Aircraft

The FAA has awarded supplemental type certification for the Hawker 800XPR. The STC, available exclusively from Hawker Beechcraft Global Customer Support (GCS), is an upgrade package for the 800XP that includes Honeywell‘s TFE731-50R engines and Hawker winglets. Honeywell’s TFE731-50R engines are capable of producing 5,000 pounds of thrust, but have been flat rated to 4,660 […]

Cessna has delivered its 100th 162 Skycatcher to Sporty’s. The airplane is the 2012 Sporty’s Sweepstakes prize and will be delivered to a Sporty’s Pilot Shop customer at the company’s annual fly-in next May. “We are thrilled that Cessna reserved this milestone Skycatcher for Sporty’s Sweepstakes,” says Sporty’s president and CEO Michael Wolf. The two-place […]

Continuing a tradition of success in South America with its single-engine utility airplanes, Cessna recently inked a deal to sell nine 208 and 208B Caravans to the Brazilian Air Force (Força Aérea Brasileira). These airplanes bring the total number of Caravans Cessna has delivered to Brazil to 32, to complement the many other existing Caravans […]

The SubSonex Jet, one very, very light jet powered by a Czech-built PBS TJ-100 turbine engine, took off for its first flight in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, last week, bringing the prospect of a recreational jet for private pilots one step closer to reality. Renowned airshow pilot Bob Carlton, famous for his performances in a modified Salto […]

The U.S. Defense Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was dealt a setback to its ambitions to create an aircraft capable of traveling at speeds faster than 13,000 mph after contact with its hypersonic test aircraft was lost just minutes into a proving flight on Aug. 11. It’s unclear what caused the loss of contact with the […]

The Taurus G4, a four-seat electric aircraft developed by Pipistrel, took to the air for the first time in the United States during its official maiden flight on Friday in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Designed specifically to compete in NASA’s upcoming CAFE Green Flight Challenge, the aircraft had previously completed a few test hops in Europe before […]

Better than New Stinson 108-3 __One of the nicest examples of a custom restored Stinson you’ll find anywhere occupies a row hangar at Sussex Airport (KFWN) in northern New Jersey. Here, a 1947 Model 108-3 “Flying Station Wagon” (so called because of its Woody-style wood-paneled interior and reinforced floor) proudly displays its window sticker signifying […]

(August 2011) It’s certainly not hard to understand the allure of a new airplane. There’s nothing quite like the smile on the face of a buyer who has just been handed the keys to a brand-new bird. There’s an undeniable pride of ownership there, along with other advantages. New airplanes have the latest features, they’re […]

__For more than six decades after its birth in 1937, the North American AT-6 Texan and its offshoots (the Navy SNJ and the Canadian Harvard) were used throughout the world as advanced trainers, artillery spotters (in Korea and Vietnam among other theaters), and even as counterinsurgency and fighter-bombers by numerous developing countries. The last known […]

(August 2011) Just after 11 o’clock on a chilly San Francisco morning, Jan. 18, 1911, a 24-year-old civilian demonstration pilot named Eugene Ely coaxed his 50 hp Curtiss pusher biplane into the sky, made a wide circle over San Francisco Bay and set down on the deck of the anchored U.S. Navy armored cruiser USS […]