Recent Updates

On Thursday, the Senate Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety and Security grilled United Airlines President Scott Kirby and Chicago Department of Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans about the dismal state of commercial air travel generally—at least for economy class passengers—and in specific the incident on April 9 in which Dr. David Dao refused […]

Virgin Galactic has successfully tested its feather re-entry system in flight for the first time, the company said this week. The system, which is designed to enable VSS Unity to safely return to Earth after carrying tourists to the edge of space, reconfigures the vehicle by folding up its twin tail booms. The structure acts […]

Officials from the FAA visited Cirrus Aircraft in Duluth, Minnesota, on Tuesday to award the company with a production certificate for the Cirrus jet. The certification means that FAA staffers no longer need to check each individual jet before delivery, which will help the company to ramp up its production. “We are just reaching one […]

Flight Design has been the leader in sales of light sport aircraft since the category launched in 2004, but data recently compiled for sales through 2016 shows that CubCrafters has taken over the lead spot, with a total of 382 aircraft delivered, compared to Flight Design’s total of 378. Third place goes to the Cessna […]

Bell Helicopter’s new tilt-rotor design, the V-280 Valor, is about 95 percent complete and will likely fly for the first time in September, the company says. Bell displayed a full-size mock-up of the V-280 last week at the Army Aviation Mission Solutions Summit in Nashville, Tennessee. The V-280 is designed to fly at speeds up […]

Companies like Boeing, Cessna, Piper, Garmin and a handful of others rarely complain openly about the cost and delays of FAA certification. One reason is that through decades of experience, they understand the process and have in-house staff who know how the game has to be played. And they still spend a lot of money […]

A monument to the helicopter crews of the Vietnam War will be placed at Arlington Cemetery, after a long uphill fight by advocates. It’s hard to think of that war without thinking of helicopters, whether your experience of the war was firsthand or from news, documentaries and movies like Apocalypse Now. But when a group […]

It seemed innocuous enough—an email from Nathan Richards, Ph.D., a reader of our sister publication, IFR magazine, asking if someone would be interested in flying a Learjet in-flight simulator as part of a project his employer, Barron Associates, was doing on upset recovery. I wasn’t sure what an in-flight simulator was, but I’ve been very […]

Lots of strange aircraft have turned up at airports in California’s high desert but they usually get identified so there’s some intrigue surrounding this image shot at Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville on April 12. The aircraft, which has a streamlined bullet-shaped fuselage, high aspect ratio wings, a huge tail and a pusher prop, […]

A Delta Air Lines pilot is back at work after he belted one of two brawling passengers in a jetway after the aircraft landed. A video obtained by TMZ shows the pilot smacking one of the women, who started tussling while disembarking. “The pilot has since been returned to work as our investigation found that […]