News

About 60 percent of the required certification work is in the hands of the FAA and the aircraft itself is in the paint shop, but Boeing is setting expectations for first flight of the 787 Dreamliner, saying it anticipates liftoff prior to July 1. First test flights had once been expected in late 2007 with […]

HondaJet conforming aircraft will probably not fly before January 2010 with customer deliveries now projected for fourth quarter 2011 — a year later than originally hoped. Honda Aircraft Company Thursday released the news with the explanation that “ongoing global aerospace industry business challenges” have delayed the arrival of critical components. Honda is working with “leading […]

Well, Bloomberg got most of its predictions about the state of business aviation right in its pre-first quarter analysis predicting a bloodbath in their numbers. But it included Gulfstream’s parent General Dynamics in the doom and gloom and the iconic planemaker actually did quite well. In fact, Gulfstream’s margins dipped only slightly from 18.5 percent […]

An FAA memo (PDF) floating around the Internet Wednesday suggests that if the FAA didn’t originate the secrecy surrounding Monday’s White House photo op over New York, it certainly went along with it. The memo-authored by James J. Johnston of the agency’s security operations branch-clearly indicates the FAA was notified well ahead of the planned […]

Things might be grim still in the business jet world (see today’s Cessna news), but at least one company in the GA piston world is starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Cirrus Aircraft announced on Wednesday that it is increasing its production rate to six aircraft per week starting immediately. […]

One trend we noticed at Sun ‘n Fun last week — more and more LSA manufacturers are finding that flight schools are interested in their products. The LSAs are less expensive to acquire and operate, and they can be used for flight training right up to ATP. Now that the aircraft have been around for […]

Flying to Cuba from southern Florida could be an appealing trip for a GA pilot — it’s only about 80 miles away, and the beach resorts and Cuban cigars still have the romantic appeal they had in Hemingway’s time. But while flying your private airplane into Cuba is not expressly forbidden, it’s not easy to […]

In response to a dismal first-quarter earnings report, Cessna’s parent company Textron said on Wednesday the Citation Columbus program will be put on hold. Also, the former Columbia factory in Bend, Ore., where the Cessna Corvalis models are built, will be closed, and those airplanes will be built in Kansas instead. The company will lay […]

Last week, during a hearing convened by the House Aviation Subcommittee to address safety issues regarding the use of helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS), an FAA spokesman said the FAA has reversed its previous stand that the current rules were adequate, and new rules will be forthcoming soon. “We recognize that relying on voluntary compliance […]

Bernard Laferriere, 56, president of Explorer Aeronautique, was killed on Tuesday when he crashed while en route to Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, in an Ecoflyer, the pudgy-looking LSA that his company has been developing. The Ecoflyer, which aims to be a kind of flying RV, was hard to miss at Sun ‘n Fun all last week, on […]