Aircraft

When Honda Aircraft Company announced it had received FAA type certification for the HA-420 HondaJet on December 9, the company’s president and CEO, Michimasa Fujino, described the document as “the crystal of sweat and tears.” The sign-off was the culmination of decades of hard work. Fujino became involved in Honda’s aircraft program in 1986. The […]

The FAA says the Terrafugia Transition can now be called a light sport aircraft despite the fact that its maximum weight is 370 pounds greater than the standard LSA 1,430-pound limit. Terrafugia petitioned the agency for the exemption to use the LSA label for a street-legal version of the aircraft back in 2014. Although the […]

Charles Bolden says now is the right time to take a serious look at a distributed electric aircraft that, if successful, will create advanced technologies to reduce fuel burn, emissions and aircraft noise. Bolden is administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA’s new X-57 project, nicknamed “Maxwell,” will be the agency’s first dedicated […]

Piper’s M600 single-engine turboprop achieved FAA type certification last week, adding a new model to the Vero Beach, Florida, manufacturer’s lineup that features more power and improved avionics. The $2.853 million M600 features the same Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6-42A engine as the Piper M500, but power has been boosted from 500 to 600 shp, […]

Look for two new Mooney models to make their debut appearances at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh this summer after the Kerrville, Texas-based manufacturer flew the first Ovation Ultra, a version of the original Ultra that will roll out of the factory with an array of upgrades. Mooney chief test pilot Mike Miles flew the new model […]

There seems to be no holding back Embraer’s expansion of its Melbourne, Florida, manufacturing home, as the company opened an expanded Legacy 450/500 business jet production facility on June 2. The site originally opened in 2011 as the final assembly location for the Phenom 100 and 300 family of jets. This week’s ribbon cutting added […]

The second of Mitsubishi’s regional jet test aircraft (MRJ), known as airframe FTA-2, took off from Nagoya for the first time on May 31 and confirmed its basic characteristics and functionality in airspace off the Pacific coast of Japan. “As with the first flight conducted with MRJ’s FTA-1 in November of last year, we had […]

Dassault Aviation, which is celebrating its 100th year in the business, took the opportunity at EBACE in Geneva to provide an update on its Falcon 8X program. Now in the final stages of flight testing, the ultra-long-range trijet is closing in on both EASA and FAA certification, which is expected as soon as this summer. […]

Pilatus Aircraft gave the first prototype of the PC-24 Super Versatile Jet a day’s break from its test flight duties to be featured on the static display outside Palexpo as part of the European Business Aviation Convention and Expo this week at the Geneva Airport. The airplane and a second prototype have accumulated more than […]

Icon Aircraft’s announcement yesterday of a sharp production cut and layoffs of 60 full-time workers comes at crucial time for the California startup. With deliveries anticipated to be in full swing by now, the company instead is shifting its delivery schedule by about a year as it continues to burn through its cash reserves. But […]