Recent Updates

The team at Atol, in Finland, has started water-taxi testing on the production prototype of their LSA seaplane. The aircraft “worked as planned and proved to be even better than expected,” according to the company’s blog. The testing took place last week on the river Kemijoki, at the Arctic Circle. “We have been waiting for […]

Cirrus Aircraft now has its full fleet of three test aircraft flying to complete the certification regime for the Vision SF50 personal jet, the company announced this week. The initial flight of the third jet marks a “significant milestone” for the jet program, according to the company’s news release. The first flight-test article, which flew […]

Mooney, which was bought by Chinese interests last year, has now been approved to export its airplanes to China, the company said recently. The company, based in Kerrville, Texas, has completed all the paperwork, and a new Mooney M20TN Acclaim Type S will become the company’s first official “B” registered airplane. This aircraft has already […]

The first A350 XWB, a new widebody version of the popular Airbus airliner, was delivered to Qatar Airways this week. The jet, which has been in development for about eight years, can carry up to 440 passengers and eight cabin crew. Among the features in the new aircraft are a wide fuselage cross-section with panoramic […]

Monday must have been one of those schizophrenic days that only a federal agency could suffer. Just as The Washington Post broke a story that the FAA had hired its own lobbyist to suggest ways of speeding up the drone flight approval process against warnings by its own safety inspectors, it was participating in the […]

With tens of thousands of new drones expected to be unwrapped as Christmas gifts this week, the FAA on Monday launched a new safety campaign that it hopes will help new users to fly “safely and responsibly.” The campaign comprises a new website, KnowBeforeYouFly.org, and a “digital and social media strategy” to help spread the […]

Australia has softened restrictions on the operation of aircraft flying with Jabiru engines in its final rulingon measures to deal with what it considers to be a high rate of engine failures. As we reported in November, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority proposed banning passengers and solo students from flying behind the engines while it […]

The Washington Post is reporting the FAA has fired a lobbyist it hired to help companies speed up approvals for drone operations as its own inspectors raised concerns about drone integration. The Post says the lobbyist was released Thursday after the newspaper raised questions about the arrangement and the agency agreed that it was a […]

Three gang members who were plucked from a Canadian high-security prison earlier this year by a helicopter in a briefly successful escape have had an extra year added to their sentences for the breathtaking caper. Yves Denis, Denis Lefebre and Serge Pomerlau had such a laundry list of serious crime convictions that the judge in […]

Sporty’s has come up with a different twist on the affordable training aircraft by looking to the most popular training aircraft of all time. The company, which operates a large flight school near Cincinnati, is buying good used Cessna 172s and, in most cases, taking out a lot of the bells and whistles that their […]