Aircraft

A year and a half after Waco announced its intent to reproduce the Great Lakes 2T-1A-2, the Battle Creek, Michigan, company has rolled out the first production version of the fully aerobatic biplane. The first test flight was completed over the weekend, and Peter Bowers, president of Waco, said the “aircraft was perfect,” with the […]

In a vote of confidence for Eclipse Aerospace’s friction-stir welding manufacturing process, the FAA has agreed to double the service life of the Eclipse 500 and 550 to 20,000 hours/20,000 cycles with an unlimited calendar life. According to the company, that means Eclipse Jet owners can fly for 50 years at typical use rates. To […]

After weeks of weather delays, RAF Museum recovery workers this week were able to raise the wreckage of a German Dornier Do 17 that crashed into the English Channel more than seven decades ago. The rare airplane, which was shot down during the Battle of Britain, was discovered in 2008 by divers at a depth […]

The Eurocopter X3 has set an unofficial helicopter world speed record of 255 knots in level flight, slightly faster than the 250-knot top speed achieved by the Sikorsky X2 compound helicopter in 2010. Eurocopter said the hybrid X3 also reached a speed of 263 knots in a shallow dive, three knots faster than the X2 […]

Tamarack Aerospace Group recently showed good performance results with its Active Winglets, which the Sandpoint, Idaho-based company has been** testing on a Cessna Citation CJ1**. Recently the CJ1 flew from its headquarters in Idaho to White Plains, New York, on one fuel tank — a flight that took 6 hours and 16 minutes and spanned […]

The Grand Caravan EX is the first Grand Caravan brawny enough to go on amphibious floats. Previous float-equipped Caravans were the short-bodied 208A models. Why did it take almost 20 years to get a Grand on floats? Easy: power, or rather, the lack thereof. The Grand is not only longer but heavier than the 208A, […]

The powerplant Cessna used in the EX is by Pratt & Whitney Canada, the same manufacturer that provided the engines used in every other Caravan Cessna has ever built. The new engine, the PT6A-140, was designed expressly for the Caravan EX. The 140 puts out a whopping 867 shaft horsepower at 1,900 rpm — the […]

Last year at AirVenture, Cessna rolled out its latest Caravan, and it is the most powerful Cessna-built 208 yet. The new model will maintain its 208B designation, but it will give operators a great deal more power, thanks to a new Pratt & Whitney turboprop engine — the PT6-140 — which Pratt developed expressly for […]

A California startup is testing a new way of luring passengers with an “all you can fly” model that lets members travel between select city pairs aboard a Pilatus PC-12 for a flat monthly fee of $1,650. Surf Air plans to link four California cities starting on June 12 as service between San Francisco, Monterey, […]

George Longino is probably not your classic “early adopter” type. But a collection of circumstances make him the first owner of a fly-away, factory-built Van’s RV-12 — and just maybe, a historic figure. Van’s Aircraft decided to enter the production aircraft market after decades of building kits. Founder Richard Van Grunsven has established the most […]