Recent Updates

One of the most astonishing chapters in U.S. aviation history unfolded ten years ago when Chicago Mayor Richard Daley ordered a secretive raid on Meigs Field, sending heavy equipment in under cover of darkness to carve massive Xs across the runway. At the time, Daley claimed the move was necessary to protect the city “from […]

The Solar Impulse team Thursday announced plans for a multi-stop flight of its solar-powered aircraft, HB-SIA, departing the San Francisco area’s Moffett Field in early May and concluding the trip in early July at New York’s JFK. Planned stops include Sky Harbor Airport, Ariz.; Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas; and Washington, D.C. One stop prior to D.C. […]

Don’t see a video screen?Try disabling ad blockers and refreshing this page.If that doesn’t work, click here to watch on YouTube. The four-seat, 1000-nm, 200-knot, (predicted) all-composite Pipistrel Panthera rolled onto the grass at Pipistrel’s Slovenia facility and successfully ran behind its 210-hp Lycoming for the first time Thursday. The aircraft is highly anticipated by […]

To celebrate the installation of its giant new movie screen, the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, in Dayton, Ohio, is hosting an all-aviation film festival, April 12 to 14. The museum’s 400-seat theater is reopening after an $800,000 renovation, featuring a high-definition digital 3D screen that stands six stories high and an all-new […]

Boeing launched a 787 from Paine Field in Everett, Wash., on Monday afternoon and flew a two-hour test flight with its redesigned battery system. The 787 returned and landed with no apparent problems, The Associated Press reported. Boeing had said in a statement prior to the flight that during the check flight, the crew would […]

If the tower at the local airport was supposed to be closed but wasn’t it’s because someone convinced the FAA that closing it would pose a threat to national security. At least 24 towers that would normally have been closed under the mathematical limits set by the agency before sequestration took effect (fewer than 150,000 […]

Thursday, Beechcraft announced that it has filed suit in Federal Claims Court “to contest the U.S. Air Force’s decision” to move forward with a $427 million contract awarded to Embraer/Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC). The Air Force has twice selected the Embraer/SNC Super Tucano over Beechcraft Corporation’s AT-6 for its Light Air Support program, but Beechcraft’s […]

As we told you Monday the popular head of EAA’s homebuilder section Chad Jensen was dismissed from that position but EAA was still hopeful of finding a place for him in the organization. That apparently happened and Jensen is now Homebuilt Technical Specialist through EAA’s Member Services team. Read Jensen’s post on the Van’s Airforce […]

Critics that include the National Aviation Heritage Alliance (NAHA) and a senior curator for the Smithsonian Institution have refuted claims made this month and supported by Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft that Gustav Whitehead piloted a powered aircraft years before the Wright Brothers. The claim, which specifically stated that Whitehead first flew his original powered […]

Police in the Canadian province of Quebec said late Sunday they had arrested three men and had another cornered in connection with the helicopter escape of two of the men from a prison in Saint-Jerome, about 25 miles northwest of Montreal. Police are releasing few details but witness accounts gathered by various media sources suggest […]