Eurocopter announced the week of February 25 new “Blue Edge” and “Blue Pulse” technology that significantly reduces the noise generated by a helicopter blade. Tested on an EC155 helicopter, the Blue Edge blade itself created a three to four decibel drop in noise and then Eurocopter added more technology. For the blade, itself, Eurocopter dramatically […]
New Zealander (he’s half Australian) Rudy Heeman has, over 11 years, transformed his hovercraft into a wing-in-ground-effect vehicle, and now it’s for sale. Heeman says he’s found the ideal flight altitude under the vehicle’s 7-meter wingspan to be about 1.5 meters, over flat water or land, where he reached a top speed of about 60 […]
India Aviation 2010 launched on Wednesday amid high hopes for expanding markets in the region, but the opening day airshow was marred by a crash that killed two pilots. Spectators from more than 100 countries were on the show site in Hyderabad when a Kiran MK-II, a military jet trainer, crashed into a nearby apartment […]
Bring your-kid-to-work-day took on a decidedly different turn last week when a tower controller at New York’s JFK evidently had a child communicate with aircraft on the outbound local frequency. Recorded audio reveals the child made a handful of transmissions-obviously coached-and the controller said on the frequency “that’s what you get guys when the kids […]
Business aircraft activity is up considerably, bucking a trend that saw an overall decline in general aviation activity (it’s down 3 percent overall) in the U.S. according to FlightAware. In its monthly analysis of aircraft movements, the popular online tracking and data site says private jet traffic is up a whopping 8.8 percent in February, […]
The Oahu Aviation Initiative, an ad hoc coalition of 20 small general aviation businesses in Hawaii, is asking the federal government to compensate them for $200,000 in losses they incurred due to almost two weeks of flight restrictions during President Barack Obama’s recent holiday visit to Oahu. The group is also working with the Secret […]
New rules proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to control runoff from aircraft deicing fluids would “create safety hazards at many airports,” the American Association of Airport Executives says. Under the proposed rules, airports with more than 10,000 annual aircraft departures and 1,000 annual jet departures would be required to re-capture up to 60 […]
Around the world, women plan to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first time a woman earned a pilot certificate by taking a woman or girl for her first flight in a general-aviation aircraft during the week of March 6 to 12. Raymonde De Laroche, a French balloonist, learned to fly a fixed-wing aircraft and […]
Test flights are set to start this summer of a Diamond DA42 that will be modified to fly in a “pilot optional” configuration. Aurora Flight Sciences, of Manassas, Va., is creating the Optionally Piloted Vehicle prototype, called the Centaur, for a variety of scientific and military applications. The Centaur will have roughly the same payload […]
A federal court has ruled that the FAA must release aircraft registration information previously kept secret in a special program if it receives a Freedom of Information request. For about 10 years, private aircraft operators have been able to have their N numbers “blocked” from outside scrutiny under the National Business Aviation Association’s Blocked Aircraft […]
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