Recent Updates

Boeing 737 MAX Seeing the rapidity of Boeing’s claim to have a fix indicates that someone already knew of the potential of the problem but somewhere in the certification process got “voted off the island” when saying it needed to be fixed and tested. This is the classic development story of unclear requirements, time and […]

AVweb’s weekly news roundup found reports on a new partnership for Transcend Air Corporation, Air Astana’s adoption of a flight safety tool, an agreement between SKYTRAC and Vmo Solutions, and an upcoming documentary series on the history and future of the world’s fastest vehicles. Whole aircraft rescue parachute system manufacturer BRS Aerospace and Transcend Air […]

In the wake of the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 on March 10, Indonesia’s Garuda Airlines has sent a letter to Boeing saying that it intends to cancel its order for 49 MAX 8s. According to the airline, the decision was made due to lack of customer confidence in the model. […]

The Sikorsky-Boeing SB>1 Defiant helicopter successfully completed its first flight on Thursday. The aircraft was developed by Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky in partnership with Boeing to be part of the U.S. Army’s Future Vertical Lift program. It was designed using technology developed from Sikorsky’s X2 Technology Demonstrator, which won the Collier Trophy in 2010. Features […]

Ethiopian Airlines Thursday disputed a New York Times report that claimed the captain of the 737 MAX that crashed on March 10 with the loss of all aboard hadn’t received simulator training on the aircraft. The airline said all of its pilots had completed differences training from the 737 NG to the newer MAX. However, […]

New reports claim that conversations captured by the Lion Air Flight 610 cockpit voice recorder (CVR) confirm that the pilots were unable to diagnose the control issues encountered in the minutes before the accident that claimed the lives of all 189 people onboard on Oct. 29, 2018. Although a complete transcript of the CVR recording […]

Image: Embraer Embraer has announced that CEO Paulo Cesar de Souza e Silva will be stepping down on April 22, 2019, at the end of his current two-year elected term. The announcement comes after one of Silva’s primary initiatives—a partnership with Boeing that will see Boeing take over 80 percent of the Brazilian company’s passenger […]

It was a very good afternoon in the pilot’s lounge at the virtual airport. OK, the weather was well and truly lousy, and no one was flying. But a lot of pilots had somehow decided that it was the kind of afternoon where the right thing to do was sit in the ratty recliners, drink […]

The grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX aircraft has produced one of the most bizarre situations in the history of aviation. And what’s driving it, partly, is that modern airliners aren’t just airplanes, but veritable flying rivers spewing gigabytes of data on everything from cabin temperature to engine vibration, all of it recorded and quite a […]

Last month, the Aircraft Electronics Association reported a 17.6% bump in overall avionics sales. And while a good portion of that gain was attributed to a generally stronger new-airplane market, the bulk was pegged on the looming deadline for ADS-B Out equipage. That sounds plausible enough, but we decided to see what’s really happening down […]