Aviation News

In about two weeks, Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO) will close to allow for the planned shortening of Runway 3-21. Operators of many airplanes that are based at and frequent the nearly 100-year-old airport will have to find new alternatives. Since the runway-shortening project began on October 23, the airport has been closed nightly from […]

Professional drone racing pilot Ken ‘FlyingBear’ Loo is used to racing the likes of Paul ‘Nurk’ Nurkala, Nick ‘Wild Willy’ Willard and Jordan ‘Jet’ Temkin through extravagant tracks in cool locations, later to be aired on ESPN. Racing a NASA-built autonomous drone? Not so much. “We pitted our algorithms against a human, who flies a […]

It’s impressive how much buzz Elon Musk can generate with a simple tweet. He recently offered the world the first look at the Tesla Roadster and caused his fans and followers to freak out with a simple description: “0 to 100 km/h in 1.9 sec.” More than 123,000 retweets later, you’d think that would be […]

Limousine driver and self-proclaimed rocket scientist (who doesn’t believe in science) “Mad” Mike Hughes was all set to pilot his self-designed and self-built $20,000 rocket over the California ghost town of Amboy on Saturday. Sponsored by Research Flat Earth, an organization that he aligned with after several months of his own research, Hughes was going […]

Building on a three-decade business relationship with FedEx Express, Textron Aviation today launched a clean-sheet high-wing utility twin turboprop, the Cessna SkyCourier 408, due to enter service in 2020. Powered by a pair of 1,100 shp Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-65SC engines, the SkyCourier will be capable of loading three standard LD3 shipping containers through […]

Yakima, Washington-based CubCrafters, the manufacturer of backcountry Cubs on steroids, this week introduced two updated versions of its highly successful Carbon Cub. The two-seat taildragger is now available with increased power, speed, range and payload with the Carbon Cub EX-3 and FX-3 models. “The Carbon Cub has a well-earned reputation as the performance leader among […]

For the first time since 2014, “Mad” Mike Hughes, a “Guinness World Record Daredevil” and “The world’s most famous limousine driver,” according to his website, will blast off in a rocket that he designed and built on his own for $20,000. His latest attempt at infamy will take place on Saturday, November 25, as he […]

Possession of an instrument rating opens the door to airports when the weather is below basic VFR, provided the aircraft is properly equipped and that someone has a copy of the appropriate instrument approach plate — either electronic or paper — for guidance. Anywhere and in any weather… almost. There are roughly 40 U.S. airports […]

Much has been written recently trying to answer the question of why too few young people seem interested in a flying career. At a recent meeting of the Chicago Area Business Aviation Association at PWK, the topic popped up again, except this time around it all focused on Biz Av. Aviation department managers I spoke […]

I realized at some point during my instrument training that airplanes are a lot more like horses than they are like cars, and pilots can learn a lot by approaching their machines with this in mind. As a child I rode horses — a lot. We had four of them on our property. As a […]