News

Virgin Galactic, the Sir Richard Branson-founded future space tourism provider, Thursday announced that the controllable (on/off) rocket motor to be used in SpaceShipTwo has successfully completed phase-one testing. Virgin believes its hybrid nitrous oxide system is the largest of its kind, capable of propelling payloads (or customers) to more than 2500 mph and heights of […]

Eminent domain has been invoked to secure some 500 acres of in Somerset Country, Pa., from seven owners, for a memorial to United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 that crashed there September 11, 2001, after passengers heeded the call “Let’s roll” and attempted to retake the flight from its hijackers. The memorial for the […]

After putting about 20 hours on the Herpa DC-3 on the Fiddling Around America Tour it was time to make sure everything was in order (it was) with the big Pratt & Whitney R1830 engines as the crew stopped at the Airline History Museum in Kansas City, Mo. It’s the last stop before the tour […]

Our sister magazine, Aviation Consumer, wants to hear about your experiences with aftermarket electronic tachometers. We’d like to know why you installed an electronic tach; which one you chose and why; how easy or complicated the installation and paperwork were; how well you like the product; and whether you’d do it again. We’d also like […]

Municipal governments keep coming up with new ways to try and impede activity at their local airports and the burghers of Grant-Valkaria in Brevard County, Fla. have come up with a novel approach to pressuring a local field. The town council will consider a resolution on Monday that would outlaw flight training, including recurrent training, […]

Entecho, based in Perth, Australia, is working to develop two aircraft that it calls Compact Aerial Vehicles. The two types of CAV, the Hoverpod and the Mupod, offer many advantages over conventional aircraft such as airplanes and helicopters, according to the company Web site. The smaller one, the remotely operated Mupod, is only about two […]

Newly confirmed FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt has won a warm welcome from leaders in the general aviation world — along with realistic assessments that the times ahead will be challenging. “I look forward to working with Administrator Babbitt,” said AOPA President Craig Fuller. “During his confirmation hearing, and in my conversations with Randy, he demonstrated […]

While next-generation light-jet air taxis have been slow to make headway here in the U.S., a new company in Europe seems to have found a sweet spot. Blink, based at Farnborough, near London, operates a fleet of just four Citation Mustangs, and so far it’s working out. “Things are going very well for us at […]

With many established aircraft manufacturers putting new projects on hold, fresh start-ups working to introduce new designs are scarce. But Stratos Aircraft, of Bend, Ore., is moving ahead with plans for a new all-composite certified very light jet, and recently unveiled a mockup of the fuselage design. The mockup will debut at EAA AirVenture in […]

Continental Airlines says nine of its senior pilots divorced their spouses so they could collect early settlements of up to $900,000 from the airline’s pension fund, and later got remarried. Continental says the divorces were intended only to secure the cash long before the pilots normally would have been eligible, but at least one of […]