Business & Military

As I was flipping through the depressing photos of those Cessna Skycatchers being reduced to so much scrap metal, I felt a certain immune response kicking in. I’ve seen this before, so let’s not get too maudlin about it. The time frame was 1995. The Air Force had bought a fleet of 113 airplanes from […]

The FAA on Friday finalized new aircraft certification rules for general aviation that are expected to help the industry bring new designs and technology to market more quickly and cheaply. The new Part 23 rules, first proposed in March, will go into effect in August 2017, changing the FAA’s traditional prescriptive design requirements to performance-based […]

AVweb’s search of aviation news around the world found announcements from the Lindbergh Foundation, Hillsboro Aero Academy, Global Aerospace andUniversal Avionics.The Lindbergh Foundation’s Air Shepherd program, developed to protect elephants and rhinos from poaching by using drones, announced its partnership with world leading drone manufacturer DJI. The operations are a collaborated effort with African Parks, […]

Cessna has scrapped the remaining inventory (photo gallery) of its 162-model Skycatcher airplanes, capping the end of the company’s light-sport program. AVweb has learned that the unsold Skycatchers, which the company confirmed in 2014 amounted to about 80 aircraft, were destroyed as shown in photos of an assembled but unfinished Cessna 162 being dropped into […]

An Amazon drone has made the online retailer’s first official customer delivery, dropping popcorn and a Fire TV media player at a British resident’s door. “First-ever #AmazonPrimeAir customer delivery is in the books,” Amazon’s Jeff Bezos tweeted Wednesday. The flight marks the launch of Prime Air, Amazon’s drone-to-door operation that has been in the works […]

The U.S. Marines have grounded their V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft based in Japan after one was destroyed in Okinawa on Tuesday, at about 10 p.m. local time. The Osprey was engaged in an aerial refueling exercise when a hose connected to the aircraft broke. The crew attempted an emergency landing in shallow water about 300 […]

The FAA has said it will conduct a study to see if a ban on jets landing at a Florida airport is justified, the Palm Beach Post reported this week. The Palm Beach County Park/Lantana Airport is the only one in the state with such a ban, according to the Post. The uncontrolled field has […]

The FAA published a final rule on Tuesday that will allow operators to use an enhanced-vision flight system to descend all the way to the runway, under certain conditions. Currently, the FAA allows pilots to depend on enhanced vision in lieu of natural vision only to 100 feet above the runway, and only under certain […]

Piper’s six-seat single-engine turboprop, the M600, is now certified in Australia, the company announced this week. “This is a significant milestone for the Piper M600,” said Piper Aircraft CEO Simon Caldecott. “Australian owner/operators tell us they are very keen on the greater range and enhanced safety features.” The airplane, which was FAA certified in June, […]