Recent Updates

SpaceX successfully completed the first flight of its upgraded Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket, carrying the Bangladesh telecommunications satellite Bangabandhu-1 into orbit last Friday. According to SpaceX, the Block 5 is “the final substantial upgrade” to the Falcon 9 rocket, which the company hopes to use to transport people into space in the not-too-distant future. […]

Pilatus has reported that 2017 was an “exceptionally successful” year. The company, based in Switzerland, delivered 115 aircraft and grew to more than 2,000 full-time employees, the highest number ever for the workforce, according to the annual report, recently released. Most of the new airplanes were the PC-12 NG single-engine turboprop, with 85 delivered. The […]

As I was putting a sharp pencil on last week’s GA production numbers from GAMA, I couldn’t decide if I was looking at a flat calm mill pond or the dead quiet before some kind of storm. So I graphed out a decade worth of production numbers and I’m going with a pond that could […]

A Chicago pilot and his passenger survived bailing out of their TBM Avenger on May 7 over northeastern Arizona. Ron Carlson and Kenny Franzese hit the silk near Fort Apache in Navajo County after an apparent engine failure in the freshly restored warbird. The two were ferrying the big single-engine torpedo bomber from Phoenix to […]

Fourteen aviation organizations including AOPA, EAA and GAMA are asking the FAA to reconsider its position on not allowing pilots access to weather data from hundreds of non-federal weather stations. Currently, non-federal weather stations must be equipped with AWOS-III or better to be included in the FAA’s Weather Message Switching Center Replacement (WMSCR), which collects, […]

Although the U.S. cancellation of the nuclear agreement with Iran will likely tank big airliner orders from Iran, neither Airbus nor Boeing seem likely to be immediately damaged, according to industry sources. That’s because the Iranian orders were of questionable firmness and were far in the future with uncertain financing. Between the two aerospace giants, […]

On a strong domestic economy, sales of general aviation aircraft rose during the first quarter of 2018 over the same period last year, the General Aviation Manufactures Association said on Thursday. The rosy sales picture was largely driven by increased turboprop and piston helicopter sales, GAMA said. And while both unit volume and sales revenue […]

Embraer’s tech innovations division, EmbraerX, is working on its first electric VTOL aircraft, the company announced at this year’s Uber Elevate Summit. “Urban mobility is ripe for transformation and we are committed to having a major role in this key market,” said Embraer CEO Paulo Cesar de Souza e Silva. With this concept design, the […]

The U.S. Department of Transportation has chosen ten state, local and tribal governments to participate in the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Pilot Program (UAS IPP). The selected governments are located throughout the U.S and will work with private sector participants to collect information on drone operations. “Data gathered from these pilot projects will form […]