News

Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., says he’ll launch an investigation into the TSA’s abrupt decision to deny further applications by airports to replace TSA screeners with those of private contractors. In a statement issued late Friday, TSA Administrator John Pistole said he turned down an application by Branson-Springfield Airport in Missouri to go to private screeners […]

After three years on the legislative backburner, it looks like the FAA reauthorization bill is catching fire. Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., will introduce a new bill next week that he says is identical to a bill introduced last year (PDF) that was passed 93-0 by the Senate. The House never did pass it. The proposed […]

KLM, Holland’s flag carrier, has signed a deal with Arizona-based APS Emergency Maneuver Training to provide upset recovery training to ab initio pilots training at the airline’s flight school in Mesa. KLM has done its pilot training in sunny Mesa for 65 years at Falcon Field and APS is at neighboring Phoenix-Mesa Gateway. As technology […]

Sonex has flown the prototype of the Onex, a single-place aerobatic kit LSA that also has folding wings. Sonex CEO Jeremy Monnett, who is also the aircraft designer, did several laps around Wittman Regional Airport on Jan. 27 in what he described to onlookers as a “little fighter.” The leisurely test flight, which included a […]

Santa Monica attempted to ban certain business jets from its airport in part due to concerns over safety, but now that a Circuit Court has ruled out the ban, the city’s maneuvering could lead it to turn down a safety measure. Ninety percent of airport traffic heads west at Santa Monica and homes sit just […]

The Chinese government Friday officially began the process of loosening its restrictions on private aircraft by initiating “trial” flights in selected airspace below 1,000 meters. The country chose Haikou, the capital city of China’s Hainan island province, to initiate the flights that will be conducted by four helicopters flying without the need to seek permission […]

Joule Unlimited, a U.S. biotech company, has earned a patent for a “proprietary organism” that it says takes in carbon dioxide, sunshine and (dirty, salt, or clear) water, and puts out liquid hydrocarbons. The four-year-old Massachusetts-based company describes its organism as a genetically engineered cyanobacterium that will deliver “fossil fuels on demand” in “virtually unlimited […]

Kelly McHugh, a 1,500-hour commercial pilot, was flying his Piper Jetprop P46T at 26,000 feet over the Gulf of Mexico on Dec. 4, 2010, when it became clear that he, his three companions, and the plane were going into the water. The aircraft suffered a yet-unexplained engine problem and as it lost power the men […]

China’s latest flying military aircraft prototype, the J-20, may or may not be stealthy, or a true “fifth-generation” fighter, because “we don’t know, frankly, much about the capabilities of that plane,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said this week. Currently, the Pentagon does not know if China’s new aircraft uses a “fifth generation” engine or […]

A pilot in California was killed earlier this month when his airplane struck a 197-foot-tall tower during an agricultural flight, just a few days after the FAA published a proposed policy that would establish voluntary procedures for marking such towers. Meteorological, or met, towers gather data to determine if a site would be profitable to […]