Recent Updates

Boeing’s newest super stretch wide-body, the 787-10, took its first flight this morning from Charleston International Airport (KCHS). The airplane, call sign Boeing One, toured around South Carolina between 15,000 and 20,000 feet for five hours, according to Boeing, testing flap and gear operation, and briefly accelerated as fast at 380 knots. A Lockheed T-33, […]

At Continental’s Mobile, Alabama, HQ this week, the company announced that it’s building a clean-sheet factory on new ground near the existing plant. It plans to install $40 million in new equipment to improve production efficiency. In this long-form podcast, Continental CEO Rhett Ross explains the company’s business plan and marketing philosophy. Duration: 18:31 File […]

A million bucks doesn’t buy what it used to, unless you’re buying five new axis machining cells, in which case it buys a lot more than it ever has. As Continental announces a major new investment in a new factory in Mobile, it will be building what we simply don’t see very often: a new, […]

Blue Origin will be the 2016 winner of the Collier Trophy “for successfully demonstrating rocket booster reusability with the New Shepard human spaceflight vehicle through five successful test flights of a single booster and engine, all of which performed powered vertical landings on Earth.” Although Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) was first to guide a boost […]

A press release from The Museum of Flight in Seattle invites members of the public to come see the golf ball Alan Shepard hit from the surface of the moon on Feb. 6, 1971. “He shanked the ball so hard that it left lunar orbit and entered a Trans-Earth trajectory. It’s likely that ball simply […]

Garmin has received Supplemental Type Certificate approval for use of the G5 flight instrument in the heading indicator position for over 600 aircraft types when installed with a Garmin magnetometer. “Furthering our commitment to bring affordable, safety-enhancing and certified solutions to general aviation, the G5 electronic flight instrument that was initially developed for experimental aircraft […]

As expected, uAvionix, a manufacturer of avionics for the UAV segment, announced this week four new ADS-B-related products that it hopes will ignite what have been lackluster sales of this equipment as the NextGen mandate looms. The California-based company says it plans to leverage potential volume in the UAS market to drive down ADS-B prices […]

Natilus, a small company with just three employees, based in Richmond, California, is working to launch a transoceanic cargo business with airliner-size drones. They are currently building a 30-foot-long prototype that they plan to test this summer, according to their press kit. They then plan to produce a full-scale, 200-foot-long turboprop drone, built of carbon-fiber […]

The FAA banned jets from Florida’s Lantana/Palm Beach County Airport in 1973, but that ban is now lifted, the Palm Beach Post reported on Tuesday. Errol Forman, a retired Eastern Air Lines pilot, had landed his newly acquired 1983 Cessna Citation I/SP jet there in May, and a neighbor reported the violation to authorities. Forman […]

Almost as a condition of entry, people who voluntarily engage in general aviation at any level have to be slightly delusional. It takes a hearty constitution to look at gracefully declining sales numbers and eroding flight activity and think, sure, I’ll just keep on going here. I mean, what the hell? In that context, yesterday’s […]