Mark Phelps

Though known for its helicopters, Sikorsky has a legacy that includes some iconic fixed-wing aircraft dating back to the 1930s. Now, the company is back in the fixed-wing business. During the NBAA Convention in Atlanta last week, Sikorsky signed an agreement in principle to invest in Eclipse Aerospace, the company that has acquired the rights […]

It’s always a bit iffy planning an IFR trip that will last more than 48 hours or so. You can make educated guesses on what the weather will be in four or five days (I check the forecasts on Yahoo), but anything beyond the NOAA’s ADDS prog charts (click here) is getting into increasingly uncertain […]

Ed Tripp had a career that spanned half a century of aviation publications, including Car & Driver, Air Progress, AOPA Pilot, Business & Commercial Aviation and Flying. He died of cancer Oct. 16 at his home in Cincinnati. Tripp was publisher of Flying‘s landmark 50th Anniversary issue in 1977. Born in Boston, he served in […]

After conversations with some 3,000 aircraft operators, Hawker Beechcraft Corporation decided that its next Beechcraft Premier model wouldn’t be a Beechcraft after all. “The Premier II should be a Hawker,” is the message HBC got from customers — and that’s what it will be, the Hawker 200. Shawn Vick, HBC Executive Vice President delivered the […]

Bombardier introduced two new members of its ultra-long-range family of Global business jets this week. And from the size of the party, it’s clear the Canadian manufacturer has confidence in the economic turnaround. The two new jets are each priced at $65 million (2010 dollars). The Global 7000 and Global 8000 are not scheduled for […]

Piper has totally redesigned the PiperJet airframe, and given the single-engine jet a new name — Altaire. The old fuselage on the proof-of-concept PiperJet was the same as the PA-46 Mirage/Meridian — round on top and flat on the bottom. It is now a circular cross-section, making it easier to increase the cabin volume of […]

They weren’t quite dancing in the aisles at the 63rd annual meeting and convention of the National Business Aircraft Association. But at least the funeral march that has prevailed the past two years seems to be a thing of the past. The show wraps up later today at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta […]

The annual National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) convention and EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh have a lot in common. You wouldn’t know that to look at the different contents of my suitcase for both shows, but it’s true. I’ve thought for a long time that the core people involved in business aviation have just as much […]

If you’ve been waiting for the Aircraft Electronics Association’s take on what to expect from the FAA’s plan to implement ADS-B, you’re not going to like what you hear. In an Oct. 4, memo to the FAA, the AEA didn’t mince words. The association said the FAA’s Aug. 30 memo would “stall early equipage, delay […]

It might have seemed like a small semantic point at the time, but customers of OurPLANE are finding out that the planes were never really “theirs” after all. According to the contracts, the titles to the Cirrus SR22s in the program were held by the company, and when it liquidated last week, the “owners” joined […]