Recent Updates

Canada Just Isn’t the Same as the U.S. by Mark Baker When Congress returns from summer recess in early September, they will consider a vote on H.R. 2997, the 21st Century AIRR Act, which would remove air traffic control from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and turn it over to the airlines. Supporters of the […]

The Airbus team A^3, or A-cubed, based in Silicon Valley, plans to start flight tests of a prototype of its full-scale VTOL air-taxi, Vahana,in November, according to a report this week by KUOW. The flight tests will be conducted from the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport, in Pendleton, where the company recently occupied a new 9,600-square-foot […]

A seaplane business in Sausalito, California, in operation since 1945, has been growing since new owners took over in 2012, and that’s starting to cause some problems with the neighbors, who have requested a hearing with the County Planning Commission, set for next Monday, Aug. 28. “What began decades ago as a small tourism business […]

A Global 7000, a Bombardier large-cabin business jet currently undergoing test flights, lost an engine last week while flying at 41,000 feet, according to a report in the Wichita Eagle this week. A report from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said the jet “experienced an inflight flameout of the right engine following high vibration […]

The aviation event that was the eclipse of Aug. 21 appears to have gone off with barely a hitch and so far our inexhaustive search for mayhem has found but one relatively minor incident possibly related to eclipse flights. A 1947 Luscombe Silvaire had some trouble on takeoff from Perryville Municipal Airport in Missouri just […]

In an interview in Time magazine about his new film, Dunkirk, director Christopher Nolan said there were very few “God shots” in the production. That may be true, but the one that will get pilots to sit up straight in their multiplex seats has a fuel-exhausted Spitfire gliding along the real Dunkirk beach, its prop […]

I’m just back from a few days at the Cirrus factory in Duluth, delivered back home via the company’s new SF50 Vision Jet, and I’ll immediately unpack this first impression: It’s no exaggeration to say that the Vision Jet is a fugitive from the law of averages. It’s not much to be impressed with how […]

August is traditionally vacation month for many U.S. families, so in case you find yourself with some extra time or maybe a rainy day at the beach, you can be prepared by downloading a broad selection of aviation-themed e-books for free, courtesy of NASA. The books include historical accounts of the development of unique aircraft […]

Doc, the beautifully restored B-29 based in Wichita, made a lot of new friends last month with a full week of appearances and flights at EAA AirVenture — so Doc’s Friends, the nonprofit group that supports the project, is making the most of that, with the launch this week of a new Kickstarter campaign to […]

The San Jose Mercury News, one of the first news outlets to report on the story of the Air Canada near-miss in San Francisco last month, said in an editorial this week that the FAA has “hindered the investigation” of the event by “dragging their feet in the aftermath.” As a result, “key evidence from […]