Recent Updates

AVweb’s search of aviation news found announcements from the National Aviation Hall of Fame, RANS Designs, Hillsboro Aviation, and L-3 Aviation Products. The National Aviation Hall of Fame announced that Amy Spowart has been named its new Executive Director. Spowart has been a part of the NAHF since 1999. Spowart started in her new position […]

A Senate committee moved ahead with its version of reauthorization for the FAA on Wednesday, approving legislation that includes third class pilot medicals and aircraft certification reform. The bill’s major components remained intact during the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation markup session. It would see the FAA through Sept. 30, 2017, ordering the […]

Doc, the B-29 restoration project that was forced outside over the winter due to a lack of hangar space in Wichita, now is back under a roof, Josh Wells, a member of Doc’s Friends, told AVweb this week. “Last week we were able to reach an agreement on a tentative plan for hangar space at […]

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have come up with a new system for generating electricity that couldshow promise for powering small airplanes.”The potential energy density of this power source is on the same scale with petrochemical energy sources, and it is orders of magnitude higher than commercial lithium ion batteries,” Michael Strano, an […]

Congress once again has delayed taking substantive action on FAA funding issues, as the House voted yesterday to extend the current FAA budget through mid-July. The FAA’s budget is due to expire on March 31. Competing proposals in the House and Senate have failed to gain enough support for passage, as lawmakers argue over whether […]

We can argue about a lot in aviation, but one thing we rarely dispute is the unwritten rule that your AME and your doctor shouldn’t be the same person. Unpack the logic of that and two things become implicit: We don’t trust the government with our medical data (rightfully) and, if we’re honest, we want […]

An airport janitor was arrested Saturday after a pilot reported his gun had been stolen while he was in the washroom at Philadelphia Airport. The unidentified pilot had cleared security and made the restroom stop on the way to his flight when the theft occurred. The airport was searched and witnesses interviewed, and it was […]

French pilots dominated the first Red Bull Air Race of the season in Abu Dhabi on Saturday. Nicolas Ivanoff held off Mathias Dolderer of Germany to win the race by a tenth of a second. Frenchman Francois LeVot, who is just starting his second season on the tour, was four seconds back of the leaders […]

The Arizona flight school where Andreas Lubitz took primary flight training may face one of the massive lawsuits that will flow from the young Germanwings pilot’s intentional crash of an A320 in the French Alps last year. Lubitz took his primary flight training at Lufthansa’s Airline Training Center in Goodyear, near Phoenix. According to the […]

The NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Dawn Program Team is the winner of the 2015 Robert J. Collier Trophy, the National Aeronautic Association announced. The NAA‘s selection committee gathered this week to meet with the award’s nine nominees and announced the winner at its annual spring event in Arlington, Virginia.The NASA/JPL team won for its “extraordinary achievements […]