Aviation News

Last week, the Austin, Texas, zoning board voted in favor of a variance needed to substantially spruce up the feathers at Bird’s Nest Airport, which is located 13 nm north-northeast of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (KAUS). Austin’s general aviation pilots essentially lost two facilities when Robert Mueller Field closed in 1999. Austin Executive Airport closed soon […]

It’s business aviation’s biggest get-together, and this year, in Orlando, Florida, it takes place just weeks ahead of a Presidential election. In a new format this year, the 61st annual convention runs Monday through Wednesday (Oct. 6-8). The Orange County Convention Center is the site of the exhibit halls and many of the meetings and […]

Frasca International in Urbana, Illinois, has received an FAA contract to develop and build a flight training device (FTD) for the Cessna Citation Mustang light jet. Frasca is a world leader in FTDs, and the Level 5 unit for the Mustang is to be delivered to the FAA’s Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City. […]

More than 200 volunteer NBAA members and staff will don work gloves this Saturday to help construct a new aviation-themed playground in the Orlando area. Working in conjunction with KaBOOM, a nonprofit organization that specializes in such projects, NBAA will join local residents in the Hollowbrook Apartments community in constructing the facility. Located near Orlando […]

On September 23, Congress voted to extend the current FAA funding scheme through the first quarter of next year. The current stopgap FAA funding plan would have expired on Tuesday. Still awaiting President Bush’s signature, the bill is seen as a necessary delaying action in the face of much more dire difficulties — divining and […]

Once again, Flying magazine is supporting the Corporate Angel Network by hosting the CAN 2008 Benefit Raffle to support the charity. CAN coordinates flights for cancer patients on corporate jets with empty seats. An official NBAA charity, CAN will award a Best Buy gift certificate of $3,300 toward a flat-panel video screen and HD-DVD player. […]

Following 45 failures of ECi “Titan” cylinders on Lycoming 320, 360 and 540-Series engines, the FAA has issued an airworthiness directive. The AD calls for repetitive inspections and compression tests every 50 hours of operation. It affects an estimated 13,000 cylinders fleet wide. Effective October 20, the AD requires visual inspections to look for cracking […]

Beginning next month, the FAA is asking pilots to obtain a receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) reliability briefing before flights involving GPS navigation. RAIM technology monitors the precision of GPS signals, and predicting its reliability is considered by FAA to be a safety element. By next July, for example, the agency has plans to mandate […]

When Hurricane Ike slammed onshore at Galveston, Texas, on September 12, the city’s airport took the full brunt of the 16-foot storm surge. At a field elevation of only six feet, the airport was heavily flooded, including the Lone Star Flight Museum, which saw its hangars flooded by up to eight feet of water. Fortunately, […]

Though it initially stood behind the Swiss-based aerospace company in the face of financial trouble, Bombardier has since terminated its contract with Grob Aerospace AG. The now-insolvent Grob was tapped to develop composite elements of Bombardier’s developmental eight-passenger Learjet 85. Grob traces its financial woes to investors who pulled their support over delays in Grob’s […]