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It’s raining. The “it” refers to the growling sky that hinted I should land, put the airplane away, and further discussion was pointless if not downright stupid. Although, the risk of appearing stupid has rarely dissuaded me from making the wrong stab at the Go/No-Go coin toss. Any pilot who ventures beyond the runup area […]

A couple of weeks ago we ran two stories that illustrate—well something—about the ways in which recreational aviation is being affected by COVID-19 in different countries. One story talked about the virtual lockdown of non-essential flying in the U.K., enabled largely by obliging weekend warriors, who complied with their government’s polite request to please hang […]

The value of aircraft deliveries in 2019 grew more than $2 billion with piston designs seeing the largest segment growth at 16.4 percent. In total, the industry delivered 1,324 piston aircraft in 2019, up from 1,137 last year, with bizjets seeing 15 percent growth, from 703 delivered in 2018 to 809 last year, the highest […]

After a cabin ground fire destroyed a first-generation Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet, the FAA issued emergency airworthiness directive AD 2020-03-50, which grounds the fleet of jets until faulty audio amplifier circuit cards are removed from the cabin.  In the aircraft that melted on the ramp, the FAA wrote in its AD that the pilot observed […]

Those dreaming of a Dreamliner for a $26 raffle ticket were brought back to earth on Friday when the Mexican government announced it will hang on to the presidential Boeing 787-8 for at least two more years. But it’s going ahead with the raffle to sell six million tickets at 500 pesos each and instead […]

The NTSB has issued recommendations to the FAA and National Civil Aviation Agency of Brazil to order checks for wire chafing on the pitch trim controls of Embraer E-series aircraft after an incident in Atlanta in November. The crew of a Republic Airlines EMB-175 lost pitch trim control shortly after takeoff Nov. 9. As the […]

Diamond Aircraft builds composite airplanes in two factories, one in Austria and one in London, Ontario. In this long-form video, AVweb’s Paul Bertorelli reports on how the Ontario plant turns out the DA40 single—both the Lycoming and Austro diesel versions—and the impressive DA62 twin.