Aviation News

A wayward yachtsman is thanking his lucky stars this week after being spotted by crew and passengers of an Air Canada Boeing 777. The small sailboat left from near Sydney two weeks ago, headed for ironically named Eden on the south coast of New South Wales to the north. The boat experienced trouble and an […]

Hawker Beechcraft today announced that it is planning to move forward from bankruptcy as a standalone company, negating a deal that was in the works with China’s Superior Aviation Beijing Co. While the company is walking away with a $50 million non-refundable deposit from Superior, Hawker Beechcraft’s CEO Robert S. “Steve” Miller said: “We are […]

At AOPA Summit last week, AOPA announced a plan to help grow the national network of flying clubs, an initiative that is one of the first launched by the newly formed Center to Advance the Pilot Community. (See our story on the reach that flying clubs can have.) The goal is not only to create […]

The varied training scenarios were developed by SAFE in cooperation with Redbird Flight Simulations, and are available for download at the SAFE website. The scenarios are the same ones used at the SAFE booth at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh and last week at AOPA Summit in Palm Springs, California. SAFE Executive Director Doug Stewart said, “Given […]

With sales of new aircraft gone sour, the light aircraft refurb industry finds itself in a bit of a sweet spot. At AOPA Summit, for example, Todd Peterson of Peterson’s Performance Plus reported he cannot keep up with demand for his Cessna 182 Skylane upgrade. The “King Katmai” conversion includes upgraded engines (260-hp or 300-hp), […]

On October 14, Brigadier General Charles “Chuck” Yeager completed a celebratory flight to mark the anniversary of his historic first supersonic flight. In pure Air Force fashion, Yeager, now 89, broke the sound barrier 45,000 feet over the Edwards Air Force Base at 10:24 a.m., 65 years to the minute after his original flight. But […]

On Sunday morning, the 65th anniversary of Chuck Yeager’s historic supersonic flight in the Bell X-1, Austrian base jumper Felix Baumgartner became the first person to ever go faster than the speed of sound without the benefit of a craft. The record came after Baumgartner leapt from an altitude of 128,000 feet from the gondola […]

A Brazilian appeals court upheld the guilty verdict against two American pilots on Monday for their involvement in the fatal crash of a Boeing 737 that killed 154 people in 2006, but denied prosecutors’ arguments that the men should serve time in prison. After receiving the guilty verdict last year, the two men were sentenced […]

In conjunction with the annual AOPA Aviation Summit last week, AOPA arranged the Flight Training Summit — a meeting with flight instructors and industry representatives to introduce AOPA’s new field guides to flight training, get ideas for initiatives for the Center to Advance the Pilot Community and announce the winners of the organization’s new training […]

October 14 was no ordinary day for Drew Gryder of Hampton, Georgia. It was the day of his 16th birthday. And Gryder spent this milestone birthday doing something not many, if any, teenagers had done before. He completed triple solo flights – taking to the skies in a glider, a single-engine airplane and a multi-engine […]