Stephen Pope

Following its successful pilot training reform symposium held in Atlanta on May 4 and 5, the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (SAFE) has issued a list of 30 training recommendations that it says can improve general aviation safety while also increasing the number of new student pilot starts. The proposals focus on ways to […]

Like a lot of pilots who’ve daydreamed about building airplanes or thought about their idea of the perfect general aviation piston single, I used to doodle pictures of aircraft that I hoped I’d design and fly when I got older. If memory serves, most of my efforts looked a lot like Lancair kitplanes: sleek, low […]

Sales of Soloy’s MK II turbine-engine conversion kits for the Cessna 206 have cooled off considerably since the start of the economic downturn two years ago, but interest from an unlikely source is driving renewed demand, the Olympia, Washington, company says. Soloy has completed a number of Mk II conversions for floatplane buyers looking for […]

Many VFR pilots are apprehensive about requesting transitions through Class B airspace, figuring it’s less of a hassle (for them and frenzied controllers) to simply dive down under, climb over or skirt around these busy swaths of sky surrounding the nation’s biggest airports. But a fear of keying the microphone and talking to a controller […]

Lockheed Martin is investigating the source of a major cyber attack last week against its information network, but insists the impact of the breach was minimal and additional steps have already been taken to safeguard the company’s computer systems against future breaches. ** ** “We detected a significant and tenacious attack on our information systems […]

An 11th-hour political fight over proposed FAA cuts and changes to union rules has derailed passage of a long-term agency funding bill, leading to yet another short-term extension — the 18th since 2007. House democrats are seeking to remove provisions that would cut $4 billion from the FAA’s budget and overturn a 2010 National Mediation […]

Viking Air of Sidney, British Columbia, said it has received Transport Canada final production approval for the Series 400 Twin Otter, a new-production airplane based on the original DHC-6 Twin Otter that features more powerful Pratt & Whitney Canada engines and advanced Honeywell Primus Apex avionics. With the first five new aircraft already completed and […]

The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is embracing general aviation as part of its disaster planning preparations after conducting a successful large-scale disaster drill that included private aircraft dealing with a simulated national emergency. “Our GA ‘ready fleet’ performed superbly,” said Marianne Stevenson, president of AERObridge, a group that coordinates use of private aircraft […]

German newspaper Der Spiegel is reporting that stricken Air France Flight 447 appears to have entered a deep stall from which the Airbus A330’s crew could not recover before crashing into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009. The newspaper cites sources close to the investigation as saying cockpit voice recorder data shows 58-year-old captain […]

Members of a bipartisan group of 33 U.S. senators have signed a letter sent to Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski urging him to overturn a frequency spectrum license waiver awarded to broadband satellite communications company LightSquared until testing can show the company’s mobile 4G technology won’t interfere with GPS signal reception. The issue has […]