Aviation News

At Sun ‘n Fun, Sporty’s and ForeFlight announced big enhancements to the Stratus 2 ADS-B receiver/AHRS unit. The Stratus 2 is a joint production of manufacturer Appareo, iOS app developer ForeFlight and founding partner Sporty’s. The new firmware for the Status 2 — there are no hardware changes — utilized a number of new strategies […]

Flying‘s senior editor Stephen Pope paid a visit on Thursday morning to David Clark’s booth in Hangar C at the Sun ‘n Fun campus to present the Editors’ Choice Award. David Clark’s winning product was the DC Pro-X active noise reduction headset. Weighing in at only 7.5 ounces, the DC Pro-X weighs about half as […]

Some of the booths drawing attention at the Sun ‘n Fun International Fly-In and Expo this week are those with piston-powered helicopter trainer simulators. We checked out a couple of affordable simulator versions, the Elite TH22 and X-copter flight simulators, both of which feature models from the largest helicopter manufacturer in the world — Torrance, […]

The interior of the GippsAero GA8 Airvan has received a facelift, improving the comfort for up to eight occupants of the utility airplane. Karen Nelson, the design/customer service director of Columbia, South Carolina-based Eagle Aviation, which designed the Airvan’s new executive interior, said the materials were chosen based on the known applications of the GA8, […]

Under pressure from user groups and Congress, the FAA has announced it is pursuing a rulemaking project to implement proposed medical certification rules that would in many cases allow pilots to fly without the third class medical certificate that is currently required. To industry observers, the FAA release seemed consistent with a response by an […]

To underscore its commitment to the inflight video segment, Sporty’s has launched a service, called MySolo, that takes your video and turns it into a finished, edited video with titles for $59.95. John Zimmerman, Sporty’s digital guru, told Flying that for that price all the customer has to do is upload the digital footage, specify […]

AKG, which has for more than 65 years produced professional audio products for music professionals from Frank Sinatra to Quincy Jones, has gotten in the aviation game with a light and cool looking headset, the AV100. The headset is completely purpose built; there aren’t any existing components from other AKG products. The headset has a […]

Redbird Flight Simulations unveiled a full-motion helicopter skills trainer at Sun ‘n Fun called the Redbird VTO that is designed to help new students learn the art of hovering and autorotation before transitioning to the real thing. The idea behind the simulator is to provide the visual and motion cues necessary for improving helicopter-specific skills, […]

Arlington, Washington-based Glasair is taking advantage of the investment funds made available by its Chinese owners, Jilin Hanxing Group, by launching two new products, namely a new two-seat LSA and a diesel-powered version of the popular Glasair Sportsman. I took a seat in the mockup of what Glasair has named the Merlin LSA at the […]

Despite experiencing two in-flight engine failures during the months-long test program, Cessna says all development issues related to the Safran SMA diesel engine in the 182 JT-A have been resolved and certification is “weeks away.” The 182 JT-A test airplane with the new jet-A-burning SMA compression-ignition engine suffered an emergency engine failure in August that […]