News

Light sport airplanes are generally considered to be for fun flying, but a fire department in Ecuador this week took delivery of a Flight Design LSA to use as its aerial support unit. Hugh Cobo, leader of the Air Volunteer Fire Department in Bomberos de Cuenca, said he chose the CTLS as the department’s first […]

Mississippi Democrats have introduced a bill in the state legislature to strip Gov. Haley Barbour of his use of the state’s Cessna Citation amid growing scrutiny of the flamboyant potential presidential candidate’s use of the aircraft. Critics allege many of the trips Barbour takes with the jet have more to do with his presidential ambitions […]

Boeing is coming under increasing pressure to follow Airbus’s lead and come up with a fuel-efficient version of its single-aisle airliner. A couple of weeks ago, Airbus announced it would offer a re-engined A320 equipped with either Pratt and Whitney’s geared turbofan or GE’s next-generation engines. Boeing has been hinting it will go for all-out […]

AirShares Elite, a fractional ownership company that maintains a fleet of Cirrus SR22 aircraft in 19 U.S. cities, is offering a new wrinkle in the frax market for its big customers. Owners can now book multiple aircraft simultaneously in different cities. “This can be particularly advantageous for national businesses, as a customer with offices in […]

Small electric aircraft could solve the transportation problems of the near future by providing quick hops between neighborhood airports, according to a presentation at the Future of Electric Vehicles conference held earlier this month in San Jose, Calif. The “pocket” airports could support 120 operations per hour, limited to small air-taxi vehicles only, while occupying […]

The FAA needs to address ongoing problems that could “impede NextGen implementation in the mid-term,” according to an assessment by the Transportation Department’s inspector general. The report (PDF), released last week to members of Congress, cites the “cascading effect” of failures in the $2.1 billion En Route Automation Modernization tool, the backbone of the FAA’s […]

The ambitious restoration to flight status of two F-82 Twin Mustangs is getting closer to reality with the recent announcement that German propeller manufacturer MT has successfully flight-tested scratch-built replacement props for the extraordinarily rare warbirds. What’s more, the props are made from composites and, based on the tests done on a P-51, should give […]

Boeing resumed flight tests of the 787 Dreamliner just before Christmas, saying it had installed a new, interim version of revised software governing its power distribution system on the first of six test aircraft. A short circuit and fire caused by a foreign object inside a power distribution box Nov. 6 resulted in a six-week […]

Seattle Avionics says its collaboration with DTC DUAT offers pilots a “patent-free” flight planning service that avoids all the issues raised by the patent awarded FlightPrep for online flight planning. “While it downloads weather and TFR information from the Internet, it is not an Internet-based flight planner, and is not subject to the recently publicized […]

Cirrus’ Perspective Electronic Stability and Protection (Perspective ESP) and Hypoxia Recognition and Automatic Descent Mode systems have earned FAA approval, bringing unique upgrades to Cirrus pilots flying with the Perspective package. The ESP system operates when a pilot is hand-flying the aircraft and helps correct excessive pitch, roll or airspeed situations. It activates automatically, even […]