Recent Updates

Beechcraft has been through a lot in the last few years, emerging from bankruptcy and now under new ownership, but its long heritage remains intact — a fact that was celebrated this week, when the company marked the 50th anniversary of the first flight of the King Air Model 90. Several three-ship passes of the […]

Before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the former Eastern Bloc countries supplied the Soviets with sophisticated aerospace products and services. Now those industries have turned to civil aircraft manufacture. One of those companies, Skyleader, showed off a new LSA at the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring this week. Here’s a brief video report […]

One of my many character flaws is a complete disinterest in filling out forms of any kind including, Im sorry to say, logbooks. I scribble down the legal requirements for currency, but thats about it. As a result, Im not quite sure when I last flew an airplane that wasnt an LSA. Might have been […]

In the 1950s there were various designs for flying platforms, but the technology wasn’t quite good enough for a practical design. Flying Platform, LLC displayed the beginnings of an updated version of the Hiller Flying Platform at the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring, Florida and hope to have it flying by June. After that, […]

If Vans is the most prolific of experimental aircraft vendors, RANS Designs is right behind them with more than a half dozen airplanes in the line. At the Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring this week, RANS is adding yet another model, the S20 Raven, an evolution of its popular Coyote model. The S20 will debut […]

GAMA says Appropriations Committee leaders have called for a slight increase in funding for the FAA to research alternatives to 100LL. The administration included $5.571 million for the fuel research in its spending estimates but the committees agreed on $6 million. If it’s approved by Congress, it will be one of only a handful of […]

The smog in some Chinese cities is too severe to fly these days, but two new general aviation policies recently coming into play may hopefully clear the forward vision a little for the market players in China. First, the Chinese regulator Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) loosened licensing requirements for private pilot licenses (PPL). […]

SpaceShipTwo went higher and faster than it has been before on Friday and Virgin Group President Sir Richard Branson is predicting it will reach space sometime in 2014. Branson had hoped the reusable passenger-carrying rocket would have slipped out of the atmosphere by the end of 2013 but Friday’s flight showed progress toward the ultimate […]

Just 18 days after being designated by the FAA as one of six federally approved test sites for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), Texas A&M-Corpus Christi will conduct several test flightsover South Texas ranchland to continue research and training on the RS-16 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The RS-16 has a wingspan of 12 feet 11 inches, […]

More than 10 years after Congress mandated that the Transportation Security Administration establish security regulations for repair stations certified under FAR Part 145 and four years after the TSA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on the matter, the TSA is about to formally publish the final rules (PDF). In a January 10 conference […]