News

Normally business-friendly Japan is revamping its rules for business aircraft after realizing the strangely stringent regulations were detouring the world’s business elite. The Daily Yomiuri reports that business aircraft traffic at Japan’s largest airports, Narita and Haneda, has dropped drastically in recent years and totals just 3,000 operations a year. By contrast, New York airports […]

Airbus likely didn’t envision its super-long-range flagship A380 being used as a shuttle but Air France apparently thinks it can make money hopping across the English Channel with the giant airliner. The airline will begin summer weekend A380 service between London’s Heathrow and Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airports June 12. There will be one flight […]

When the Senate OK’d an FAA funding bill back in March, it looked like the agency would finally see an end to a long series of short-term extensions dating back to 2007, but now the bill remains stalled due to a dispute over union rules. The House version of the bill includes a provision that […]

In a three-day forum this week, from Tuesday to Thursday, the NTSB will address a spectrum of issues affecting the performance of pilots and air traffic controllers. All of the sessions will be broadcast live on the Internet; click here to watch. The complete agenda is posted online, as well as biographies of the speakers. […]

President Barack Obama has nominated John Pistole to take over as the next head of the Transportation Security Administration, his third effort to fill the long-vacant position. Two other recent nominees failed to win confirmation. Pistole, deputy director at the FBI, has been described as “bullteproof.” In announcing his choice, President Obama said: “The talent […]

A United 757 en route from New York to Los Angeles Monday made an emergency landing at Dulles following a cockpit fire that may have been more serious than initially reported. Passengers told the Associated Press Monday afternoon that shortly after take off, they smelled smoke and a flight crew member opened the cockpit door […]

The FAA has approved a Certification of Authorization (COA) for an unmanned aerialvehicle to patrol a portion of the U.S.-Mexico border extending from Arizona to the El Paso region of Texas effective June 1. This is one of two COAs that have been submitted to the FAA seeking approval for UAV flights along the Texas-Mexico […]

To find its first chief executive, Virgin Galactic went straight to that other space agency — the one known as NASA — to find George Whitesides, who was working there as chief of staff. Will Whitehorn, Virgin Galactic’s longtime president, said Whitesides will guide the company as it transitions from a work-in-progress to a fully […]

The Woopy-Fly, a sort of paraglider/trike/ultralight hybrid shown on the world stage at Aero Friedrichshafen this April, 2010, in Germany, has a wing that folds for storage like a paraglider — because it’s inflatable. An evolution of the Woopy Jump, an inflatable wing used by Woopy enthusiasts to give them a more convenient hang gliding-type […]

All three people aboard a Mexican-registered Piper PA-46 Mirage loaded with relief supplies for Haiti survived when the aircraft clipped a house in Clearwater, Fla., broke into two pieces and caught fire Sunday morning. Six people in the house weren’t hurt. Police say pilot Ernesto Gonzales, 48, and passengers Charles Uslander, 54, and Daisy Schneider, […]