Recent Updates

Glasair Aviation’s new Merlin LSA had its first flight this week, launching the in-air test phase for the composite light-sport airplane. The flight departed from Arlington, Washington, on Tuesday and lasted for 57 minutes. Following ground tests including engine run-up, high-speed taxi, and ground roll liftoff, test pilot Grant Smith conducted the flight to evaluate […]

The former CEO of Epic Air, Rick Schrameck, has pleaded not guilty to federal fraud charges stemming from the turboprop airplane kit business he operated in Bend, Oregon, The Bulletin reported this week. Prosecutors allege that Schrameck sold kits to customers for $1.4 to $1.8 million each but used their money for other projects as […]

For what can be a long list of new product introductions, AEA has a great strategy: Give every company five minutes on the stage to make the elevator pitch, then on to the next one. Still, with 33 new products on Wednesday’s opening day, it was two-hour slog to sit through it all. I amused […]

We caught up with space-tourism company World View Enterprises’ CEO Jane Poynter at the Aircraft Electronics Association convention in Dallas, Texas. Poynter described the technology behind World View’s balloon-and-parafoil plan to lift passengers into the upper atmosphere for a several-hour tour of the planet. Duration: 9:42 File Size: 8.1 MB download here

With new ADS-B products emerging about every other month, a surprise entrant into the dependent surveillance market may be search giant Google. According to a report in FlightGlobal, at an ICAO meeting last month, Google exec Dave Vos, who heads the company’s Project Wing internet effort, said the company is considering flooding the market with […]

Although there are still hopes that China will be a big market for business aviation, recent events in that country have all but negated gains made in recent years. There’s perhaps no better illustration of that than a strategic shift announced by one of China’s largest bizjet financing companies. Minsheng Financial Leasing Corporation told Business […]

Flight Design has partnered with AeroJones, a Taiwanese company working in China, to build its airplanes in Xiamen, a coastal city, for the Asian market. AeroJones has successfully completed a “full manufacturing evaluation,” Flight Design said in a news release this week. Flight Design CEO Matthias Betsch, Director Christian Wenger and Flight Design USA President […]

My first experience with an autogyro was not auspicious. I was a newly minted private pilot waiting to take off from what was then Baltimore Airpark, north of Baltimore. Number one for the runway was a Bensen Gyrocopter of the sort I’d seen a million times in Popular Mechanics ads, but never in the flesh. […]

Autogyros are big in Europe — but in the U.S., not so much. The reason for that is primarily regulatory. The U.S. light sport rule doesn’t include rotorcraft. As Paul Bertorelli discovered on this AVweb flight demo, that’s too bad. Gyros are fun and easy to fly, but they do take specific training for the […]

SpaceX is planning its next launch to resupply the International Space Station at 4:33 p.m. EDT on April 13, NASA announced this week. The space station mission for the Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Dragon spacecraft, will be the sixth for SpaceX. The mission will launch from Cape Canaveral and if it starts on schedule, […]