Aviation News

Dassault Falcon Jet’s new flagship, formerly code-named the “FNX,” has gotten a permanent name, the Falcon 7X.

Bombardier has soft-launched its latest business jet, the “super-large” Global 5000. The intercontinental jet is designed to fill the niche in the company’s product line between the Challenger 604 and the ultra-long-range Global Express. Powered by the same 14,750-pound-thrust Rolls-Royce Deutschland BR710 engines as the Global Express, the 5000 will have a range, with NBAA […]

Do you have a new rating? Congratulations. But be prepared. Pilots are currently experiencing long delays and other problems in getting their new certificates back from the FAA. While this is not a new problem, predating the September 11th attacks by many months at least, it seems to be getting worse. Last April I added […]

||| |—|—| | | | If you inadvertently stumble VFR into IMC, or lose your primary flight instruments while flying IFR in the clouds, don’t expect the controller to be of much help, at least according to the case presented in a recommendation made by the NTSB. From 1997 to 2000, there were 220 fatalities […]

||| |—|—| | | | In October, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum opened its “Aerobatic Champions” exhibit, which features the newly restored Pitts S-1C Little Stinker and the Loudenslager Laser 200. Little Stinker (shown), hand built by designer Curtis Pitts, was small and lightweight, with a short wingspan allowing for extreme agility. […]

||| |—|—| | | | | Advanced new models, like Dassault’s Falcon 2000EX, are expected to fuel future bizjet sales.| Honeywell intended to release its 10-year forecast of business jet aviation sales at the 2001 NBAA Convention in New Orleans. Shortly after the attacks on September 11th, the convention was postponed. Despite the shock waves […]

||| |—|—| | | | Greg Herrick, an avid vintage aircraft collector and founder of the Aviation Book Company, is pursuing the next great airplane for his collection-a 1930 Sikorsky S-39C flying boat. There’s just one hitch: it’s sitting on the bottom of a lake in Alaska. When he began his quest for an S-39, […]

||| |—|—| | | | On the last day of August, Gulfstream made the first flight of its G-V-SP four weeks ahead of schedule. During the two-hour, six-minute flight, the flight test crew (John O’Meara, captain; Tom Horne, copilot; and Bill Osborne, flight test engineer) took the airplane to its ultra-long-range cruise speed of Mach […]

||| |—|—| | | | Cirrus Design, maker of the SR20 and SR22 piston singles, got the investment it has been seeking for the past couple of years. Crescent Capital, the U.S. arm of a Middle Eastern investment company, has funneled $100 million into Cirrus, a stake that gives it around 60 percent ownership of […]

Solaris Aviation of West Palm Beach, Florida, has launched production of the Sigma line of airplanes, updated and expanded from the Ruschmeyer R90, a German-built all-composite, retractable four-seater. Ruschmeyer certified the R90 in the early ’90s and built about two dozen of the airplanes before production was halted. The company plans to offer retractable and […]