Stephen Pope

George Bye, the developer a two-seat solar-electric trainer called the Sun Flyer, said yesterday that the airplane will fly with a touchscreen cockpit from Avidyne based around the all-important assumptions that the avionics be bright enough to read in full sunlight but not so powerful that they drain the batteries down to nothing. Bye is […]

The inaugural appearance in North America by the Breitling Jet Team thrilled the crowd on the opening day of Sun ‘n Fun in Lakeland, Florida, which is off to a successful start despite torrential rains Monday that turned the show grounds to a muddy mess. Camping and spectator areas are drying out today under mostly […]

Piper arrived at Sun ‘n Fun with further details of three new airplanes — the M350, M500 and M600 — all based on the venerable PA-46 type certificate that has been a staple of the brand since the early 1980s. The new generation of M-class airplanes are the best ones yet thanks to additional payload […]

Superior Air Parts is taking direct aim at the market turf dominated by the Rotax 912 series piston engine with a 100 horsepower compression ignition diesel for experimental and light-sport aircraft called the Gemini 100. The engine is a unique design adopted from a British-born aero diesel that’s been in development for more than a […]

Garmin is rolling out a significant update for the G500 and G600 retrofit glass cockpits designed to give the avionics a fresh, new look while also providing faster mapping display capability to go along with a host of additional features. Garmin says improved dynamic maps in the G500/G600 flight display system are being carried over […]

With his harebrained landing of a gyrocopter on the Capitol lawn to hand deliver hundreds of protest letters to Congress, mailman Doug Hughes has put a new twist on the expression “going postal.” The FAA says it’s launching a full-scale investigation of the unauthorized flight. AOPA quickly labeled the stunt “unacceptable.” Most everybody else, meanwhile, […]

Flight Design conducted the first flight of the C4 prototype in Germany last Thursday, officially launching the test phase for the first general aviation airplane scheduled to be certified under new rules designed to improve safety and bring down the costs of future light aircraft. Flight Design conducted the first flight at its headquarters in […]

For fans of California-based Icon Aircraft, the anticipation of a new kind of light-sport airplane for a new kind of pilot is on the verge of becoming a full-fledged reality. Icon has completed the first customer A5 light-sport amphibian, which it plans to fly later this month and deliver in June after final FAA approval […]

Investigators say the pilot of a twin-turboprop Piper Cheyenne that crashed short of the runway at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport on Sunday reported smoke in the cockpit minutes before the airplane went down in a wooded area in a south Florida nature preserve. All four people were killed in the crash at about 4:25 p.m. […]

Invariably whenever somebody posts a fun flying video online, the Internet “sheriffs” come out in droves to inform the original poster of just how many Federal Aviation Regulations he or she has broken. Of course, the only thing that really matters is what the FAA has to say about your video. And a new national […]