Business & Military

New This Week

AVweb‘s search of news in aviation found announcements from Able Flight, Partners in Aviation, L-3 Aviation Products and Yingling Aviation.Able Flight and Lockheed Martin announced a scholarship to aid wounded warriors of the United States armed services. The Lockheed Martin Fighting Spirit Scholarship provides sports and physical activity programs for wounded veterans.Partners in Aviation, recently […]

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It’s Time To Raise The LSA Weight Limit

From the unintended consequences file comes this: The Third Class medical exemption rips away the last vestiges of logic—if there ever was any—for retaining the weight limit for light sport aircraft. If you can fly a 6000-pound airplane without a medical, why are you limited to 1320 pounds under essentially the same conditions?The whole thing […]

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Military Needs More Drone Pilots

There’s been a lot of talk lately about a shortage of pilots for both military and civilian jobs, and now the U.S. Air Force says it has to hire private contractors to fly its drones. The contract drone pilots are not allowed to fire weapons, but they can operate reconnaissance missions, according to a story […]

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NASA Research Aims To Improve Engine Performance

Researchers at NASA are “investigating promising advances” in high-temperature materials that can be used to make turbine engines run more efficiently, the agency said last week. The materials, called ceramic-matrix composites, or CMCs, are lighter and stronger than the metal alloys used today, and can withstand the extremely high temperatures of 2700 degrees Fahrenheit and […]

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Icon Expands Into Mexico

Icon will establish a production plant in the city of Tijuana, in Baja, Mexico, company spokesman Brian Manning told AVweb on Tuesday, confirming an online report published over the weekend at a Tijuana news site. The new facility will produce composite airframe components for the A5 assembly plant in Vacaville, California, Manning said. It’s scheduled […]

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USAF To Test Textron Scorpion

The U.S. Air Force has created a new kind of testing regime for evaluating military aircraft, and recently announced that Textron AirLand’s Scorpion jet will be the first product to go through the process. The process, called a cooperative research and development agreement, or CRADA, is open to any industry partner, on a first-come, first-served […]

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Red Bull Races Move To U.S.

The Red Bull Air Race series moves to North America in a few weeks and the last race on its European leg set the stage for drama on this side of the Atlantic. Australia’s Matt Hall won Sunday’s race at EuroSpeedway Lusitz in Germany followed by Germany’s Matthias Dolderer. Canada’s Pete McLeod was third for […]

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Sully To Preview To Theater Full Of Pilots

The producers of “Sully,” the movie based on the ditching of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009, are apparently so confident of its authenticity they’ve invited a theater full of pilots to a preview screening on Sept. 7, two days before it opens to general audiences. Warner Bros. has given free tickets to […]

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Rocket Blows Up, Smug Smile Fades

As an aviation journalist, my job description isn’t exactly to cheer when a flying machine craters, runs amok, blows up or otherwise goes awry. Hey, two wings, one love, right? So it was with a little guilt when, like a beer burp you can’t quite keep down, I had this moment of so there, when […]

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