Aircraft

At a pre-Heli-Expo press briefing yesterday in Las Vegas, Bell Helicopters president and CEO John Garrison announced the company’s latest Bell 412 version, the 412EPI, with new bells and whistles and the promise of better performance. The 412EPI boasts an integrated glass flight deck named Bell BasiX Pro, which provides single-pilot IFR capabilities and incorporates […]

A very special airplane made its first flight since undergoing a complete restoration at Paine Field in Everett, Washington. The Historic Flight Foundation’s DC-3 took to the skies over the weekend in its distinctive Pam Am paint scheme. The history of the foundation’s DC-3 began in 1944 as a C-47 in Asia, flying for the […]

Cessna’s new and improved Citation Sovereign moved a step closer toward certification on Tuesday as the first jet rolled off the production line in Wichita, Kansas. The improved Citation Sovereign, announced at the NBAA Convention last fall, is poised for certification and entry into service in the third quarter. It will bring a number of […]

In a closely watched rematch, Embraer on Wednesday won a U.S. Air Force contract to supply 20 of its A-29 Super Tucano light attack airplanes for counterinsurgency missions in Afghanistan. The Brazilian company beat out Beechcraft — again — for the $428 million deal after the Air Force agreed to review the original contract awarded […]

Though Tamarack Aerospace Group, based in Sand Point, Idaho, emphasized that it was quoting “… preliminary results that we’ve seen with our prototype airplane …” a blog on the company website still had something to crow about. On a 1,100-nm flight from Dallas (KDAL) to Jackson Hole, Wyoming (KJAC), the TAG CitationJet equipped with the […]

Engineers at GE Global Research are laying claim to achieving the highest combination of temperatures ever recorded inside the compressor of a turbine engine. The developmental engine program is a cooperative research project between GE and the Air Force Research Laboratory. It’s called ADVENT (Adaptive Versatile Engine Technology) and makes heavy use of ceramic matrix […]

Daher-Socata has unveiled the 2013 version of the TBM 850 Elite featuring an all-glass avionics panel. The L-3 Avionics Trilogy ESI-2000 solid-state electronic standby instrument will now provide backup flight information for the Garmin G1000 integrated avionics system that graces the TBM 850 cockpit. The ESI-2000’s 3.7-inch liquid crystal display replaces the three traditional round-gauge […]

In 1992, Scaled Composites built a radio-controlled UAV intended for 48-hour flights at 65,000 feet. Called Quiver (it was later changed to Raptor, for “Responsive Aircraft Program for Theater Operations”), it had a wingspan of 66 feet and an 80 hp Rotax engine. Scaled also home-brewed the autopilot, and there was some uncertainty about how […]

Piper has selected the Garmin G1000 integrated flight deck for its Seneca V piston twin as an upgrade over the previously available G600 suite. The G1000 system in the Seneca V includes three 10.4-inch displays integrating all primary flight information, navigation data, communications, terrain awareness, traffic, weather and engine data. The G1000 for the Seneca […]

Apparently helicopters are the getaway vehicle of choice for high-profile inmates in Greek prisons. But this time the attempt failed. Last Sunday, convicted murderer and racketeer Panagiotis Vlastos was waiting in the courtyard of Trikala Prison, about 205 miles northeast of Athens, when the chartered helicopter swooped down. It is not yet clear if the […]