Aircraft

In the early ’60s, when I went wrong and started hanging out at the aerodrome, common wisdom was that the DC-3, while a grand old airplane, had outlived its usefulness to the military, the airlines and even corporate operators. Its death knell was tolling to signal the time had come to relegate these antiques to […]

“Soft orders” have led to a workforce reduction on Cessna’s Citation Mustang production line. The company now expects to deliver roughly 70 of the entry-level jets this year, after a major order from a European air-taxi operator was cancelled. About 75 workers received notice last week. The Mustang is built at Cessna’s Independence, Kansas, plant.

The Corporate Angel Network (CAN) announced that Gulfstream had donated $50,000 to its cause. CAN arranges flights for cancer patients in empty seats aboard corporate jets. More than 500 corporations and individuals donate empty seats to CAN patient flights. The charity organization was founded in 1981, and arranges more than 250 flights per month — […]

The pairing of Lancair’s Evolution kitplane and Lycoming’s next-gen iE2 engine makes for easy starting and great forward speed.

Pilatus PC-12 NG does things other airplanes can’t and costs less.

German aircraft manufacturer Extra Aircraft has chosen Montrose, Colorado, as the site of its U.S. headquarters and “aircraft production center.” Construction of a new 40,000-square-foot facility is expected to start soon with completion scheduled for late fall this year. The company plans to assemble the all-carbon-fiber Extra 500 ‘Spirit’ in Montrose. Fuselages and wings will […]

The economic strain overriding the entire GA industry continues to dog the Diamond D-Jet program. A max effort to re-engine their DA42 twin-engine piston in 2008 sapped Diamond financial strategists, resulting in adjustments to the certification schedule for the single-engine D-Jet. There has been no official update for more than a year, since the company […]

__Many pilots want to fly a 1,000-mile trip nonstop. That’s about the distance from New York to southern Florida, or from Chicago to Miami, or from Atlanta to Aspen. And people want to take along all of their family, friends and stuff on these trips. A bunch of airplanes can fly the 1,000-mile trip downwind, […]

July 2010 — For the past few years piston-engine giant Lycoming has been developing a new engine, the TEO-540-A1A. The designation is meaningful: It is a “turbocharged,” “electronic ignition” and “opposed” — nothing new there — version of the venerable 540-series Lycoming engine that has been a mainstay of the general aviation fleet for decades. […]

At about 8 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time Monday, a single-engine, turboprop-converted De Havilland Otter crashed near Dillingham, Alaska. Five of nine onboard died, including former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, 86. Among the survivors was ex-NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe, 54, and his teenage son Kevin. Both spent the night at the crash site aided by Good […]