Stephen Pope

The National Transportation Safety Board released more than 800 pages from its accident investigation docket that reveal troubling clues about what may have caused last May’s crash of a Gulfstream IV in Bedford, Massachusetts, which killed seven people on board including Philadelphia Inquirer owner Lewis Katz. The most disquieting information contained in the trove of […]

Aspen Avionics has revealed an unusual approach to angle-of-attack (AOA) indication for light airplanes that uses a simple software update to the company’s Evolution flight displays without requiring any extra hardware, sensors or external aircraft modifications. Instead, the patent-pending technology calculates AOA from flight envelope data received through the Evolution display’s integrated air-data computer and […]

The National Transportation Safety Board yesterday issued four new Safety Alerts for general aviation pilots and mechanics highlighting risks uncovered in a number of recent accident investigations. Three of the alerts are geared toward pilots. They address: mountain flying skills and survival equipment considerations; transition training before flying an unfamiliar aircraft with different flight characteristics […]

Talk about a lucky landing. A pilot parachuted to safety onto the top of a hospital parking garage in downtown Reno, Nevada, on Sunday after an apparent encounter with severe mountain wave turbulence tore both the wings off his German-built Schleicher glider. Longtime glider enthusiast Bob Spielman was reportedly attempting to return to Minden-Tahoe Airport […]

Loss of control accounts for more than 40 percent of fixed-wing GA fatal accidents, a sobering statistic that has prompted the National Transportation Safety Board to put this danger on its “Most Wanted” list of safety improvements. Now, a group of flight instructors in the Washington, D.C. area is tackling the problem as well through […]

Training airplanes powered by fuel-efficient compression ignition diesel engines are catching on in a big way in China, where the burgeoning GA infrastructure favors jet-A fuel rather than 100LL avgas. In the latest move to diesel power, the Xinjiang Tianxiang Flight School in northwest China is doubling its fleet of Diamond DA40 trainers to 30 […]

Chances are you take a certain amount of pride from flying traffic patterns with near military precision, nailing your target altitude and airspeed and squaring off your turns while taking into account the effects of the wind. Not only does this practice demonstrate what a great pilot you are, but it also makes you predictable […]

The HondaJet is an important step closer to its market introduction after the FAA on Friday awarded the light jet’s provisional type certification. Honda Aircraft is planning for initial customer deliveries to start after remaining flight testing is completed in the next couple of months. Provisional type certification is a common design approval awarded to […]

An Air Canada Airbus A320 touched down about 1,100 feet short of the runway at Halifax International Airport while attempting to land in heavy snow early Sunday, injuring 25 passengers and crew when the jetliner’s landing gear tore off. Photos of the crash scene show the wrecked airliner with its nose cone missing and engines […]

Airlines and aviation safety regulators around the world are considering a range of measures intended to prevent another tragedy like the one witnessed in the French Alps last week when a packed Germanwings jetliner crashed with its copilot at the controls. German prosecutors say the 28-year-old pilot Andreas Lubitz apparently crashed the Airbus A320 intentionally […]