An International Air Transport Association report suggests cellphones and other personal electronics, notably the iPad, can cause alarming disruptions to aircraft systems. The report, obtained by ABC News, is said to document 75 instances between 2003 and 2009 in which flight crews believed interference from passengers using an electronic device caused something to go wrong […]
Ash from a major volcanic eruption in Chile has cancelled hundreds of flights and stranded 25,000 passengers from neighboring Argentina to far-away New Zealand and Australia, and experts say this could be just the beginning. “It’s got a very strong satellite signal and it’s right up there with the big, big eruption clouds … it […]
Citing challenges in production design and problems with third-party suppliers, the developers of the Transition roadable aircraft have announced a delay that extends their expected first delivery date to “late 2012.” The company still plans to show, but not fly, one of two production prototypes at AirVenture Oshkosh this July and says its past experience […]
Internet chat forums have for months been alive with comments after 1970s-era F-16s were said in a Pakistani air force blog to have beaten state-of-the-art Eurofighter Typhoons in close air combat exercises, but there’s at least one problem with the story. At the core of the issue is an interview in which an unnamed alleged […]
Inventor Chris Mullin, with help from the Air Force, is developing smart sunglasses that identify the brightest spots in a wearer’s field of view, dynamically darken that specific area, and follow the light source, leaving the rest of the view less affected. The glasses work by putting liquid crystal displays in the lenses themselves. That […]
Delta Air Lines worked to rebound from negative publicity Wednesday after soldiers returning from Afghanistan aboard a Delta flight appeared in a YouTube video explaining they were charged $200 each by the airline for carrying extra bags. Part of the problem appears to be that the soldiers understood their travel orders to mean they were […]
Bird strikes are a perennial problem for aviators, but in Santa Barbara, Calif., airport managers found that improving bird habitat near the airport actually helped prevent bird-aircraft conflicts. Workers reconfigured a 10-acre wetland area to restore tidal flows. They found that the new habitat attracted small shorebirds such as sandpipers, which tend to fly in […]
The number of serious runway incursions has been dropping, the FAA said this week, and in fiscal year 2010, which ended on Sept. 30, there were just six serious incursions, half the number recorded in 2009. Overall, incursions have dropped 90 percent since fiscal year 2000. “The entire aviation community can be credited with the […]
All summer long, events around the country will honor the 100th anniversary of the start of naval aviation. The centennial marks the U.S. Navy’s first purchase of an aircraft, a Curtiss seaplane, in 1911. Celebrations will take place this month during Marine Week in St. Louis and at the Rhode Island Air National Guard Air […]
It’s been a good week for Bombardier’s CSeries program with a few new orders and a more positive outlook for the potentially game-changing design. An unnamed airline took three 110-seat versions of the ultra-efficient single-aisle aircraft and options for three more. The $350 million deal, if the options are exercised, is small in airline terms […]
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