News

In its annual aviation forecast, released on Tuesday, the FAA said it expects U.S. aircraft operations to decrease almost 6 percent this year compared to 2008 levels but then start to rebound in 2010. Operations overall will then grow at about 1.5 percent per year through 2025, with general aviation growing slightly faster at 1.8 […]

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. Teledyne Continental said on Wednesday that it has just completed a round of flight and test-cell trials that suggest that 94UL may be an adequate replacement for 100LL, whose existence is threatened by […]

AVweb will be attending the Aircraft Electronics Association’s annual show in Dallas, and word is that there will be more product announcements than ever. To give our newsteam a chance to cover all the announcements, we’d appreciate companies with news to share to get it to us in advance (embargoed as necessary) so we can […]

It would be hard to imagine a worse time to be launching a new airliner but Bombardier is forging ahead with its new CSeries single-aisle airplanes and winning new orders that might otherwise have gone to Boeing or Airbus. The company announced a $1.44 billion deal with Lease Corporation International (LCI) on Monday for three […]

It may be the first time in more than 20 years that a two-seat Supermarine Spitfire has gone to auction and the current example (once stationed at RAF Lyneham in 1944) is expecting to draw bids of more than $2.1 million, next month. Some estimates put the number of flying two-seat Spits at seven (flying […]

The Hotelicopter is “the world’s first flying hotel,” and it’s a helicopter, according to its promoter. An “elegant modification” of the Soviet Mil V-12 helicopter (only two were ever built back in the late 1960s, one was damaged in a hard landing and the other, according to several sources, is on display at a museum), […]

WhiteKnightTwo (WK2, also dubbed “EVE” by Virgin Galactic’s Sir Richard Branson), which will serve as the launch vehicle for Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2), has expanded its flight envelope with a third test flight that took the aircraft to 140 knots and 18,000 feet. The flight also tested engine thrust asymmetry parameters and in-flight engine restarts. […]

The FAA normally releases annual summaries of aircraft/wildlife collisions (in 2007 there were 7,439), but following the Hudson River ditching of US Airways Flight 1549 and a subsequent Associated Press request for access to the FAA’s wildlife hazard database, the agency has sought changes. The FAA on March 19 published a notice of proposed rulemaking […]

A pilot, a labor relations consultant, and the former president of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), ATP-rated Randy Babbitt is now officially President Barack Obama’s choice to serve as FAA administrator. Babbitt’s nomination must now pass the Senate before he can set to the present priorities of (and problems posed by) air traffic control […]

Liberty Aerospace has “no intent to shut down,” but has laid off another 14 workers, bringing the once 180-strong workforce down to about 32, president Keith Markley told Florida Today. The company laid off 30 workers in January. The Brevard, Fla., company is maintaining offices in Melbourne and a contract facility in Romania and intends […]