News

Some of the pilots flying to the annual Hagerstown Fly-In in Maryland in antique airplanes without radios found themselves in unexpected trouble Oct. 7. At least a dozen flew into airspace they didn’t know had been restricted for a visit by President Bush to a memorial service for firefighters. According to the FAA, an unusually […]

DayJet officially launched its air taxi service this month in Florida. The company boasts signing up more than 1,500 business travelers for its start-up fleet of about a dozen new Eclipse 500 VLJs. DayJet is Eclipse’s largest customer, with a five-year order for more than 1,000 Eclipse 500s. Inaugural flights took off from DayPort facilities […]

The FAA has issued a notice of proposed rule making that spells out initial equipment requirements for the Next Generation of air traffic control. The proposal would require all aircraft flying in the nation’s busiest airspace to have satellite-based avionics by 2020, enabling controllers to track them using Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B), which is […]

Famed game developer Richard Garriott, son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, soon will follow in his father’s footsteps. He’s started preparations for a mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in October 2008. That mission will be the first in a series that will accommodate commercial activities aboard the ISS, such as scientific and […]

Demand for new business jets, and VLJs in particular, is strong and growing, according to speakers at an AOPA Expo forum earlier this month. One speaker listed 22 new jets in development – not all of them VLJs, however – and seven more that have been certified recently. The panel was in agreement that the […]

Zenith Aircraft Company’s 16th annual Open Hangar Day and Fly-In Gathering held in late September at the Zenith Aircraft factory in Mexico, Missouri, was dubbed a huge success by company officials. Dozens of airplanes flew in and hundreds of people participated in the two-day event, which featured educational workshops on everything from scratch-building an airplane […]

A private investor has purchased a small airport in Central Texas with the intent of turning it into a larger general aviation facility. Ron Henriksen, a Texas businessman and pilot with strong ties to aviation, has purchased the privately owned, public-use Bird’s Nest Airport located approximately 12 miles outside of Austin. He recently constructed Houston […]

Piper Aircraft had people guessing at AOPA Expo when it announced that a new product was forthcoming. Were they going to jump into the LSA pool, as many expected? “We’re not bringing back the Cub,” Mark Miller, director of the company’s corporate communications, said during the Expo, which was held earlier this month in Hartford, […]

If Cessna Aircraft Co. is the successful bidder for Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing Corp., the plant will stay in Bend, Ore., Cessna CEO Jack J. Pelton said at AOPA Expo. Pelton noted that the Columbia workforce, with its experience in composite construction, is in the region and that Cessna’s manufacturing facilities in Kansas are at capacity, […]