Business & Military

Assuming a safe New Year’s Eve, Monday ends what can best be described as an average year for airline-related fatalities. According to one measure (fatalities involving airliners in flight, not necessarily in revenue service) there were 16 accidents that killed 555 people (as of Dec. 27) in 2018. That compares to the safest year on […]

Electric aircraft company Eviation announced last week that it is forming a research and development partnership with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Through the partnership, fourth year undergraduate engineering students will collaborate with Eviation on zero-emission all-electric aircraft solutions. According to Eviation, the university program will focus on performance analysis, validation and testing, future electric propulsion and […]

I was flying with a non‑pilot friend who had never been in a small plane. We were listening in on Key West International’s tower frequency. It was early on a Saturday morning and not much was happening. A regular inbound flight checked in and the pilot and controller obviously knew one another and began talking […]

Drones Close Gatwick Regarding your question, we don’t have enough accurate information. There are conflicting reports. There were two or more drones. Or there were no drones. But what surprises me is that any airport, especially an important hub like Gatwick, would be surprised by a drone incursion and not already have a plan of […]

German investigators say a runway excursion by Boeing 777 that was on autoland was the fault of the pilots. The unusual incident happened in November of 2011 at Munich Airport but the report from the German BRU was just released this week. The BRU found the Singapore Airlines crew initiated the chain of events that […]

Sikorsky and Boeing offered the first look at their new military utility helicopter this week. According to Boeing, the SB>1 Defiant was designed to “fly at twice the speed and range of today’s conventional helicopters” as well as offering “advanced agility and maneuverability.” The Defiant was developed for the U.S. Army’s Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator […]

Kansas State University Polytechnic Campus is offering $500 scholarships to first responders who want to attend its small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) commercial remote pilot training course in 2019. The three-day course covers topics including airspace, meteorology, weather, UAS performance, loading and center of gravity, and Part 107 operations. The scholarship, which is available to […]

When, in 1927, it was decided to erect a monument to commemorate the first controlled powered flight of an airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the place was considered so remote that Congress figured no one would ever deliberately visit such a fly- and mosquito-infested sand spit. So isolated was Kitty Hawk, that the planners […]

Boeing and Embraer continue to navigate the complicated and apparently fast evolving legal landscape to formalize a deal they’ve reached for Boeing to buy 80 percent of the Brazilian company’s commercial airplane business. It would appear the most important part of that process is formally applying to the Brazilian government to approve the deal. The […]

The Aviation Herald is reporting that a TAM Boeing 777-300 made a successful but dramatic emergency landing in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, on Wednesday. Flight 8084, with more than 350 people on board, was still on the climb on its way to London when it experienced an almost total electrical failure shortly after takeoff from Sao […]