Business & Military

After 60 years, Pilatus will cease production of the PC-6 Porter in 2019. While rare in the United States, around 600 copies of the tailwheel turboprop have been produced and are flying cargo, passengers and skydivers out of extremely small and rough strips around the world. Although Pilatus continues to sell about 10 PC-6s per […]

NASA is now evaluating five proposed designs for an X-plane that will test new technologies that could help airliners to fly more quietly, burn less fuel and release fewer emissions than aircraft flying today. The concepts aim to address NASA’s goals for 2035, such as a 60 to 80 percent reduction in fuel consumption, greater […]

The CEO of Qantas has challenged Airbus and Boeing to build an airliner that could fly nonstop from Sydney to London with a full payload, by 2022. “This is a last frontier in global aviation,” said Alan Joyce, in an address to investors on Friday. “The antidote to the tyranny of distance. And a revolution […]

Canada Just Isn’t the Same as the U.S. by Mark Baker When Congress returns from summer recess in early September, they will consider a vote on H.R. 2997, the 21st Century AIRR Act, which would remove air traffic control from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and turn it over to the airlines. Supporters of the […]

The Airbus team A^3, or A-cubed, based in Silicon Valley, plans to start flight tests of a prototype of its full-scale VTOL air-taxi, Vahana,in November, according to a report this week by KUOW. The flight tests will be conducted from the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport, in Pendleton, where the company recently occupied a new 9,600-square-foot […]

A seaplane business in Sausalito, California, in operation since 1945, has been growing since new owners took over in 2012, and that’s starting to cause some problems with the neighbors, who have requested a hearing with the County Planning Commission, set for next Monday, Aug. 28. “What began decades ago as a small tourism business […]

A Global 7000, a Bombardier large-cabin business jet currently undergoing test flights, lost an engine last week while flying at 41,000 feet, according to a report in the Wichita Eagle this week. A report from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said the jet “experienced an inflight flameout of the right engine following high vibration […]

The aviation event that was the eclipse of Aug. 21 appears to have gone off with barely a hitch and so far our inexhaustive search for mayhem has found but one relatively minor incident possibly related to eclipse flights. A 1947 Luscombe Silvaire had some trouble on takeoff from Perryville Municipal Airport in Missouri just […]

In an interview in Time magazine about his new film, Dunkirk, director Christopher Nolan said there were very few “God shots” in the production. That may be true, but the one that will get pilots to sit up straight in their multiplex seats has a fuel-exhausted Spitfire gliding along the real Dunkirk beach, its prop […]

I’m just back from a few days at the Cirrus factory in Duluth, delivered back home via the company’s new SF50 Vision Jet, and I’ll immediately unpack this first impression: It’s no exaggeration to say that the Vision Jet is a fugitive from the law of averages. It’s not much to be impressed with how […]