Aircraft

It was a tense couple of months for Piper, but all 39 M600 single-engine turboprops that had been voluntarily grounded by the manufacturer in July have now returned to service after successfully passing wing-spar inspections, according to a report by Flight Global. The FAA issued an airworthiness directive last month after Piper discovered cracking in […]

One Aviation said last Friday that it successfully flew an aircraft carrying the proof of concept wing shape of the new EA700 Project Canada from the company’s Albuquerque headquarters. GAMA president Pete Bunce said this flight represents the leading edge of the eventual certification of the EA700 under the new Part 23. The modified wing […]

Steven Hinton, the exceptional pilot who has won the Unlimited Class in the National Championship Air Races in Reno, Nevada, multiple times, added his name to the record books this weekend as he broke the speed record for an internal combustion engine-powered airplane, Class C-1e, on a 3 km closed course. Hinton was flying a […]

The Airbus Perlan 2 has reached new heights, breaking the world record for a glider flight as it soared to 52,172 feet. An Aero Boero AB-180 tow plane pulled chief pilot Jim Payne and co-pilot Morgan Sandercock off the ground at Comandante Armando Tola International Airport, which sits at an elevation of 669 feet in […]

For the past 10 years, Sierra Nevada Corporation has been chasing the dream of creating a small, lifting-body spacecraft that could be used to deliver cargo and eventually humans to the International Space Station. Fittingly, that spacecraft is known as Dream Chaser, and on Wednesday it took another step toward SNC’s goal of achieving orbital […]

As Gulfstream nears FAA certification for its new series of luxury business jets, the G500 and G600, the company announced it has flown the final G600 test aircraft. The G500 and G600 are both highly advanced bizjets incorporating fly-by-wire, touchscreen avionics and active control sidestick technology. This is the fifth G600 test bed Gulfstream has […]

It is not often that a fully aerobatic airplane is certified. But just this week the team at Bentonville, Arkansas-based Game Composites saw their GB1 GameBird receive its certification. The FAA signed the Part 23 paperwork yesterday — about four months after the European Aviation Safety Agency gave its approval. The GameBird was hatched in […]

The General Aviation Manufacturers Association and Build A Plane opened registration earlier this week for the 2018 Aviation Design Challenge. The annual competition promotes science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills through aviation to U.S. high school students. This year, 93 schools from 31 states and Washington, DC, registered for the competition, an 18 percent […]

As the certification of the PC-24 Super Versatile Jet inches closer, Pilatus announced it is discontinuing the product that helped grow the company decades ago — the PC-6 Porter. The Porter has become known as a terrific short- and unimproved field performer and it’s seen one of the longest continuous production runs of any airplane […]

The number of single-engine airplanes capable of hauling a ton of cargo or six people around are pretty limited these days. Cessna’s Caravan is a top choice, but that $2.2 million price tag often puts it well out of reach for many pilots. When I spent a day with a Cessna Turbo 206 in Wichita, […]