Stephen Pope

Bell Helicopter test pilots flew the new fly-by-wire 525 Relentless turbine twin for the first time yesterday at the company production center in Amarillo, Texas, officially christening the helicopter maker’s biggest and most capable civil model. The pilots evaluated the 525’s hover and low-speed handling capabilities during the test flight, which was made slightly more […]

The Mayo One medevac helicopter is always a popular draw when it attends public events around its home base near Minneapolis. But visitors to the Minnesota Air Spectacular in Mankato over the weekend got the surprise of their lives when a six-year-old child who was sitting inside the EC145 somehow managed to fire up the […]

An Indonesian air force C-130 transport plane carrying military personnel crashed into a residential neighborhood in the country’s third-largest city of Medan shortly after takeoff on Tuesday, killing all aboard the airplane and scores more on the ground. An Indonesian air force spokesman told reporters the death toll in the crash was confirmed as 74 […]

National Transportation Safety Board investigators have arrived on site in a remote, mountainous part southeast Alaska to begin trying to determine what caused the crash of a sightseeing floatplane that killed eight cruise ship passengers and the pilot last Thursday. The de Havilland DHC-3 Otter turboprop single crashed in rugged terrain about 80 miles from […]

The heads of some of the major business jet manufacturing companies say they have yet to see solid signs of a turnaround in the market for their products just yet, but analysts speaking at a business aviation summit yesterday in New York City confidently proclaimed that the world’s uber wealthy are again ready to start […]

James Horner, the Academy Award-winning composer best known for scoring the theme music for “Titanic,” died on Monday after crashing in southern California in his Tucano single-engine turboprop. The FAA said the crash occurred near Los Padres National Forest about 60 miles north of Santa Barbara at around 9:30 a.m. local time. Horner was piloting […]

The FAA issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) for owners of certain Piper PA-46 models after the recent discovery of fatigue cracking in the wing main spar lower cap in a Malibu Mirage. According to the FAA, during routine inspection of the PA-46-350P, an inch-and-a-half-long crack was discovered in the main spar lower cap, […]

Let’s say you’ve just transitioned into a new airplane, one that’s faster, more complex and with newer avionics than the airplanes you’ve been used to flying. You’ll obviously want to fly with a flight instructor who’s familiar with the make, model and equipment aboard your new airplane. If it’s a really complex airplane like a […]

The leaders of two of aviation’s most powerful lobbying associations are aligning in vocal opposition to a plan by the head of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to introduce legislation aimed at paying for future ATC services through user fees. Mark Baker, president of AOPA, and Ed Bolen, head of the National Business Aviation […]

Avidyne has received FAA Technical Standard Order (TSO) approval and an Approved Model List Supplemental Type Certificate (AML-STC) for the IFD440 touchscreen GPS/navcom, a smaller version of the IFD540 certified last year that is designed as a slide-in replacement for the Garmin GNS430. Avidyne also announced the availability of Version 10.1 software for the IFD540, […]