Aviation News

AOPA is urging the FAA to take steps to address the safety risks of small recreational UAVs, including stipulating penalties for pilots who operate them recklessly. The association made the recommendation yesterday in prepared comments at a House aviation subcommittee hearing on UAV operations. AOPA told the subcommittee that an “increasing number of incidents” involving […]

A French air force jet crashed into a home for the disabled in central France on Wednesday, killing one woman inside and injuring several others. French media reports said the Alpha Jet trainer crashed in the town of Vouvray at about 5:30 p.m. local time. The two crew members ejected and were unhurt, the air […]

The National Transportation Safety Board says preliminary flight data recorder information downloaded from the Embraer Phenom 100 that crashed into houses while on approach to Montgomery County Airpark in Maryland on Monday shows that the stall warning system sounded continuously for the last 20 seconds of the flight, indicating that the twinjet had slowed dangerously […]

The FAA yesterday issued another five exemptions for commercial UAS operations to four companies under Section 333 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. The new exemptions greatly broaden the spectrum for legal commercial UAS uses, which has previously only been approved for movie making operations operating in controlled environments. The companies that […]

This month marks the 70th anniversary of a major international agency, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). ICAO consists of 191 member states and works together with global aviation organizations to develop Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs). These SARPs are used by the member states when developing their own national civil regulations. A specialized agency […]

With media attention increasingly focused on the safety of UAVs, the House aviation subcommittee will hold a hearing this week on the status of drone integration into U.S. airspace. The hearing will focus on the state of the emerging UAV industry in the United States, including the FAA’s efforts to safely integrate unmanned drones into […]

Dassault is making good progress on the development of the** Falcon 5X wide-body twinjet**, which was announced at the National Business Aviation Association’s annual convention last year, and the Falcon 8X, the ultra-long-range bizjet announced at the European Business Aviation Convention and Expo this year. Company pilots started testing the 5X in a simulator environment […]

A mother and her two young children were killed on Monday when an Embraer Phenom 100 crashed into their house about a mile short of Montgomery County Airpark in Gaithersburg, Maryland, just before 11 a.m. local time. Three people on board the jet were also killed, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, including the […]

NetJets pilots are upset about an alleged effort by the fractional-ownership giant to use Twitter and other social media to impersonate union members as part of a would-be plot to “weaken and ultimately destroy the union.” Lawyers are suing NetJets Aviation over the alleged action directed against the 3,000-member NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots. […]

The FAA yesterday issued long-awaited rules that increase the number of hours pilots may log toward an instrument rating using approved aviation training devices, raising the limit to 20 hours in advanced training devices versus 10 hours under the old rules. In reality many simulator makers had received special authorizations from the FAA to allow […]