Stephen Pope

Calling it an “agonizing decision for the company,” Piper Aircraft announced plans to layoff up to 150 workers in Vero Beach, Florida, in response to economic instability in “several key regions around the world” including Europe, Latin America and Asia. Piper’s announcement in a press release issued Wednesday morning said, “As a direct result of […]

Cats and dogs will probably never live together in true harmony, but at least ForeFlight Mobile app users can now wirelessly link to their Garmin cockpit avionics after an announcement that is being described by the companies as a “groundbreaking collaboration.” ForeFlight has long sought to tap into the market for Garmin panel avionics connectivity, […]

As we race inexorably toward the week of Oshkosh to partake in the bounty that is the greatest airshow of the year there are some tangible signs that general aviation is poised for a return to real, honest-to-goodness growth. For starters, the first Icon A5 light sport amphibian will be handed over to its new […]

Some surprising findings are highlighted in the National Transportation Safety Board accident report detailing what went horribly wrong in the skies over Afghanistan in May 2013, when a National Airlines Boeing 747 cargo plane climbing out after takeoff suddenly rolled over and plummeted into the ground, sending up a massive fireball. The dramatic accident was […]

Disrupt or be disrupted. It’s one of the hard lessons emerging in today’s tech-fueled economy, in which the frenetic pace of innovation means not only seeing new ideas materialize with dizzying speed but also watching as they threaten to obliterate entire industries that came before them. We’ve glimpsed this trend in aviation already with everything […]

Since the earliest days of powered flight, propulsion technology has mattered more than anything else in humankind’s quest to break the bonds of earth and rise triumphantly into thin air. For the Wright Flyer it was a 180-pound, 12-horsepower gasoline piston engine built by Orville and Wilbur’s trusty mechanic, Charles ­Taylor. For the P-51D Mustang, […]

Solar Impulse 2 is stuck on the ground in Hawaii after suffering “irreversible” battery damage caused by overheating during its record-setting, five-day flight from Nagoya, Japan, project leaders said. The solar-powered airplane, with Swiss pilot André Borschberg at the controls, landed safely in Hawaii on July 3, completing the longest leg of its around-the-world attempt […]

James “Jim” Bede, the sometimes-controversial airplane designer who created more than a dozen airplanes types since the 1960s — including the Bede BD-5J micro jet that appeared in a James Bond film — died on July 9 in Cleveland, Ohio. He was 82. Born in Cleveland in April 1933, Bede graduated from Wichita State University […]

Dueling press releases arrived in my email inbox at around the same time on Friday morning, one from Airbus claiming the E-Fan demonstrator had made history by becoming the first electric-powered airplane to cross the English Channel and another saying French pilot Hugues Duval had actually pulled off the same feat the night before in […]

Have you seen the TV ads for the new “Mission: Impossible” movie, the ones showing Tom Cruise improbably hanging on for dear life on the outside of a military transport plane as it blasts into the sky? Hollywood CGI is getting pretty good, I recall thinking. Well, that was no CGI. Cruise actually strapped onto […]