Mark Phelps

In what could be a more frequent sight in the era of government sequestration, on Sunday, November 24, EAA’s B-17 “Aluminum Overcast” performed a pre-game fly-over at Green Bay’s Lambeau Field before the NFL game between the hometown Packers and the Minnesota Vikings. Pilots Sean Elliott and George Daubner timed their approach to the closing […]

Following last week’s easing of civilian flights in restricted airspace, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced on Sunday that it would relax requirements for private pilot licenses. With the strong cachet of private flying in the country, analysts expect pent-up demand to result in a stampede of growth for general aviation. China’s current […]

A London business jet broker reports it has sold a Gulfstream G650 for an owner who took delivery in July. The jet went to a Japanese real estate firm for $70 million, netting a profit of $10 million, according to The Jet Business (despite the fact that list price on the G650 is $64.5 million). […]

The People’s Liberation Army and the Civil Aviation Administration of China have announced a long-awaited new rule relaxing restrictions on general aviation flying. Chinese airspace is controlled by the military, and before the new rules were established, it could take several days to approve even a short general aviation flight. That process has been shaved […]

Back in 2010, MIT and GE announced the results of research that appeared to have tantalizing implications for greatly reducing the buildup of airframe ice. So called “super-hydrophobic” coatings were shown to cause water droplets to bead up rather than spread out, reducing ice buildup by as much as 70 percent. But after the first […]

A group of 40 maintenance trainees at Emirates Airlines’ training academy have completed a Van’s RV-12 kit plane in their after-hours time. Construction took about two years of spare-time work. The light-sport aircraft is painted in Emirates livery and is on display at the Dubai Airshow in the United Arab Emirates this week. The RV-12 […]

Terrafugia, developer of the Transition roadable aircraft project, has posted an appeal for funding on the Wefunder “crowd investor” website similar to the better known site, Kickstarter. Federal investor rules have changed recently, allowing the company to post on the site in September. On the Wefunder site, Terrafugia CEO Carl Dietrich described how the investment […]

Confidence in the ability of unmanned aircraft to integrate into U.S. airspace took another hit on Tuesday when an Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone crashed on a training flight. Attached to the 174th Attack Wing of the New York Air National Guard, the aircraft suffered failure of its datalink control, and crashed into Lake Ontario […]

A husband and wife were killed along with their teenage son in the crash of a Beechcraft Bonanza in the wee hours of Monday morning. According to news reports, the family left Tradewind Airport in Amarillo, Texas, around 2:24 p.m., stopped in Lubbock and continued on to an airport near Dallas. The Bonanza stopped in […]

When Van’s Aircraft announced last fall that it would market factory-built versions of its RV-12 light sport aircraft, the kitplane world turned an interested eye. The first dozen delivery positions were quickly consumed. Now, Synergy Air, the Eugene, Oregon, company that builds the airplanes, has announced the next batch of 12 RV-12s is up for […]