News

NASA announced last week that as part of its Centennial Challenges program, it will fund a $1.5 million prize for the first aircraft that can average at least 100 mph on a 200-mile flight while achieving greater than 200 passenger miles per gallon. A competition is scheduled for July 2011 in Santa Rosa, Calif., which […]

A short video of the July 25 takeoff, posted by the Associated Press to YouTube. Note that the XI has no ailerons; it was controlled using wing warping. 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. It was 100 years ago, […]

It took a while — the proposed airworthiness directive was out over a year ago — but this week, the FAA issued a final rule requiring inspections and compression tests for some 8,000 engines built by Teledyne Continental Motors with cylinders by Superior Air Parts, if they have logged more than 750 flight hours. The […]

The FAA on Tuesday changed its certification standards for transport category airplanes to require either the automatic activation of ice protection systems or a method to tell pilots when they should be activated. “We’re adding another level of safety to prevent situations where pilots are either completely unaware of ice accumulation or don’t think it’s […]

Brian Morgan Mark O’Halloran Apparently undaunted by the current state of the aviation industry (see today’s GAMA story), a pair of entrepreneurs is preparing to build a 600,000-square-foot facility at the Sheboygan County (Wisc.) Airport where they will develop and manufacture a new vertical-takeoff-and-landing jet design. County leaders said the company has potential for “tremendous […]

Sales of piston aircraft dropped 58 percent in the first half of 2009, compared to the same period a year before, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) reported in their quarterly update on Tuesday. Shipments fell from 1,034 airplanes last year to just 434 units in 2009. Business jets were also down, by 38 percent […]

When Elrey Jeppesen in 1934 created the first aeronautical chart, he probably had no idea he was founding a company that would become one of the most well-known in aviation. Since then, the technology has changed a bit, as have the charts, and the company is celebrating its 75th year of traditional charting by partnering […]

AirVenture at Oshkosh gets lots of attention for the spectacular aircraft and aviators it attracts, but in a less visible way, it’s also a place to get things done. Everybody is gathered in one place, out of their offices and in a collegial atmosphere, and plenty of meetings are scheduled where decisions are made and […]

EAA got the stars out to promote its annual “Gathering of Eagles” fundraiser at AirVenture Oshkosh last week, and they brought in bid after bid from an audience over 1,100 strong, raising a total of $1.8 million to support EAA’s Young Eagles program. Auction items included a flight in a Sikorsky Air Crane, an aerobatic […]

Grimes Manufacturing, a major producer of aircraft lights, uses a C-45H (the military version of a Beech 18) as a test bed for their lights. The aircraft was originally built for the military, and was delivered in 1944. For 20 years it moved around to different bases and was used for different missions until it […]