Business & Military

Daher-Socata will design and certify Airbus Group’s electric E-Fan aircraft with plans to develop the existing prototype into an all-electric series of production aircraft, the companies announced Thursday. Airbus subsidiary VoltAir, which developed the prototype, will be the project manager as Daher-Socata designs and tests the aircraft, including its electric powerplant and batteries. Airbus announced […]

National Geographic will release a new documentary, “Living in the Age of Airplanes,” in April. The film, produced and directed by Brian Terwilliger — maker of the 2005 GA documentary “One Six Right” — is about how air travel has transformed civilization.Harrison Ford narrates, while the score comes from Academy-Award-winning composer James Horner, also a […]

AVweb’s search of the world’s aviation news turned up European approval for Pratt & Whitney’s new engine, a landmark anniversary for Embraer, and new product announcements including a Bristell LSA distributor for the U.S. market and a tablet mount from MyGoFlight. Pratt & Whitney Canada’s new PW210A engine has earned certification from the European Aviation […]

The FAA on Wednesday granted four companies exemptions for operating unmanned aerial systems in various functions including aerial surveys, construction site monitoring and oil rig flare inspections. The companies are Trimble Navigation Limited, VDOS Global LLC, Clayco Inc. and Woolpert Inc., which received two exemptions.The FAA is expected to propose rules governing drones by the […]

A passenger on a Southwest Airlines 737 gave birth in flight on Wednesday morning, shortly after takeoff from San Francisco. A doctor and nurse on board assisted, and the captain diverted the flight, which was bound for Phoenix, to land in Los Angeles. “It was a beautiful day, smooth, everything was going great,” said Captain […]

The House has passed a package of tax measures that would, among other things, revive bonus depreciation on capital investments, including aircraft. Bonus depreciation allows businesses to write off up to 50 percent of the value of equipment purchased in and put into service in 2014. There are also reports the plan is to make […]

Retail giant Amazon told the FAA this week that it would rather be testing its delivery drones in the U.S., but since the agency has stymied the company’s efforts, jobs and investment in the program are being exported to sites outside the country. “These non-U.S. facilities enable us to quickly build and modify our Prime […]

It’s not often that a passenger throws the chief flight attendant off a flight but that’s the scenario that led to a recent Korean Airlines flight leaving JFK late. Of course it wasn’t just any passenger. Cho Hyun-Ah (who goes by Heather Cho), the family-run airline’s executive vice president and daughter of CEO Cho Yang-Ho, […]

Researchers at Caltech and the University of Arizona are working on a system that may someday allow aircraft designers to drastically reduce the size of the vertical stabilizer. That, they say, will reduce weight and drag and save a lot of fuel. The researchers installed small jets along the rudder and blew streams of air […]

Letter of the Week:Third Class Medical Issues Regarding Woody Beck’s article on the decline of GA: He states the following,“Over the longer term, changes in the third class medical will have no significant impact because its cost is negligible, roughly the cost of 15 gallons of av fuel every two years for us older pilots.” […]