Stephen Pope

I was on a flight to Brazil as Barack Obama and Mitt Romney squared off in their first presidential debate in Denver last week, and so I missed the live airing of the event. But as soon as I arrived in Sao Jose dos Campos to meet with executives at Embraer (mostly to talk about […]

The National Aeronautic Association (NAA) has announced the recipients of this year’s Wesley L. McDonald Elder Statesman of Aviation Awards. This year’s recipients include Keith Ferris, Dick Koenig, Christopher Kraft, Henry Ogrodzinski and Dr. Irving Statler. The group will be honored at the NAA Fall Awards Banquet on Tuesday, November 13, at the Crystal Gateway […]

We thought we’d share with you some more photos of that supposed midair collision between a Syrian Airways Airbus A320 and a Syrian military helicopter, possibly a Russian-built Mi-8, near Damascus last month. The accident reportedly happened on September 20 near an altitude of 12,000 feet – but that’s about all that’s been reported so […]

Separate deals announced last week in Wuhan, China, a city of 10 million people, could provide a much-needed boost for the U.S. general aviation market thanks to bulk orders for up to 300 light-sport airplanes and small helicopters for the Chinese training market. Leaders from Wuhan signed purchase agreements to buy 200 Liberty Aerospace XL-2 […]

Cessna Aircraft said it has received an order from AirSprint Private Aviation of Calgary, Alberta, for nine** Citation CJ2+** business jets in a deal valued at more than $60 million at list prices. AirSprint is a Canadian fractional ownership provider that is seeking to become a major player in the industry by expanding operations across North […]

The news media this week made quite a lot out of two incidents involving airplanes on the presidential campaign trail, and in the process came off looking – well, kind of dumb. The first episode happened when a charter flight between Omaha, Nebraska, and Santa Monica, California, carrying Ann Romney made an emergency landing in […]

In an apparent example of superior airmanship by an Airbus A320 crew, a Syrian Arab Airlines flight traveling from Damascus to Latakia, Syria, last week landed safely after an Mi-8 military helicopter collided with the airliner, lopping off a large section of its tail. The incident reportedly happened as the airliner was climbing through 12,000 […]

While ultra-modern prototypes like the Sikorsky X2 and Eurocopter X3 are garnering most of the attention, two small, innovative helicopters are set to make their marks on the rotorcraft industry as well. The first of these is the e-volo personal helicopter, the ingenious result of a collective effort of a group of German professionals who […]

Congress has begun the task of drafting legislation that would prohibit operators of U.S.-registered aircraft from participating in a European program to regulate aviation greenhouse emissions by imposing a so-called “carbon tax.” The Senate this week approved Senate Bill S.1956, the “European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act,” which directs the Department of Transportation to […]

Forget the adapters, the wires, the confusion about which third-party product to buy – ForeFlight and the makers of the X-Plane flight simulator have put their considerable brain power together to enable seamless integration of the ForeFlight Mobile app on an iPad and the latest version of X-Plane 10 using nothing more than your home […]