News

Piper Aircraft has hired a contractor to renovate a 75,000-square-foot building at its Vero Beach headquarters that will become the PiperJet factory. The news is welcome in Vero Beach, where there have been persistent rumors that the company was planning to move. It was purchased by the government of Brunei 18 months ago and now […]

Landing on a dry lakebed can be challenging but exciting, and 98 general aviation pilots got to have that experience this month, thanks to the first-ever GA fly-in at Edwards Air Force Base. “This is a uniquely Edwards event. Only Edwards has lakebed runways,” said Maj. Gen. David Eichhorn, Air Force Flight Test Center commander, […]

As recently as last weekend, a Red Bull Stratos team member told AVweb all was going well and the jump was planned for this year, but on Tuesday the team said the project is on hold pending the resolution of a lawsuit. The Stratos team announced early this year that it would launch a helium […]

The FAA said on Tuesday it will accept written requests for clarification of its proposed new pilot duty-time rules until Oct. 15, and will respond to them by Oct. 22. The FAA said the question period is its response to “numerous requests” from stakeholders for some kind of forum to get answers to questions and […]

The number of runway incursions has dropped by half for the second year in a row, the FAA says. The number of serious incursions at U.S. airports dropped from 12 in 2009 to six in 2010 (on FAA’s fiscal calendar, 2010 ended on Sept. 30). Half of the incidents involved commercial aircraft, and the other […]

A group representing instrument-rated private pilots in Europe is hopeful that new unified standards for all IFR operations can be implemented without causing undue hardship for those who now fly under FAA certificates. In a podcast interview with AVweb, Jim Thorpe, vice chairman of PPL/IR Europe, said negotiations between the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) […]

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. SpaceShipTwo, the spacecraft that will take paying passengers to the edge of space, had its first manned free flight Sunday, dropping from the launch aircraft mothership Eve 45,000 feet above the Mojave Desert. […]

A controversial law that opponents fear could have imposed new and potentially crippling fees on California flight schools and flight instructors may now be held up for further consideration thanks to legislative action, Friday. The concerns arose from SB 48, a bill passed earlier this year that authorizes the California Bureau of Private Postsecondary Education […]

The FAA Friday released a Safety Alert to address “risks in transporting lithium batteries in cargo by aircraft,” noting that UPS Flight 006, a 747 that crashed on Sept. 3, was carrying large quantities of lithium batteries. Fire was reported on the UPS flight but the FAA notes that a cause of the crash has […]

The CEO of OurPLANE says the company is following the bankruptcy process to the letter. Graham Casson also told AVweb that all OurPLANE clients were given the legal means to protect their investment when they signed the five-year shared-use contract. Dozens of OurPLANE participants have come forward in recent days claiming they were not repaid […]