Aviation News

Cirrus Aircraft is now officially owned by the Chinese aviation firm CAIGA. The two companies confirmed the completion of their merger on Tuesday, exactly four months after the deal was first announced. The change in ownership has sparked much speculation about what kind of presence the manufacturer will maintain in the United States. Cirrus president […]

A prototype of the Evektor EV-55 Outback turboprop twin made its first flight from Kunovice Airport in the Czech Republic last Friday, delivering on a promise made by the fledgling aircraft manufacturer when it launched the project seven years ago.** ** Evektor test pilot Josef Charvat and military pilot Major Jiri Hana flew the airplane, […]

A Lufthansa jet with 286 passengers on board had to slam on its brakes during takeoff from JFK to avoid a near-collision with an EgyptAir jet this past week, according to the FAA.** ** The incident occurred Monday night, shortly after an Airbus A340 operated by Lufthansa was cleared for takeoff on Runway 22R at […]

The NTSB’s top 10 list of wanted improvements this year prominently includes the poor safety record of general aviation. ** ** “The United States has not had a fatal large commercial aviation accident since February 2009,” said the NTSB in a release highlighting its concerns over GA safety. “Each year,” the release stated, “hundreds of […]

The aircraft owner and pilot who only two days earlier had a BRS whole-airplane recovery parachute system installed in his Cessna 182 survived the crash of his Skylane into tall trees in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on Wednesday, when he deployed the chute system. According to BRS, the company that manufactured the system, the owner was […]

The super-massive Airbus A380 has had another run in with a stationary object, but this time it was a building at Le Bourget Airport on the eve of the Paris Air Show rather than a commuter jet. Still, the taxiway incident, in which the A380’s right wingtip was sheared off on June 19 as it […]

LightSquared, which has beem promoting a high-powered terrestrial broadband internet system making use of the frequency band adjacent to that used by GPS, has announced a proposal to move away from GPS frequency bandwidth and reduce the power of its transmitters by 50 percent. The proposed modification would cut the bandwidth of the company’s proposed […]

Paris Air Show visitors got a glimpse of what is claimed to be the world’s first-ever serial hybrid electric airplane this week in the DA36 E-Star, just two weeks after the aircraft made its successful first flight. The aircraft, developed by Siemens, Diamond Aircraft and EADS, is the first to employ a so-called serial hybrid […]

Biofuels were the talk of the chalet rows at this week’s Paris Air Show, taking one major step closer to becoming a viable option in the eyes of aviation leaders and the general public alike.** ** Honeywell kicked off the focus on green energy by completing the first transatlantic flight on Friday using a biofuel […]

After several dismal years for employment-seeking pilots, it appears that the airline industry has made a major turnaround. Airline Transport Professionals (ATP), an airline pilot training academy in Dallas, reported a 170 percent increase in placement of its students for the first six months of 2011 as compared to the same time period last year. […]