News

Airship Ventures, the group offering zeppelin tours of San Francisco Bay, Moffett Field and the Monterey Coast, is now offering full- and half-day piloting experiences to private-pilot-rated individuals holding a current medical certificate. The company is charging $2950 per student-slot for the honor (sightseeing flights range from about $200 to $750). For pilot “training” the […]

So, can a student pilot apply any flight time he or she logged while training for a sport pilot certificate toward a private pilot certificate? According to a letter from the FAA’s Office of the Chief Counsel to aviation journalist Tim Kern, who queried the office, solo sport pilot flight time may only be credited […]

On July 31, 2008, a B-1 crew’s actions in support of ground forces in Afghanistan distinguished them for “one of the most important awards in the United States Air Force,” according to the National Aeronautic Association. The crew of BONE 23, 37th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, was contacted to support troops who […]

The tenth anniversary of TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747 that exploded off Long Island, killing all 230 people aboard, passed on July 17, 2006, and in the Aug. 5, 2009, Federal Register, the FAA published an airworthiness directive designed to address the potential problem in Boeing 767 aircraft. The latest Final Rule from the […]

Richard Santulli, who 25 years ago created NetJets, a worldwide leader in fractional jet ownership programs, announced Tuesday that he would “step down as chairman and CEO of NetJets, immediately.” Acquired by Berkshire Hathaway in the late ’90s, Warren Buffet has appointed David Sokol to act as interim CEO. Sokol said he looks forward to […]

Virtually every new airplane these days has an electronic flight display system of some kind. Our sister publication Aviation Consumer would like to hear from users of these systems. Click here to take the survey. (The results will appear in a future issue of Aviation Consumer. For subscription information, click here.)

NASA’s Langley Full Scale Wind Tunnel (LFST), in Hampton, Va., is scheduled to be shut down and demolished later this month, and Ken Hyde, president of The Wright Experience, thinks that would be a mistake. Hyde and his team used the tunnel to help create a reproduction of the first Wright Flyer for the Centennial […]

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 […]