Aviation News

For the first time since releasing its 98-page “Elevate” manifesto last October, Uber revealed the details of its air-taxi ambitions at this week’s Uber Elevate Summit in Dallas. Announcing a number of partnerships, from aircraft companies to real estate developers, Uber vowed to have its app-based regional air travel service testing in the Dallas-Ft. Worth […]

A report posted earlier this week on the city of Santa Monica’s website highlighted a number of potential safety issues surrounding current plans to shorten Santa Monica’s Runway 03/21 per the city’s January agreement with the FAA. The report said, “The 3,500-foot distance shall not include the runway safety areas that shall be constructed and […]

Nothing should surprise us about Silicon Valley’s increasingly intense love affair with aviation at this point, and yet here we are, wondering what’s going on inside a hangar at the NASA Ames Research Center. While Larry Page made headlines this week with the highly-anticipated unveiling of the Kitty Hawk Flyer, his Google co-founder Sergey Brin […]

With so many companies competing to become the Uber of the skies, it’s not surprising that Uber also wants to become the Uber of the skies. Back in October, the company revealed the first details of its ambitious “Elevate” program that would eliminate wasted hours of productivity caused by standard road travel by offering “on-demand […]

BasicMed is the soon-to-be adopted medical ­certification standard for private pilots written into a new Part 68 of the Federal Aviation Regulations. The FAA in January adopted the rules after a long, and at times contentious, fight with aviation groups that had for years pressed for third-class medical reform. The revised regulations that take effect […]

The day the general aviation community has been waiting for is nearly upon us as the FAA has cleared pilots to prepare to fly under new BasicMed rules without holding an FAA medical certificate – as long as they meet certain requirements. The FAA yesterday released the official BasicMed Comprehensive Medical Examination Checklist that pilots […]

Mooney informed employees by email that CEO Vivek Saxena and the company “have decided to part ways,” ending a tenure that lasted less than a year but saw significant positive developments at the Kerrville, Texas, light plane manufacturer with the recent certifications of the M20 Acclaim and Ovation Ultra models. Mooney’s new owner, the Chinese […]

John Monnett always thought of himself as a jet pilot, but as his 50s began drawing to a close he realized the only way that was going to happen was if he built one himself. Luckily for Monnett, his day job is founder and president of Oshkosh-based Sonex Aircraft, a kit builder already known for […]

The Airbus Perlan Mission II sailplane broke its own record this week, soaring to 30,615 feet out of the Minden-Tahoe Airport in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in western Nevada. The glider was flown by Perlan chief pilot Jim Payne and pilot and flight test engineer Miguel Iturmendi. The Perlan 2 team recently made modifications […]

A very different aircraft design powered by multiple electrically powered jets took off for the first time last week. The Lilium Jet has vertical takeoff and landing capabilities and this first flight was unmanned. However, the company’s vision is to use it as an air taxi platform. The proof-of-concept, named Eagle, has two seats. In […]