Aircraft

So far it’s unconfirmed, but the FAA is taking seriously a report that a Piper twin was involved in a midair collision with a UAV over northern Illinois on August 27. Maybe we should be calling it a UFO, since the FAA’s incident report refers to a collision between the Piper Apache and an “unidentified […]

Embraer’s Legacy 450 business twinjet received FAA type certification yesterday, three weeks after notching its Brazilian approval. With the certification papers in hand, Embraer Executive Jets plans to start customers deliveries as early as next month. The “mid-light” Legacy 450 is the first in its category with full fly-by-wire technology and side-stick flight controls, which […]

Just months after its first flight, Anequim CEA-311, a Brazilian speedster built by students and professors at the Brazilian technical school Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Belo Horizonte, has achieved multiple world records at the Santa Cruz Air Force Base in Rio de Janeiro. Between Friday and Sunday last week, the sleek single-seat […]

The XTI TriFan 600, a conceptual three-rotor vertical takeoff and landing airplane now in the early developmental stage, would be easy to dismiss as just another fantasy of well-intentioned aviation dreamers. Until you realize who those dreamers are. The new XTI Aircraft based in Denver is headed by a veteran leadership team that includes Jeff […]

The Cirrus Vision Jet is progressing toward certification on schedule after the FAA issued the SF50’s Type Inspection Authorization (TIA), marking the start of formal FAA flight evaluations of the single-engine jet’s type design, airworthiness, performance and handling. The TIA allows Cirrus to begin certification flight tests with an FAA pilot on board, one of […]

Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. recently announced details on the progress of the test program for its G500 and G600 family of business jets, which are expected to hit the market in 2018 and 2019 respectively. The G500 took to the skies for the first time on May 18. Since then, company test pilots have completed five […]

The Bugatti 100P replica race plane that has been under construction for the last several years in Oklahoma sustained damage yesterday during its first test flight, nosing over and striking both propellers after a failure of its right brake and a slow-speed departure from the runway into soft mud. Still, the builders of the airplane […]

Enstrom Helicopters announced that the flight test program for its two-seat TH180, currently in development, is progressing on schedule with the second prototype building flight hours. “We are into the envelope expansion phase,” said Enstrom test pilot Bill Taylor. “We’ve had it out over 90 knots so far, and everything is performing as expected.” A […]

I’m generally biased in favor of anything that flies, but truth be told there have been a few light-sport aircraft that I haven’t enjoyed flying. I felt that those airplanes were so light on the controls that it was rather unsettling. While the Icon A5 looks cool, I was prepared for the worst when I […]

The volunteers that have been hard at work restoring Doc, a Superfortress that was one of eight B-29s named after characters in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, didn’t quite get the airplane flying by AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, as the group had hoped. But Doc’s Friends, the organization that is spearheading the restoration, says […]