Aviation News

Just four years after picking up the fragments of the old Eclipse company, Eclipse Aerospace will have the first all-new model on display at the NBAA show in Las Vegas next month. The Eclipse 550 is based on the original 500 as modified by the new company’s “Total Eclipse” program. About 50 of the original […]

Faced with crippling losses of an estimated $995 million in the last quarter, Canadian-based BlackBerry has sold its Bombardier Global Express and shuttered its Waterloo, Ontario, flight department. The staff will be among 4,500 to be laid off, a cutback confirmed in a company statement issued last week. “In light of the company’s current business […]

They say very few aviation records are left to be broken, but here’s one that’s never been tried before, at least as far as we know. Wakeboarding world champion Bernhard Hinterberger recently became the first person ever to skim across the water while being towed by an airplane in flight. Hinterberger and his team accomplished […]

Boeing has delivered the final C-17 produced for the Air Force, two decades after the massive four-engine transport began military duty. Officials took delivery of the C-17 Globemaster III — the 223rd sold to the Air Force — during a ceremony attended by hundreds of workers at Boeing’s Long Beach, California, assembly plant. The factory […]

Firefighters from the Charlotte Fire Department got a big surprise as they recently tested sonar equipment in Lake Norman, a large lake northwest of Charlotte, North Carolina. According to local news outlets, the firefighters found an airplane resting on the bottom of the lake. As some of the firefighters took a closer look by diving […]

“Please don’t shoot the messenger,” is the plea from the support team at Hilton Software, developers of the popular WingX series of iPad and iPhone apps for aviation. Last week, Hilton sent out notices to subscribers warning them not to upgrade to iOS 7, the newest operating system from Apple. Some customers immediately fired back […]

Sunstate Aviation in Phoenix took delivery of the 100th Quest Kodiak turboprop single last week. In a ceremony at Kodiak’s factory in Sandpoint, Idaho, Quest CEO Sam Hill said, “Since the beginning, we have been committed to building a rugged, reliable aircraft that provides operators the versatility to accomplish any mission.” Sunstate founder Mike Watts […]

That no-strings dollar-a-gallon fuel you’ve been hearing about has a few catches now, forced by rumors and reports of commercial operators planning to game the system. When Redbird Skyport (KHYI) in San Marco, Texas, announced a couple of weeks ago that it was going to sell fuel for a dollar a gallon throughout the month […]

Several reports claim David Riggs, a pilot with a checkered past who lost his FAA license not once but twice, is missing after his Lancair 320 crashed in a lake outside Shenyang, China. Riggs’ passenger, an 18-year-old Chinese translator, died in the crash. The Los Angeles Times reported that Riggs took off in rainy conditions […]

The current issue of FAA Safety Briefing targets aviation citizenship among general aviation pilots. It urges us to show our responsibilities toward fellow pilots by sharing values, customs and culture with the rest of the aviation community. Feature articles in the September/October 2013 issue include primers on developing intervention strategies for fellow pilots who may […]