Aircraft

__At the NBAA convention in October, I got to be on hand to witness one of the most significant events in the 20 years I’ve been an aviation journalist: the official rebirth of the Eclipse jet. Eclipse Aerospace — the company that bought the remnants of the original Eclipse out of bankruptcy — announced that […]

(December 2011) October’s column discussed training in a light-sport aircraft for the private rating. Briefly, if the LSA is equipped for night VFR and if the manufacturer states so in the POH, you can do all of your training for the rating in the airplane. Upon learning this, I naturally wondered if, after receiving said […]

(December 2011) Remember Slovenia? It used to be part of what we now call “the former Yugoslavia.” Unlike Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia, Slovenia did not lay itself waste, after partition, with ethnic warfare. Perhaps that is why we hear so little about it; peaceful, prosperous and progressive, it is a sort of Slavic Sweden. It […]

Ikhana Aircraft Services has received an FAA Supplemental Type Certificate that promises to keep older DHC-6 Twin Otters flying well beyond their design life limits. The California company’s process re-manufactures the DHC-6 fuselage, extending it with an additional 66,000 hours/132,000 cycles of fatigue life. “We are providing an essentially new aircraft with a full useful […]

After receiving certification both in the United States and Canada earlier this year, Bell Helicopter’s 407GX light single-engine helicopter has won approval from EASA, according to the Textron subsidiary. After its unveiling at the Heli-Expo in Orlando in the spring, the Bell 407GX remains the only helicopter equipped with Garmin’s G1000H glass cockpit. The cockpit […]

A Czech-built L410 powered by two GE H80 turboprop engines took off for the first time on Wednesday for a 40-minute test flight, jump-starting the next step in the certification process for the aircraft-engine combination. The flight took place in Kunovice in the Czech Republic and, according to Paul Theofan, president of GE Aviation Czech, […]

Cessna late last week told Flying that it would raise the price of its popular light-sport Model 162 Skycatcher substantially to reflect the actual costs of producing the airplane. The former price of $114,000 will increase at the New Year to $149,900. The big increase is somewhat deceiving, though, as the airplane will come standard […]

It was a big day in Savannah for Gulfstream when the company announced on Friday that it had earned provisional type certification for its ultra-long-range, ultra-large-cabin Gulfstream G650. The provisional TC will allow Gulfstream to begin completing interiors for customer airplanes while it finishes up the details of the full certification. Provisional certification is not […]

Piper made the first six deliveries of an 18-airplane order to Sekolah Tinggi Penerbang Indonesia, a government flight school which is located in Budiarto Airport in Curug, Indonesia. The school already operates a number of training airplanes, including a Piper Dakota and a Beechcraft Baron. The Warrior fleet buy, said Piper’s Brunei-based director of global […]

A ** Piaggio** Avanti P-180 twin turboprop operated by fractional provider Avantair was destroyed while attempting an emergency landing in Flint, Michigan, on Wednesday when the airplane veered off the runway on touchdown and flipped over, causing minor injuries to the four people on board. The Avanti was en route from Detroit to West Bend, […]