Aircraft

I’m not sure who first came up with the term “spam can” to designate a basic, fixed-tricycle-gear, aluminum airplane. Spam itself originated in the late 1930s, and Hormel, the manufacturer of the soon-to-be-ubiquitous pork shoulder/ham product, actually started calling it “Spam” to make it sound jazzier. It needn’t have bothered. One of the defining characteristics […]

The event happened in the middle of March, when the weather consists of winter storms and unsettled conditions. Weather, the nemesis for all pilots, almost became the leading contributor to what should have been the last day of my life. I lived in Salt Lake City at the time, and I was just about to […]

According to an eyewitness whose attention was caught by the loud gunning of its engine as it approached the airport, the little two-seater’s wings both vibrated visibly before the left wing folded back against the fuselage. The airplane pitched downward and began to spin; the right wing then bent upward, and it too folded back […]

Responding to the challenges of the current economy for general aviation, Hawker Beechcraft Corp. (HBC) this week delivered 350 pink slips to salaried staff. In a letter to employees, CEO Bill Boisture also outlined the schedule and details of 800 job losses for union-represented hourly workers that had been announced in September. In the Oct. […]

In the years preceding the economic collapse of 2008, the NBAA convention was punctuated by announcements of huge orders for business jets. That custom came to a screeching halt, but this year NetJets burned some rubber with the announcement it plans to buy up to 125 Embraer Phenom 300s. The $1 billion deal includes 50 […]

Kurt Robinson, president of Robinson Helicopter and son of founder Frank Robinson, said the FAA was well represented Monday among the 300 attending certification ceremonies for the company’s new turbine-powered R66. He said, “A lot of the FAA guys were saying, ‘We used to do this all the time, but now, certifying a new aircraft […]

Though known for its helicopters, Sikorsky has a legacy that includes some iconic fixed-wing aircraft dating back to the 1930s. Now, the company is back in the fixed-wing business. During the NBAA Convention in Atlanta last week, Sikorsky signed an agreement in principle to invest in Eclipse Aerospace, the company that has acquired the rights […]

The 50th Anniversary Baron is a fitting tribute to the archetypal piston twin and makes clear that even after all these years, the Baron is still a relevant design.

Sitting in the glass cockpit of the 50th anniversary edition of the Beechcraft G58 Baron, its precision-engineered Teledyne Continental Motors engines ticking away effortlessly, I’m struck by a thought: This airplane was introduced when President Dwight Eisenhower was still in office. It’s a hard notion to reconcile. With a bright and colorful flat-panel avionics suite, […]

After conversations with some 3,000 aircraft operators, Hawker Beechcraft Corporation decided that its next Beechcraft Premier model wouldn’t be a Beechcraft after all. “The Premier II should be a Hawker,” is the message HBC got from customers — and that’s what it will be, the Hawker 200. Shawn Vick, HBC Executive Vice President delivered the […]