Rob Mark

About 15 days each year, air traffic controllers working inside London Heathrow’s 286-foot control tower experience essentially IFR conditions when low clouds surround the tower cab, often while ground visibility is just fine. ATC delays occur during these conditions because controllers cannot verify whether arrivals and departures have cleared the runway. The U.K.’s ATC provider, […]

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that the FAA was immediately grounding all Boeing 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9 aircraft in the U.S. until further notice. The decision from the White House followed mounting pressure for action after many countries around the world grounded their Boeings following last Sunday’s crash of a Max 8 in […]

Delta Airlines retired senior vice president of flight operations, Steve Dickson is expected to soon be nominated for the permanent position of FAA administrator to replace the agency’s deputy administrator Daniel Elwell who has been running the FAA as acting administrator. Dickson retired last fall from Delta after a 27-year run at the airline where […]

Daher last week unveiled the newest version of its single-engine turboprop, the TBM 940, that includes autothrottle, an automatic de-icing system, as well as a number of cabin interior enhancements. The announcement came during the safety seminar meeting of the TBM Owners and Pilots Association held in Pompano Beach, Florida. The company says the TBM […]

The NTSB said the muddy marshland of Trinity Bay, about 40 miles south of Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), where Atlas Air 3591 crashed on February 23 made recovering the voice and data recorders from the airplane a challenge. The Boeing 767, carrying cargo for both Amazon and the U.S. Postal service, was approaching […]

The National Business Aviation Association’s (NBAA) Safety Committee released its annual list of Top Safety Focus Areas, addressing the most pressing issues facing the broad array of business aviation operations. The Safety Committee evaluated accident/incident statistics, operational safety data and robust hazard reporting information to determine this year’s priorities. The 2019 Top Safety Focus Areas […]

ForeFlight opened for business in 2007 around a single mission; creating software that makes flight planning easier. Yesterday, The Boeing Company announced it had formally acquired Houston-based ForeFlight. Users have, over the past two years, been able to take advantage of Jeppesen aeronautical charts through ForeFlight’s popular mobile platforms. The link with Boeing is expected […]

The voice behind me was a familiar one: “You pilots love your toys, don’t you?” I turned around in the coffee shop to see my neighbor’s smiling face staring at the flight-simulation app I was playing on my iPhone. I smiled and nodded as the wave of his hand said, “Go back to your game.” […]

In its 21st annual “Turbine-Powered Civil Helicopter Purchase Outlook,” Honeywell forecasts 4,000 new civilian-use helicopters will be delivered from 2019 to 2023, marginally lower than the 4,200 cited in the five-year forecast from 2018. A recent Honeywell survey found about 20 percent of North American respondents said their helicopter fleet utilization is expected to increase […]

In recognition of March as Women’s History Month, United Airlines launched a first-of-its-kind contest to identify and lift up under-represented women artists. Supporting the contest, United said, “According to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, 51 percent of today’s artists are women, but less than 13 percent of art on display in museums […]