Business & Military

Bombardier is laying off 1,700 aerospace workers, 1,100 in Montreal and 600 in Wichita, because of slow sales and delays in the CSeries airliner and Learjet 85 programs. Last week, the Canadian planemaker announced the CSeries wouldn’t be ready for its first deliveries until the last half of 2015, and a few days later it […]

Beechcraft has been through a lot in the last few years, emerging from bankruptcy and now under new ownership, but its long heritage remains intact — a fact that was celebrated this week, when the company marked the 50th anniversary of the first flight of the King Air Model 90. Several three-ship passes of the […]

Before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the former Eastern Bloc countries supplied the Soviets with sophisticated aerospace products and services. Now those industries have turned to civil aircraft manufacture. One of those companies, Skyleader, showed off a new LSA at the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring this week. Here’s a brief video report […]

GAMA says Appropriations Committee leaders have called for a slight increase in funding for the FAA to research alternatives to 100LL. The administration included $5.571 million for the fuel research in its spending estimates but the committees agreed on $6 million. If it’s approved by Congress, it will be one of only a handful of […]

The smog in some Chinese cities is too severe to fly these days, but two new general aviation policies recently coming into play may hopefully clear the forward vision a little for the market players in China. First, the Chinese regulator Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) loosened licensing requirements for private pilot licenses (PPL). […]

SpaceShipTwo went higher and faster than it has been before on Friday and Virgin Group President Sir Richard Branson is predicting it will reach space sometime in 2014. Branson had hoped the reusable passenger-carrying rocket would have slipped out of the atmosphere by the end of 2013 but Friday’s flight showed progress toward the ultimate […]

Just 18 days after being designated by the FAA as one of six federally approved test sites for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), Texas A&M-Corpus Christi will conduct several test flightsover South Texas ranchland to continue research and training on the RS-16 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The RS-16 has a wingspan of 12 feet 11 inches, […]

More than 10 years after Congress mandated that the Transportation Security Administration establish security regulations for repair stations certified under FAR Part 145 and four years after the TSA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on the matter, the TSA is about to formally publish the final rules (PDF). In a January 10 conference […]

Piper Aircraft announced that it has selected Hebei Yuanao Aircraft Manufacturing Co. Ltd., of Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, China, as Pipers authorized dealer in China for sales of the Mirage, Archer TX and Seminole. Established in 2012, Hebei Yuanao Aircraft was the first private general aviation manufacturing company in Hebei Province. Its factory is located in […]

Murphy Aircraft Manufacturing Ltd.,of Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada, is for sale. Asking price: $2.5-$4 million. Founded in 1985, the company builds a line of experimental airplane kits targeted at homebuilders desiring utilitarian, back-country craft that can operate on wheels, skis or floats. The line includes the biplane Renegade Sport, and monoplanes Rebel Sport, Rebel, Maverick, […]