Aviation News

Following its successful pilot training reform symposium held in Atlanta on May 4 and 5, the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (SAFE) has issued a list of 30 training recommendations that it says can improve general aviation safety while also increasing the number of new student pilot starts. The proposals focus on ways to […]

A new study presented to the FAA last week is adding fuel to the debate over the proposed expansion of broadband communications by a company called LightSquared, a plan that has drawn extensive concern from the aviation community about potential interference with GPS reception. The study, conducted by the non-profit RTCA, confirmed what many critics […]

__A search for the word hypoxia in NTSB accident reports for the past decade turns up just 15 occurrences. Of these, five do not involve our usual understanding of hypoxia as incapacitation due to protracted exposure to high altitude without supplemental oxygen; the references are, instead, to carbon monoxide poisoning from a leaky muffler, elderly […]

Dassault Falcon Jet has released new information about the trim runaway incident last week that precipitated the grounding of the fleet of the company’s flagship Falcon 7X tri-jets. The airplane — Falcon declined to identify the operator — was on its way in to Malaysia descending through 12,000 feet when the airplane began an uncommanded […]

The Martin Jetpack reached new heights during its test flight in Canterbury, New Zealand, this weekend, giving momentum to those attempting to develop a modern-age rocket belt.** ** The Martin Jetpack, which was first introduced to the public at Oshkosh in 2008, contains a 200-horsepower engine encased in a carbon fiber composite structure that spans […]

The release of preliminary flight data and cockpit voice recorder data from the miraculously recovered “black boxes” of Air France 447 opened the floodgates of press and online discussion. Amid all this chatter, the term “deep stall” often popped up. Did Air France 447 experience a deep stall? The short answer is no. It was […]

The importance of general aviation in disaster situations was, once again, displayed in the wake of the devastating tornado in Joplin, Missouri. After the St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Joplin was destroyed, the Missouri-1 Disaster Medical Assistance Team (MO-1 DMAT) quickly established a mobile emergency room and field hospital. A need for 200 doses […]

What’s bigger than “jumbo?” An Australian news outlet has reported that Airbus is ready to pull the trigger on development of a stretched A380 — an airplane that is already the largest capacity airplane ever to fly. Not surprisingly, Airbus has yet to comment on the report, which one would classify either as a leak, […]

Lockheed Martin is investigating the source of a major cyber attack last week against its information network, but insists the impact of the breach was minimal and additional steps have already been taken to safeguard the company’s computer systems against future breaches. ** ** “We detected a significant and tenacious attack on our information systems […]

An 11th-hour political fight over proposed FAA cuts and changes to union rules has derailed passage of a long-term agency funding bill, leading to yet another short-term extension — the 18th since 2007. House democrats are seeking to remove provisions that would cut $4 billion from the FAA’s budget and overturn a 2010 National Mediation […]