Aircraft

Two Bell Helicopter pilots flying a Bell 214ST on a test flight last week walked away unharmed after making an emergency landing in a Texas cotton field. The pilots reportedly made a textbook emergency landing, only to have the helicopter tip onto its side when one of the wheels dug into the soft dirt. Video […]

Boeing on Tuesday was preparing to fly its experimental X-51A WaveRider, a scramjet-powered unmanned aircraft that is designed to travel at speeds above Mach 5 burning JP-5 jet fuel. The Air Force planned to transport the aircraft under the wing of a B-52 bomber from Edwards Air Force Base in California to an altitude of […]

Continuing a strategy that more and more looks like a complete renewal of its product line, Eurocopter has revealed it is working on two new helicopter projects – the X6, a revamped model to be developed from the Super Puma family, and the X9, a project just now getting under way at the company’s factory […]

Glasair president and CEO Mikael Via has decided to leave the company after its recent sale to Jilin Hanxing Group, a China-based conglomerate, ending a tenure that saw a successful resurgence for the kitplane maker. Replacing Via at the helm of Glasair Aviation are its new president, Nigel Mott, previously the vice president of operations, […]

A preliminary report filed by the NTSB indicates that a Piaggio P.180 operated by Avantair flew two legs while missing the left side of its elevator. According to the report, the twin-engine pusher turboprop departed Camarillo, California, on July 28, flew to San Diego to pick up two passengers and then continued to Henderson Executive […]

Icon Aircraft, the California developer of the Icon A5 amphibious light sport airplane, has enlisted Cirrus Aircraft to produce a “significant portion” of the composite airframes for the LSA. As part of the agreement announced on Monday, Cirrus will build the composite airframe components for the Icon A5 at its factory in Grand Forks, North […]

Hawker Beechcraft has issued pink slips to 170 hourly and salary workers as the bankrupt company continues exclusive talks with Chinese-based Superior Aviation regarding a potential sale of the storied American manufacturer. The layoff notices – which gave the affected employees 60 days notice – were issued to workers at Hawker Beechcraft’s Little Rock facility […]

This year we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Piper J-3 Cub, one of the few cultural icons in light aviation and without much argument the single most identifiable and imitated model in general aviation history. As with many anniversaries, pinning down the exact date of the Cub is a bit of a semantic exercise. […]

One of the delights of Oshkosh is seeing new, innovative airplanes. The Lisa Akoya, an amphibious model destined for the LSA category, fits that bill to a tee. The airplane, which will sell for around $350,000, features a range of approaches never before seen in any airplane. I spent a delightful hour with the folks […]

The U.S. military is continuing to show its commitment to the integration of unmanned aircraft, a strategy that is also being adopted in the civil world and causing alarm for many general aviation pilots, including us at Flying. This past weekend, the Navy moved on to the second flight-test phase of the X-47B Unmanned Combat […]