Stephen Pope

Who knew Tom Hanks was such an aviation buff? The Academy Award-winning actor, who is set to play Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger on the big screen in Clint Eastwood’s upcoming biopic about the 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson” ditching, will also be busy producing an HBO miniseries based on the new David McCullough book “The […]

The final harrowing moments of a deadly midair collision were captured on video on Sunday after a Cessna 185 floatplane collided with a Cessna 172 in Alberta, Canada. The pilot of the stricken 185 made an emergency landing at the airport in Fort McMurray, flipping over after touching down in the damaged plane. Two occupants […]

Many of you will remember the 2013 viral video of six-year-old Lainey Woodson experiencing the unbridled joy of flight for the first time in her father’s Piper Cub. Now an even more heart-warming video has surfaced of four-year-old Lea Langumier giggling in the skies over Quebec as her dad Raphael performs aerobatics in his Citabria. […]

Stephen Metheny, 45, a former vice president for Carson Helicopters in Oregon, was sentenced by a federal judge to 12 and a half years in prison for falsifying records to secure a $51 million U.S. Forest Service firefighting contract that ended up leading to a deadly crash in 2008. Levi Phillips, Carson’s director of maintenance […]

There’s a new airplane near the top of the heap of uber-luxury jets after Boeing Business Jets announced the sale of the first BBJ Max 9 at the Paris Air Show to an undisclosed European customer. The Boeing 737-based BBJ Max 9 sale marks the fifth BBJ Max order after Boeing previously booked four orders […]

While some see it as a case of fixing what isn’t broken, Congress is moving swiftly forward with a proposal to privatize ATC by creating a not-for-profit, federally chartered corporation to operate the nation’s air traffic control system. What’s clearly broken, proponents of the proposal say, is NextGen, the FAA’s multi-billion-dollar effort to modernize ATC […]

Airbus Helicopters used the stage at the Paris Air Show to announce a two-year development phase for a new model code-named the X6 that would emerge as a modern-day replacement for the 1970s-era Super Puma. Airbus Helicopters CEO Guillaume Faury said the X6 would primarily target the oil and gas industry as well as search […]

United Technologies Corp. said it plans to sell or spin off helicopter maker Sikorsky Aircraft, maker of the S-76, S-92 and Black Hawk series, within the next 60 days. The plan to sell or split the storied company comes as demand for helicopters has softened with falling prices in the oil and gas sector and […]

The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday began the formal process of regulating the emissions of U.S. aircraft, saying the airline industry is one of the biggest remaining contributors to global warming. The EPA issued what’s known as an “endangerment finding” under the Clean Air Act as a precursor to regulations to limit heat-trapping emissions from airplane […]

One of the strangest helicopters you have ever seen is going back into production. Following a 12-year hiatus, the Kaman K-MAX K-1200 heavy-lifter, first built in the 1990s, will again start emerging from the factory after the Connecticut-based manufacturer received an order for 10 helicopters from two operators. First type certified in 1994, the K-MAX […]