FAA

For aviation interests that have battled for years to keep Santa Monica Airport open, the fight is far from over. The National Business Aviation Association is leading an effort to overturn an agreement between the FAA and the city of Santa Monica that would see the airport close after 2028. NBAA, along with the Santa […]

Helicopter safety statistics released this week by the FAA indicate that years’ worth of hard work by the agency and a number of industry groups to improve operational safety are paying off. The agency reported that the raw accident rate, as well as the fatal accident rate in helicopters, recorded a downturn for the third […]

Opportunities for unmanned aircraft system (UAS) pilots are now wide-open under the new FAA small UAS (sUAS) Part 107 rule, which legalizes and regulates these air ops. Drone work in the U.S. film and TV industry has also taken flight recently under the agency’s Section 333 exemption waivers. Meanwhile, demand for experienced commercial and military […]

Most Americans could be forgiven for assuming commercial balloon pilots were held to the same medical standards as commercial airplane or helicopter pilots since all accept money for their work. Commercial balloon pilots, however, actually are held to only a minimal self-reporting of their fitness to fly, a fact that became apparent last summer after […]

The FAA yesterday awarded its 2016 Diamond of Excellence award for maintenance and safety to Las Vegas-based Maverick Helicopters, the sixth consecutive time the company has earned the distinction for its Las Vegas and Grand Canyon South Rim locations, and the second consecutive award for its Maui, Hawaii, facility. The Diamond award is part of […]

When President Donald Trump in his first days in office made good on a campaign promise to cut red tape by eliminating unnecessary regulations, workers at federal agencies knew they’d suddenly be very busy. Perhaps nowhere was this more true than at the FAA, where the enactment of new rules in the near future would […]

Extremely long delays for practical tests, shortages of examiners or examiners completely unavailable to conduct practical flight tests are only a few of the complaints heard from various flight-training locations around the United States. Stories of applicants waiting six to seven weeks for a test, increasing prices or the need to travel significant distances to […]

Palo Alto-based uAvionix has announced the creation of an ADS-B transceiver not much larger than a contact lens — and weighing in at just 1 gram — aimed at the drone market’s yet unresolved problem of identifying themselves to other aircraft and drones while operating in the national airspace system. uAvionix CEO Paul Beard said […]

The FAA has thrown in the towel in the fight for Santa Monica Airport, striking a compromise deal with local officials that will permit the city to shorten the runway from about 5,000 feet to 3,500 feet within a year and close the airport forever at the end of 2028. The city is already laying […]

More than two dozen aircraft models across a wide range of aircraft builders, including Beechcraft, Grumman, Maule and Mooney, are now eligible to install Dynon flight displays, thanks to the supplemental type certificate created by the Experimental Aircraft Association in partnership with Dynon and the FAA. The number of Cessna and Piper aircraft eligible for […]