performing near the northern city of Xi’an. The pilot who ejected landed safely, suffering only minor […]

The CAFE Foundation on Thursday released the final results from its NASA Green Flight Challenge, held two weeks ago in California. The figures show a “profound difference” in energy use between the two electric-powered winners and the runners-up, which were powered by gasoline and hybrid engines, according to Dean Sigler, posting at the CAFE blog. […]

The Jeppesen company has joined the Aviation Green Alliance as a founding member, the Lindbergh Foundation announced this week.The foundation launched the Alliance earlier this year to support industry efforts to address emissions, noise, efficiency and other environmental concerns in the aviation industry. Jeppesen CEO Mark Van Tine said the group “offers an opportunity for […]

The French aviation accident investigation board, the BEA, on Thursday condemned an author’s disclosure of cockpit conversations among the pilots who died in the Rio-to-Paris Airbus flight that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean in June 2009. A book by Jean-Pierre Otelli, Erreurs de pilotage, Tome 5 (Pilot Errors, Volume 5), includes literal transcriptions from the […]