Stephen Pope

Hilton Software, the maker of the WingXPro7 aviation navigation iPad app, announced it has developed an interface for Aspen Avionics’ Connected Panel product, introduced earlier this month at EAA AirVenture. Aspen’s Connected Panel allows two-way wireless communication between panel avionics and personal smart devices, including iPads and Android smartphones. The supported app from Hilton Software […]

Conceding that the certification process for light general aviation airplanes has become a complicated and counter-productive morass of rules and restrictions, the FAA has formed a committee whose responsibility will focus on modernizing the design and manufacturing of entry-level Part 23 airplanes.**** FAA officials and industry leaders are hopeful the streamlined regulations will result in […]

There’s no question, using an iPad in the cockpit in place of paper charts and approach plates is better in almost every conceivable way – especially after the flight, when it’s time for chart updates, which with most popular apps from companies like Jeppesen or ForeFlight can be accomplished with just a couple of button […]

Boeing has completed flight trials of the 787-8 Dreamliner, with the final round of testing occurring on a 90-minute flight last weekend from Billings, Montana, to Everett, Washington. Boeing is now preparing to make the first delivery of a 787-8 equipped with Rolls-Royce engines to Japan’s All Nippon Airways next month. Flight testing continues for […]

A massive explosion on the surface of the sun on Aug. 9 sent a wave of radiation sweeping outward into space in a scene that will likely spell intermittent trouble for GPS approaches and satellite-based communications for the next decade or perhaps longer, according to scientists. It was the largest solar flare since 2006 and […]

The Obama Administration this week announced a plan to invest up to $510 million over three years in advanced drop-in aviation and marine biofuels as part of an initiative to cut America’s dependency on foreign oil. President Obama announced Tuesday that the Departments of Agriculture, Energy and Navy will be investing in partnerships with the […]

The U.S. Defense Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was dealt a setback to its ambitions to create an aircraft capable of traveling at speeds faster than 13,000 mph after contact with its hypersonic test aircraft was lost just minutes into a proving flight on Aug. 11. It’s unclear what caused the loss of contact with the […]

You might have missed it, but the French accident investigation branch, the Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses, has formally recommended that mandatory “triggered data streaming technology” be installed aboard airliners. The recommendation is contained in the latest BEA accident report investigating the loss of the Air France Flight 447, a document that outlines 10 new safety […]

(August 2011) Just after 11 o’clock on a chilly San Francisco morning, Jan. 18, 1911, a 24-year-old civilian demonstration pilot named Eugene Ely coaxed his 50 hp Curtiss pusher biplane into the sky, made a wide circle over San Francisco Bay and set down on the deck of the anchored U.S. Navy armored cruiser USS […]

It appears someone took a pot shot at a medevac helicopter flying over northern Ohio on Monday, an incident that federal law enforcement officials are taking very seriously but which was shrugged off by local police as probably nothing more than a lucky hit by a kid with a rifle. During a routine pre-flight inspection, […]