Business & Military

Pal-V, a Netherlands company that has been developing a two-seat roadable gyroplane, said last week they are ready to start taking orders for the vehicle. “After years of hard work, beating the technical and qualification challenges, our team succeeded in creating an innovative flying car that complies with existing safety standards, determined by regulatory bodies […]

The world’s largest manufacturer of drones and the biggest organization of remotely piloted aircraft operators have announced a joint venture to promote safe operation and expand opportunities for drone operators. DJI, which makes the popular Phantom series and other drones, and the Academy of Model Aeronautics will create programs aimed at boosting accessibility and affordability […]

President Donald Trump said Saturday he’d personally negotiated a $1 billion reduction in the $4.2 billion cost of the replacement aircraft for Air Force One and accomplished it in less than an hour. He also told a campaign rally in Melbourne, Florida, that the 25 percent discount is “not good enough. We’re still not going […]

Sonic booms rattled the southeast coast of Florida Friday evening as two F-15s were scrambled to intercept an aircraft that violated presidential restricted airspace over West Palm Beach. The fighters had to hit the afterburners to catch up to the unidentified “general aviation aircraft” after taking off from Homestead Air National Guard Base, about 100 […]

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. DeWofl Miller showed little enthusiasm for trading F/A-18 Super Hornets for F-35s, as has been proposed by President Trump in an effort to reduce the total program cost of the F-35 Lightning. Testifying at a House Subcommittee hearing on the F-35 program, Miller said, “The F-35C provides unique capabilities that cannot […]

NBAA and four businesses have petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals to review the FAA’s deal with the City of Santa Monica to shorten the airport’s runway. Under the deal, the runway would be cut immediately to 3,500 feet from almost 5,000, limiting its use and likely forcing some of the current tenants to immediately […]

ExpressJet Airlines led major U.S. carriers for 2016 in highest percentage of bags lost. According to Department of Transportation statistics, ExpressJet received reports of mishandled baggage from 0.43% of all passengers—91,383 bags—which was down from their 2015, also industry-leading, loss rate of 0.51% of passengers reporting bags mishandled. At the opposite end of the spectrum, […]

More than 90% percent of certification work on new aircraft and aircraft parts is outsourced by the FAA to the manufacturers themselves, according to a GAO report. Similar to the FAA delegation of airman certification authority to Designated Pilot Examiners, the FAA has been authorizing most certification work to be performed by employees of the […]

Military pilots aren’t flying often enough to be as proficient as they need to be, Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, the head of Marine Corps aviation, told reporters in Washington, D.C., recently. “We’re about three hours per pilot per month better than we were [in May 2015], but that’s not good enough,” Davis said, according to […]

The next Air Force One should be anything other than a Boeing 747; even Northrop Grumman’s next-generation stealth bomber would be a better choice, says a report by Wright Williams & Kelly (WWK). President Trump has tweeted that he finds the $3.2B projection for the Presidential Aircraft Recapitalization program to replace the Air Force’s Boeing […]