Aviation News

With more than 50 helicopters on display, this year’s Heli-Expo bucked the worldwide recession in its own peculiar way. The rotorcraft industry has always been an economic enigma. It is fragmented into many diverse elements, including: training, corporate transport, emergency medical services (EMS), offshore oil support, electronic newsgathering, law enforcement, and utility (logging, pipeline work, […]

The 68-year-old, 600-hour pilot of a Lancair ES — a 310 hp four-seat composite kitplane that he himself had built — had had an instrument rating for almost seven years. Though he had logged 176 hours of simulated instrument time, however, he had spent only four hours in actual instrument conditions. On an August morning […]

At its Annual Industry Review and Market Outlook Briefing on Tuesday, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association delivered expected bad news about last year. It was awful. “One of the toughest years ever for general aviation manufacturers,” according to a GAMA statement. Overall industry billings dropped 21.4 percent to $19.5 billion from $24.8 billion in 2008 […]

Robinson Helicopter has begun accepting $75,000 deposits for its Rolls-Royce turboshaft-powered R66. First flown in 2007, the R66 is in the process of FAA certification, and the company reports it will not assign serial numbers or delivery dates until that certification is received. Base price of the R66 with standard equipment is $770,000. The R66 […]

Partly in response to pressure from survivors of Colgan Air Flight 3407, the Senate will schedule time next month to debate aviation safety reform and the FAA operating budget. The agency has been operating with temporary funding measures since the last long-term budget expired several years ago. The current short-term funding agreement expires on March […]

According to reports in the Grand Forks Herald, the Air Force is looking to establish a series of airspace blocks in North Dakota to accommodate unmanned aerial systems (UASs). The blocks, said to be roughly 40 miles by 50 miles on average, would be configured in three tiers — 6,000 feet to 10,000 feet; 10,000 […]

A Cessna 337 Skymaster, a centerline-thrust piston twin, crashed on the grounds of New Jersey’s Monmouth Executive Regional Airport (BLM) on Monday afternoon in good weather. All five on board were killed, including three adults, a teenager and a younger boy. The flight originated at the airport about seven minutes before the crash, and some […]

On Tuesday night, The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) aired Flying Cheap, an investigative report on the regional airline industry. The broadcast is also available online at www.pbs.org. Focused on the crash of Continental Flight 3407, the report examines the airlines’ regular practice of codesharing, in which a regional carrier (in this case, Colgan Air) partners […]

A Cirrus SR20 flown by a local pilot collided with a Piper Pawnee towing a glider over Boulder, Colorado, last Saturday. The glider pilot released its tow rope and flew through the burning wreckage, but he and his two passengers landed safely. The Pawnee fell out of control and crashed, killing the pilot. The Cirrus […]

Round one of the heavy snows in the Washington, D.C. area last Friday resulted in heavy damage to the roof of the Dulles Jet Center FBO. The hangar roof collapsed at about 8 a.m. on Saturday morning under the weight of as much as three feet of snow. Though five people were inside at the […]