Aviation News

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 […]

More than 100 people recently turned out for the opening of a fuel processing facility in Lafayette, Indiana, built to produce a new unleaded high-octane aviation gasoline called 100SF. Designed as a drop-in replacement for 100LL, the fuel can be safely used in GA piston airplanes, said officials from Swift Fuels LLC, based in the […]

A meeting today of an industry-government advisory committee formed by the FAA Administrator Michael Huerta will set priorities in anticipation of a variety of budget scenarios. Implications of this fall’s coming budget battles could weigh even more heavily on aviation infrastructure than initially expected. At risk are core elements of the NextGen air traffic modernization […]

Yves Rossy, aka Jetman, took to the skies at the National Championship Air Races and Air Show, which took place this past weekend in Reno, Nevada. This, the second show during Jetman’s U.S. visit after AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, presented some new challenges for the man who straps a jet-powered carbon-Kevlar wing to his body, […]

The FAA announced changes that would exempt some pilots from having to complete a biennial flight review. Open for public comment through October 16, the proposal posted in the Federal Register this week seeks to address what the FAA says it now views as an error in the list of exceptions to meet the 24-month […]

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said the goal of a new FAA project is to place no less than a billion gallons of alternative jet fuel into service by 2018. To that end, the agency has established a Center of Excellence (COE) to research potential fuel technologies. Funding will amount to $4 million per year for […]

With the confirmed death toll now standing at eight from Colorado flooding, a large group of Boulder-area parents are breathing easier today. A group of 85 fifth-grade students and their 14 adult chaperons were airlifted from a nature center where they had been stranded on a weekend field trip. Seven helicopters from the Colorado National […]

The announcement this week by Cessna parent Textron that it is pitching a new budget light attack jet to the Pentagon had us scratching our heads. The military hasn’t asked for anything like this, and with defense spending facing sharp cuts we have to ask if an airplane Textron calls the Scorpion stands any chance […]