Stephen Pope

As more and more pilots get their training at large, controlled airports with long, flat, paved runways, fewer new pilots have much, if any, real-world experience dealing with sloping runways. Even some seasoned pilots experience problems at a new airport with a runway of a different size or slope than what they’re used to. One […]

Though it probably doesn’t have much bearing on aviation’s fortunes in the rest of the world, this week’s Dubai Airshow in the United Arab Emirates has gotten off to a rousing start, marked by a buying bonanza among Middle Eastern airlines as Boeing and Airbus each reaped massive sales. Qatar Airways made the biggest splash […]

A Middle Eastern financial firm has thrown a lifeline to cash-starved Diamond Aircraft in a deal that not only saves the company from potentially going out of business but also allows it to proceed with development of its D-Jet, a five-seat, single-engine VLJ. Medrar Financial Group in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, snapped up a majority […]

Two U.S. airlines this week flew commercial flights powered by biofuel blends, continuing a trend that not only has raised the profile of renewable fuel sources but also appears to be gaining real traction with commercial carriers. United Airlines flew its first biofuel-powered commercial flight from Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport to Chicago O’Hare on Monday. […]

Cirrus Aircraft reported a modest turnaround in third quarter, announcing it built 68 new airplanes in the period, seven more than during the third quarter of 2010. Only 48 of these were included in the General Aviation Manufacturers Association’s third quarter industry report, released on Monday, but Cirrus said an additional 20 uncounted aircraft rolled […]

Sitting in the jump seat of a corporate Gulfstream G450 on approach to Morristown Municipal Airport’s Runway 5, I saw the tiny starlings a fraction of a second before the copilot called out, matter-of-factly, “Birds.” We flew through an entire flock of the little creatures and, although I was pretty sure we’d hit more than […]

Days after setting up a website to allow the public to report instances of lasers being pointed at aircraft in flight, the FAA is urging witnesses to contact police after someone pointed a green laser at six airliners on approach to New York LaGuardia Airport over the weekend. The laser was shined from a point […]

The world’s first Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which started carrying paying passengers only last month with Japan’s All Nippon Airways, ran into its first technical glitch on Sunday when the landing gear failed to deploy. The 787’s pilots manually lowered the gear, after which the airplane landed safely in Okayama, Japan, after flying from Tokyo, according […]

Manufacturers of piston-powered light singles and twins delivered 190 airplanes in this year’s third quarter (157 singles and 33 twins), a 9.1 percent decline from the 209 piston airplanes delivered in the same period last year. Total piston shipments so far this year are down 8.8 percent compared with last year’s numbers, the fourth year […]

There’s no question the financial crisis has hammered business aviation in the last 36 months as the economic downturn and an associated undercurrent of negative public scrutiny have combined to plunge the industry into the worst decline in its 65-year history. Still, while it’s tempting to draw colorful conclusions from piles of raw data that […]