Aviation News

Alan Klapmeier told a Duluth, Minnesota, newspaper that he will no longer be an employee of the company he founded, as of tomorrow. One of two brothers who founded Cirrus in the early 1990s, Alan told the Duluth News Tribune, “This isn’t the end. It’s just the intermission.” Klapmeier’s plans for the immediate future are […]

A $40 million bid for the assets of Eclipse has won the nod of the bankruptcy court, and the new owners hope to open the doors of the Albuquerque headquarters as early as next week. Two customers of the old Eclipse Aviation Corp. formed a new company, Eclipse Aerospace, to bid for the assets under […]

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, among others, is thankful for small favors when it comes to President Obama’s vacation week on Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts. For the first time since post-9/11 temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) were instituted to protect the president, general aviation aircraft are allowed within the 10-nm inner ring […]

Bill Boisture, chairman and CEO of Hawker Beechcraft, has warned employees that further layoffs and employee-benefit cutbacks are likely. Boisture blamed low buyer confidence, difficulties in securing financing, and political disparagement of corporate aviation for the company’s dire straits. Only an artificial ‘paper gain’ resulting from a bond buyback kept Hawker Beechcraft from losing money […]

Representatives of the air traffic controllers’ union challenged specific language in the NTSB’s report on last week’s tragic midair collision above New York’s Hudson River. And late Monday, the safety board announced it had changed the wording. The union acknowledges that the on-duty tower controller was engaged in an inappropriate phone call, and that his […]

An existing FAA airspace working group has met and will make recommendations to improve safety within the Hudson River VFR corridor. Among possible changes, the group could recommend making it mandatory to monitor the advisory frequency and report entering and leaving the airspace. Other good practices that are now voluntary could become mandatory. Currently, a […]

It wasn’t long after the accident before harsh words began flying over the viability of ‘see and avoid’ in such crowded airspace. With scores of tour helicopters mixing with fixed wing traffic, there was no shortage of criticism launched at the FAA for allowing such “chaos” to persist. Calling the corridor “an accident waiting to […]

For former President Bill Clinton, the unofficial diplomatic mission to recover two detained journalists started with a private jet. Clinton tapped Boeing Business Jet owner Steven Bing for use of his jet to fly to North Korea on August 3 in an effort to free the imprisoned journalists. Clinton returned in the jet the next […]

Aviation research firm ARG/US reported that business aircraft traffic in July increased by 6% compared with June. Flying was down a relatively low 7.9% in July compared to the same month last year. For the past 12 months, total flight activity has slowed by 22% year over year. ARG/US uses air traffic data that is […]

A Cessna Citation I that crashed on takeoff on March 4, 2008 was brought down by large birds, according to findings by the National Transportation Safety Board. Birdstrikes were apparently suspected when the preliminary report was written days after the accident, which killed both pilots and three passengers on departure from Wiley Post Airport in […]