Flying Staff

On September 23, Congress voted to extend the current FAA funding scheme through the first quarter of next year. The current stopgap FAA funding plan would have expired on Tuesday. Still awaiting President Bush’s signature, the bill is seen as a necessary delaying action in the face of much more dire difficulties — divining and […]

Once again, Flying magazine is supporting the Corporate Angel Network by hosting the CAN 2008 Benefit Raffle to support the charity. CAN coordinates flights for cancer patients on corporate jets with empty seats. An official NBAA charity, CAN will award a Best Buy gift certificate of $3,300 toward a flat-panel video screen and HD-DVD player. […]

Following 45 failures of ECi “Titan” cylinders on Lycoming 320, 360 and 540-Series engines, the FAA has issued an airworthiness directive. The AD calls for repetitive inspections and compression tests every 50 hours of operation. It affects an estimated 13,000 cylinders fleet wide. Effective October 20, the AD requires visual inspections to look for cracking […]

Beginning next month, the FAA is asking pilots to obtain a receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) reliability briefing before flights involving GPS navigation. RAIM technology monitors the precision of GPS signals, and predicting its reliability is considered by FAA to be a safety element. By next July, for example, the agency has plans to mandate […]

When Hurricane Ike slammed onshore at Galveston, Texas, on September 12, the city’s airport took the full brunt of the 16-foot storm surge. At a field elevation of only six feet, the airport was heavily flooded, including the Lone Star Flight Museum, which saw its hangars flooded by up to eight feet of water. Fortunately, […]

Though it initially stood behind the Swiss-based aerospace company in the face of financial trouble, Bombardier has since terminated its contract with Grob Aerospace AG. The now-insolvent Grob was tapped to develop composite elements of Bombardier’s developmental eight-passenger Learjet 85. Grob traces its financial woes to investors who pulled their support over delays in Grob’s […]

If very light jets are going to succeed in revolutionizing general aviation, they will have to overcome a big hit suffered this week. Air-taxi operator DayJet suspended operations and grounded its fleet of 28 Eclipse 500s with no indications that it will recommence service. DayJet was Eclipse’s largest and highest profile customer (with more than […]

Though he steadfastly defended the certification of the Eclipse 500, FAA associate administrator Nicholas Sabatini nevertheless promised Congress the agency will improve its certification program for very light jets. The agency acknowledged that its procedures for certifying the Eclipse twinjet have shown themselves to be “inadequate to address the advanced concepts introduced on this aircraft.” […]

It’s been a rollercoaster week for Eclipse and its Russian partner European Technology and Investment Research Center (ETIRC). On the upside, the partners announced they have gained approval and financing for their proposed European production facility in Ulyanovsk, Russia. The Russian State Bank Vnesheconombank supervisory board approved construction of the factory. The board is chaired […]

The Cessna 162 SkyCatcher nonconforming prototype crashed last Thursday during a test flight. The FAA reported that the developmental light sport aircraft was performing a stall series at 10,000 feet when it entered an unrecoverable flat spin. The pilot bailed out at about 5,000 feet and escaped without injuries. Information on the airplane’s weight and […]