Business & Military

An F-35C Lightning II carrier variant Joint Strike Fighter has completed an arrested landing aboard an aircraft carrier for the first time, the U.S. Navy announced this week. The landing took place aboard USS Nimitz off the coast of San Diego on Monday, shortly after noon. Navy Cmdr. Tony Wilson was the pilot. “Today is […]

Losing people in a flight program is gut-wrenchingly hard and today I feel for all of the folks at Scaled Composites. None of them set out to lose a friend and injure another when they prepared to launch SpaceShipTwo last Friday. Their goal was the same as every person or team that has ever taken […]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting (subscription only) that structural failure, rather than an engine explosion, is the initial focus of the NTSB investigation into the loss of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo on Friday. It is quoting unnamed sources as saying the preliminary video and data analysis is turning the focus to an aerodynamic breakup, although […]

Friday’s loss of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo was as inevitable was it was tragic. If anyone believes-as I think some do-that attaching “tourism” to space flight somehow erases the risk of flight beyond the atmosphere, this accident should disabuse them of that notion. But I wonder if it will. Promoting space tourism has gotten quite beyond […]

AVweb’s weekly foray into the latest aviation news uncovered news of a new president at MicroAerodynanics, a special aircraft sale by Quicksilver, no delay CFI insurance and staff additions at the EAA. After several years as the Flight Test Director and Vice President at Micro AeroDynamics, Ms. Anni Brogan has become President of the company. […]

The FAA is warning drone operators that overflying sports venues could lead to jail time. In a posting Monday on its TFR website, the FAA states ” … unmanned aircraft and remote controlled aircraft” are prohibited within three nautical miles and 3,000 feet AGL over “any stadium having a seating capacity of 30,000 or more […]

Solar Flight has released plans for the SunStar, a solar-powered airplane designed to act as an unmanned telecommunications platform, able to remain in flight for months at a time. Eric Raymond, president of Solar Flight, said, “What we are designing is known as an atmospheric satellite, which operates and performs many of the functions as […]

Surf Air, which calls itself an “all-you-can-fly private membership airline,” is expanding its service from its base in Santa Monica, California, to include Carlsbad and Oakland, the company has announced. The added service coincides with the arrival of three new Pilatus PC-12NG aircraft, the first in an order of 65 airplanes to be delivered over […]

The job of aircraft dispatcher may not get much attention, but dispatchers are essential to flight departments around the country, and the FAA has decided it needs to be more vigilant about how they are trained. There are 44 FAA-approved dispatcher certification courses in operation, the FAA said last week, but the FAA has no […]

Friday’s world-record high-altitude skydive by computer scientist Alan Eustace pioneered a new space suit and life support system and the data collected from the jump may inform the design of a six-person capsule now in the works. Eustace, a Google senior executive, established the new record by exiting a balloon at 135,890 feet over Roswell, […]