News

Two Men One Sailplane 744 MilesTwo men, aged 42 and 78, have reportedly broken a national two-place record by covering 744 miles at altitudes up to 27,000 feet on a 9-hour, 19-minute flight out and back to Minden, Nev., in 100-mph winds, without an engine. Gordon Boettger and the elder Hugh Bennett made the soaring […]

The FAA just announced that it will convene a special committee to investigate an unleaded replacement for 100LL avgas. This committee will hear from the alphabets, aircraft manufacturers and users of avgas. AVweb would like to know your opinions on the current state of affairs in the search for an unleaded replacement for 100LL. Click […]

The history of 65-year-old former pilot and political activist Ly Tong may contain as much fact as legend, but this much is certain: In 1992 he hijacked an Airbus A310-200, he used it to spread leaflets, and then he parachuted from the jet into a swamp. Ly Tong says his actions that day were an […]

The Air Force has reportedly awarded Boeing with a contract to replace its fleet of air refueling tankers in a $35 billion deal that Boeing says will create 50,000 jobs in 40 states. Senator Pat Roberts was one of the first to break the news, Thursday, ahead of the Pentagon’s official announcement. Airbus and Boeing […]

AOPA has released the final report (4MB PDF) of its student pilot retention study and the tweaking hasn’t changed the basic message. As we reported in November, the final report shows that the flight training industry isn’t exploiting the cool factor of being a pilot as much as it might. It also says instructors should […]

A pilot flying from an Ottawa airport last Wednesday in a rented Cessna 172M inadvertently set his transponder to broadcast the hijack code and then inadvertently flew into restricted airspace, according to Canadian authorities. Transport Canada says the pilot had planned a trip out of Ottawa with stops in Arnprior, Ontario, and Gatineau, Quebec. While […]

The accident rate for Western-built jet aircraft in 2010 was the lowest in aviation history, the International Air Transportation Association (IATA) announced this week. The data measured hull losses, which occur when an accident destroys an aircraft or damages an aircraft beyond repair. In 2010, for every one million flights of Western-built jet aircraft, IATA […]

A Canadian scientist plans to extract DNA from envelopes licked by Amelia Earhart to help determine if a bone fragment found on a Pacific island — or any other remains found in the future — might belong to the lost aviator. Dongya Yang, a genetic archaeologist at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, told National Geographic […]

Embraer CEO Fred Curado says the Brazilian company now has a “industrial footprint” in the U.S. and future expansion will depend on developing new products and markets. Curado told AVweb in a video interview at the ribbon-cutting for its new Phenom final assembly plant in Melbourne, Fla., that while there are no firm plans for […]

This Thursday, the Air Force is expected to announce the winner of a $35 billion contract to build 179 military tanker aircraft. The two contenders for the contract are Boeing, with a 767 derivative, and EADS, with a design based on the Airbus A330. EADS has said if it wins the competition, it will assemble […]