News

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. If you don’t know Festo, you don’t know the AirPenguin, AirRay, or the AirJelly, and now you’d be missing the masterful bio-mimicry of Festo’s SmartBird flight model, which the company says attains “an […]

A freshman Minnesota congressman is urging the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to use “extreme caution” in assessing the potential sale of Cirrus Industries to the Chinese state-owned China Aviation Industry General Aircraft Co. Chip Cravaack, who represents the 8th District in Minnesota, which includes Cirrus’s home of Duluth, says he’s afraid […]

In 2008, the GAO estimated (PDF) the cost of buying and operating 2,443 F-35 fighter jets at $1 trillion, and this month The Atlantic magazine noted that fleet would represent a force 20 times larger than Russia’s at a cost larger than Australia’s GDP. Estimating the cost of a jet is difficult and varies widely […]

In the nearly three decades that the GA industry has been searching for an unleaded replacement for 100LL, one recurring question: Isn’t there an additive that will provide the octane? Ed Kollin, a petrochemist and consultant to Aircraft Specialties Lubricants, told us this week that there very well may be. After a months-long intensive research […]

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. It was Nov. 20 at the University of Iowa and a pre-game flyover to remember, in part because it was flown at nearly 400 knots and cleared the football stadium’s press box by […]

The NTSB is on the case, the controller says he fell asleep, and FAA administrator Randy Babbitt is “personally outraged” following an event that saw two airliners land at Reagan National Airport, without communication from the tower, very early Wednesday. The two jets, an American Airlines 737 and a United Airbus A320, touched down between […]

The Aircraft Electronics Association’s annual convention has kicked off with a host of new products, including a NextGen-ready “affordable open-interface multi-function cockpit display.” The Bendix/King KSN 770 being developed by Aspen Avionics and Honeywell is expected to hit the market by year-end. It’s a multi-function display with GPS, comm and nav on a 5.7-inch touchscreen […]

A Boeing 737 out of Miami and an Airbus A320 from Chicago landed at Reagan National Airport very early Wednesday morning without contacting anyone in the tower, but not for lack of trying, the Washington Post reported. The inbound flights were handed off from Potomac TRACON to the tower at Reagan National shortly after midnight. […]

click for larger version If everyone in the avionics biz suspected Garmin was about to announce something big, they did exactly that at the Aircraft Electronics Association show in Reno this week. Garmin said its new GTN650 and 750 series hybrid navigators will replace the long-in-the-tooth GNS 430 and 530 products, although those units will […]

The Sun ‘n Fun International Fly-In & Expo launches next week in Lakeland, Fla., with a robust schedule of forums, news events, and flight demos. The show, in its 37th year, runs from Tuesday through Sunday, with a celebration of the 100th anniversary of naval aviation, recognition for mission aviation, and the return of the […]