Stephen Pope

A New York federal jury on Tuesday found Cirrus Design does not bear any blame for the October 2006 crash of an SR20 that killed New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle, 34, and flight instructor Tyler Stanger, 26. The pair crashed into a high-rise apartment building as they attempted to make a turn in the […]

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Tuesday blamed “pilot unresponsiveness” for last August’s crash of a de Havilland Turbo Otter amphibious floatplane in remote Alaska that killed pilot Terry Smith and four passengers including former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens. The Board said a flight surgeon’s decision to reinstate Smith’s first-class medical certificate without a […]

At the risk of sounding like a certain evangelical radio preacher who made a prediction that didn’t pan out, I’m going out on a limb to proclaim that general aviation is on the cusp of returning to a period of sustained growth after two and half years of economic turmoil. There are plenty of reasons […]

__Continuing a trend that is sweeping business aviation, Hawker Beechcraft says it has developed an aftermarket retrofit kit allowing the installation of blended winglets on the Hawker 750. The modification will add 100 miles to the airplane’s range and improve time-to-climb by 5 percent, the company says. An effective increase in the wing aspect ratio […]

Climbing into a Cirrus SR22 equipped with Avidyne’s Entegra Release 9 avionics system after spending three hours flying in the left seat of a Diamond DA40 fitted with Garmin’s G1000 cockpit felt like stepping onto the surface of another planet. Arrayed before me in the Cirrus were two large flat-panel displays presenting all the usual […]

Rockwell Collins said this week that it will bring synthetic-vision capability to its Pro Line 21 avionics suite next year, an announcement that was sure to be warmly embraced by OEM customers as well as the pilots who fly with the popular bizav cockpit. The SVS upgrade will be offered for both forward-fit and retrofit, […]

Dassault unveiled the Falcon 2000S on Monday at EBACE in Geneva, positioning the new model as a lower-priced Falcon 2000DX replacement that will compete directly against the Gulfstream G250, Bombardier Challenger 300 and Hawker 4000 in the super-midsize business jet segment. With a price tag of around $25 million, Dassault claims the Falcon 2000S will […]

Industry leaders hailed the strong turnout for the European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva this week as an indicator that the market may indeed finally by turning a corner after more than two and half years of decline. “Cautiously optimistic,” was how several top executives put it when describing their prospects for […]

Sadly, it was a rare sight (and sound) over Geneva this week: a lone, single-engine airplane scooting overhead as a group of journalists together with our gracious dinner hosts from Rockwell Collins enjoyed the view from La Perle du Lac restaurant overlooking Lac Leman. A few miles away inside the city’s Palexpo Center, the site […]

For all you new aviators out there, here’s a simple tip that can instantly make you a better pilot while simultaneously impressing your flight instructor: Learn to relax. When they’re starting out, most new pilots tend to concentrate so hard on a particular flight maneuver, whether it’s a stall, a steep turn or approach and […]