Aviation News

Garmin is rolling out a significant update for the G500 and G600 retrofit glass cockpits designed to give the avionics a fresh, new look while also providing faster mapping display capability to go along with a host of additional features. Garmin says improved dynamic maps in the G500/G600 flight display system are being carried over […]

Cirrus SR22 owners can now upgrade their performance capabilities by replacing their metal propellers with Hartzell’s three-blade composite prop. The replacement is made with Hartzell’s second-generation Advance Structural Composite (ASC-II) construction, consisting of carbon fiber laminates integrated into a co-molded stainless steel shank. A nickel erosion shield protects the outboard half of the leading edge […]

With his harebrained landing of a gyrocopter on the Capitol lawn to hand deliver hundreds of protest letters to Congress, mailman Doug Hughes has put a new twist on the expression “going postal.” The FAA says it’s launching a full-scale investigation of the unauthorized flight. AOPA quickly labeled the stunt “unacceptable.” Most everybody else, meanwhile, […]

On the heels of Piper’s introduction of the Meridian M500 earlier this year, the company on Monday unveiled two additional models to its M-class lineup, the M350 and the Garmin G3000-equipped M600, at an event attended by hundreds of customers and dealers. In addition to its touchscreen G3000 avionics, the big news with the M600 […]

A little more than a year after Glasair first announced its new light-sport Merlin, the airplane made its first flight last week from the company’s facility at the Arlington Municipal Airport in Arlington, Washington. The flight lasted 57 minutes with Glasair test pilot Grant Smith, who evaluated the performance of the Rotax 912 iS engine […]

While the membership-based air taxi concept that promised to darken the skies with very light jets has not traditionally seen success, a new idea is taking off in southern California. Surf Air, which launched an all-you-can-fly membership-based concept in 2013, is expanding its network of destinations. After seeing a 40 percent increase in its exclusive […]

Flight Design conducted the first flight of the C4 prototype in Germany last Thursday, officially launching the test phase for the first general aviation airplane scheduled to be certified under new rules designed to improve safety and bring down the costs of future light aircraft. Flight Design conducted the first flight at its headquarters in […]

For fans of California-based Icon Aircraft, the anticipation of a new kind of light-sport airplane for a new kind of pilot is on the verge of becoming a full-fledged reality. Icon has completed the first customer A5 light-sport amphibian, which it plans to fly later this month and deliver in June after final FAA approval […]

Investigators say the pilot of a twin-turboprop Piper Cheyenne that crashed short of the runway at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport on Sunday reported smoke in the cockpit minutes before the airplane went down in a wooded area in a south Florida nature preserve. All four people were killed in the crash at about 4:25 p.m. […]

An Alaska Airlines flight made an emergency landing on Monday when the pilot discovered someone trapped in the front cargo hold, officials said. Flight 448 was bound for Los Angeles but had to return to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport about 14 minutes later when the captain reported that he heard banging coming from underneath the plane, […]