Mark Phelps

Who will pay for the on board equipment required for FAA’s NextGen initiative? The prospect of government subsidy for aircraft equipage appears to be creating two sides to an increasingly complex issue. And the old debate over user fees seems to be overlapping the discussion. In his recent Left Seat column Paying for Nextgen Equipment, […]

Piper has completed certification allowing it to offer the Garmin G1000 avionics suite on its Mirage and Matrix aircraft models. The G1000 was previously available on the Piper Meridian. With the new certification, the G1000 panel is now available on all three Piper PA-46 versions. Both the Mirage and Matrix are piston-powered — the Mirage […]

Gulfstream’s latest widebody jet, the G650 flew for the first time last Wednesday afternoon. The flight was a short one, as a slight vibration originating with one of the landing gear doors led to a precautionary landing back at Savannah (Georgia) after 12 minutes. But Gulfstream still considers the flight a success, having reached an […]

A new FAA research park is now under construction outside Atlantic City, New Jersey. The facility will be dedicated to developing the Next Generation air traffic system, commonly abbreviated as “NextGen.” The new site sits on 55 leased acres adjacent to the William J. Hughes Technical Center. The FAA will not incur any cost associated […]

Best known for offering adventure rides in vintage military aircraft, Warbird Adventures, Kissimmee, Florida, now offers flight instruction in Robinson R44 rotorcraft at as little as $340 per hour, including the cost of the instructor. Introductory flights are available for as little as $125 (for 15 minutes). DVD recordings of the flight experience are available. […]

Airline passengers still face an uphill battle on this, the busiest week of the year for travel. But once on board, they are likely to find fewer traffic-related delays. That’s the good news for the airlines. The glass-half-empty crowd recognizes that the lack of traffic is due to fewer flights, fewer available destination airports and […]

At a Nov. 17 roundtable, Lorraine Howerton, vice president of legislative affairs for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, harked back to the first lesson medical students learn. “Do no harm,” she told leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and aviation subcommittee. “Leaders in Congress and the industry seem to agree that imposing […]

Amir Tirosh, a former Israeli Air Force pilot and founder of avionics company AirGator, died Friday in the crash of a Piper PA-28 near Dutchess County Airport in upstate New York. A passenger was critically injured and airlifted to a hospital where he remains in critical condition. Founded by Tirosh in 2000, AirGator developed its […]

Though delays of 45 to 80 minutes are fairly routine in the airline industry, the cause of last Thursday’s glitch should be familiar to anyone with an Internet connection. A malfunctioning router in Salt Lake City at 5 a.m. caused misinformation within the ATC system related to flight plans and weather. The system slowdown was […]

Building on its successful fractional equity program, Dallas-based PlaneSmart has launched a new scheme to get pilots into a late-model Cirrus. The new program allows customers to sign onto a fractional lease, as opposed to purchasing an equity position in an aircraft. The result is lower up front cost, though the monthly management cost is […]