Aviation News

The FAA signed an agreement on Tuesday with Australia’s Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism to invest in the development of clean, sustainable alternatives to traditional petroleum-based avgas. The FAA said the two countries will exchange ideas, programs, research data, analysis and other resources to speed the shift toward alternative energy, and will cover the […]

NASA has selected the spacecraft design of the future, a heavy-lift rocket intended to take human space exploration to Mars and beyond. After months of design reviews, the space agency settled on a rocket equipped with RS-25D/E engines for core propulsion and a J-2X engine for power in the upper stage. Both will rely on […]

Marking a milestone in India’s first public-private partnership for aircraft development, the country’s CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories and Mahindra Aerospace have flown their jointly developed C-NM5 piston single for the first time. Engineers from CSIR-NAL and Mahindra Aerospace spent close to three years designing the airplane before building the real thing over a 10-month period with […]

Here we go again. First it was union rules for airline employees and subsidies for rural airports that derailed a short-term FAA funding extension, and now it could be road money for bike lanes, green space and a squirrel sanctuary that forces another partial shutdown like the one that put 4,000 agency employees out of […]

Cliff Robertson died on Saturday, Sept. 10, at the age of 88. An accomplished actor with a passion for aviation, Robertson won the Academy Award (Oscar), Emmy Award (Television), Theater World Award (Stage) and Advertising Age Award (TV Commercial) during his acting career, which spanned about five decades. He also received several aviation honors, including […]

The solemn 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States came and went without any new provocations, amidst heightened security at airports and other transportation hubs nationwide. Wreaths were laid, speeches were made, and tears were shed at several places around the country, but most visibly at the three sites of the […]

An award-winning professor at MIT is working to develop a system to spot accident trends in airline flying before the accident happens. MIT’s John Hansman along with colleagues at MIT and in Spain are working on a data analysis detection tool that uses cluster analysis, which is a form of data mining that breaks flights […]

Embraer is nearing completion of the first Legacy 500 twin-engine business jet, allowing the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer to start flight testing of the $18.4 million (2008 dollars) model on schedule by the end of this year. The Legacy 500 is a slightly larger version of the Legacy 450, with which it shares 95 percent commonality, […]

In a sign that the general aviation market may be stabilizing, Piper Aircraft said new aircraft billings in the first half of the year rose 16 percent compared with the same period last year. And the company says next year is shaping up to be even better. Piper delivered 38 of its M-class airplanes in […]

A second wild ride of an Air France Airbus has gained the attention of safety investigators. French media reports emerged last week about an Air France flight that recently experienced some events similar to those of Flight 447 shortly before it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, reigniting debate over what caused the fatal crash that […]