Pia Bergqvist

At a press conference at the Heli-Expo in Las Vegas, Rolls-Royce senior vice president, helicopters, Greg Fedele introduced the newest member of the M250 engine family — the M250-C47E. The more powerful version features a dual-channel full-authority digital engine control system, which Fedele said may soon allow for on-condition maintenance. Fedele said the fuel burn […]

At a pre-Heli-Expo press briefing yesterday in Las Vegas, Bell Helicopters president and CEO John Garrison announced the company’s latest Bell 412 version, the 412EPI, with new bells and whistles and the promise of better performance. The 412EPI boasts an integrated glass flight deck named Bell BasiX Pro, which provides single-pilot IFR capabilities and incorporates […]

Daher-Socata has unveiled the 2013 version of the TBM 850 Elite featuring an all-glass avionics panel. The L-3 Avionics Trilogy ESI-2000 solid-state electronic standby instrument will now provide backup flight information for the Garmin G1000 integrated avionics system that graces the TBM 850 cockpit. The ESI-2000’s 3.7-inch liquid crystal display replaces the three traditional round-gauge […]

Nineteen tourists were killed Monday in a hot air balloon crash near Luxor, Egypt, making it the deadliest balloon crash worldwide in decades. Details of the episode are still emerging, but the Washington Post reported that a landing cable got caught around a helium tube, which caused a fire and subsequent gas explosion. The balloon […]

Detailed weather conditions at airports are easy to obtain through a metar, ATIS, AWOS or ASOS. Conditions such as winds, temperatures, cloud conditions and visibilities are measured by ground-based equipment and can be obtained through frequencies, phone numbers, iPad apps and some panel-mounted avionics. But weather conditions are harder to measure in the air. That’s […]

Three months after his harrowing collision with an SUV during an approach to Northwest Regional Airport (52F) near Roanoke, Texas, Will Davis has earned his Private Pilot Certificate. The pilot’s wife witnessed the collision and shot a video, which went viral and created a lot of media attention. In interviews shortly after the accident, Davis […]

Bombardier has released its financial results for 2012, and while the order backlog for Bombardier Aerospace products continues to grow, the report delivered some bad news as well. The all-composite Learjet 85, which was slated for entry into service this year, has now been delayed until the summer of 2014. Bombardier cited “several new technology […]

You may think an airplane as complex as the Evolution doesn’t belong in the amateur-built world. But for a company like Redmond, Oregon-based Lancair International, which has decades of experience producing complex airplane kits, the concept makes total sense. With the Evolution, Lancair has incorporated Part 23 certification procedures into its successful kit business to […]

Considering that kit airplanes often take many years to complete, if they ever do take to the skies, it is difficult to imagine that builders of an airplane as sophisticated as the Evolution can meet the 51 percent rule in a matter of months. What makes this possible is the simplicity of composite construction and […]

The newly reopened Hawthorne Lakefront Airport FBO recently underwent the ultimate test as New Orleans hosted Super Bowl XLVII. More than 150 airplanes were serviced through the weekend as the FBO offered a “Touchdown to Touchdown” VIP package with expanded concierge services for the visitors and a special Super Bowl party for the flight crews, […]