Recent Updates

Diamond Aircraft, flying a DA42 twin, has completed a series of fully autonomous flight tests culminating in several landings without any input from human pilots. The tests used a new fly-by-wire system Diamond has been developing for light aircraft and were completed at Diamond’s Wiener Neustadt headquarters in Austria. The trials may lead to fielding […]

The science team aboard Nautilus, a research vessel operated by the Ocean Exploration Trust, recently explored the wreckage of the USS Macon, an aircraft-carrier dirigible operated by the U.S. Navy that crashed off the coast of California and sank in 1935. The researchers used remotely operated vehicles to explore the remains of the airship and […]

Most aerial firefighting aircraft are relics of the 1950s and 1960s, but Canadian air tanker modification company Conair is adapting a 21st century design to firefighting work. AVweb’s Russ Niles got a tour of the Avro RJ85 at Conair’s Abbotsford, British Columbia headquarters. view on YouTube

During the six hours that elapsed between the time I decided to write this blog and my actually pushing the button to publish it, 16 people were killed in fatal auto accidents in the U.S. None were killed by drones, nor probably even nicked. How do I know about the car wrecks? I don’t. I […]

A team of students and their professor from a Brazilian university say they’ve set five new records for an aircraft powered by a four-cylinder engine. Anequim (Portuguese for Mako shark) went 323 mph over a 3-kilometer course. That’s 33 mph faster than Jon Sharp’s Nemesis, the current record holder, which was the undisputed champion in […]

A teacher in New York City was arrested Friday on charges of flying a drone in Louis Armstrong Stadium the evening before during a U.S. Open tennis match. The drone crashed into empty seats, and no one was injured, The Associated Press reported. Daniel Verley, 26, faces charges of reckless endangerment and operating a drone […]

Although it hasn’t been officially confirmed, last week’s reported collision between a drone and a Piper PA-23 was, in fact, a bird strike. Residue on the aircraft’s de-icing boot was analyzed by the Smithsonian Institution and found to contain the remains of a small, non-predatory bird, sources familiar with the investigation told AVweb on Friday. […]

Houston was only an hour behind us, but the weather was turning out much worse than forecast. The ceilings were steadily lowering and the METAR updates said the few airports along our route were going from marginal to worse. A pop-up IFR clearance would have been great, but there was a little problem: the airplane […]

AVweb’s search of aviation news this week found award announcements from the Aero Club of Northern California and the National Aviation Hall of Fame, a new mobile job-search app from AviationCV.com, and a milestone for Van’s Aircraft RV kits. Alan Eustace, who set the world record for the highest-altitude free fall jump in October 2014, […]

The FAA on Wednesday updated its 34-year-old Advisory Circular on personal model aircraft, issuing safety and airspace rules similar to the ones it has issued on consumer drones. The new version, which triples the length of the original 1981 AC(PDF) to three pages from one, limits model aircraft to 55 pounds unless certified by a […]