News

Charles E. Taylor joins Smithsonian’s aviation pioneers A bronze bust of Charles E. Taylor now sits proudly at the Air & Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center. Dubbed the father of aircraft maintenance, Taylor was the Wright brothers’ mechanic. Kenneth MacTiernan, director of the Aircraft Maintenance Technicians Association, was the driving force behind raising both the awareness […]

Corporate Angel Network, which provides free air transportation for cancer patients by using empty seats on corporate and fractional aircraft, arranged a record-breaking 257 patient flights in October. The previous monthly record of 253 flights was set in 2005. Since its founding 25 years ago, CAN has arranged nearly 25,000 flights. For more information:

“The issue centers around our willingness to impose on general aviation the same kind of security we have at commercial airports. The general aviation community seems to resist that. They seem to feel that because they have so many members they have enough power behind them to make the rules themselves.” — Charles Slepian, chief […]

One of the companies experiencing boom times is Columbia Aircraft, which surpassed its 2005 deliveries in the third quarter of this year. The Bend, Ore.-based company, which manufactures the Columbia 350 and 400, delivered 130 airplanes in the first nine months of the year, 16 more than the company delivered in all of 2005. “We’ve […]

Shipments of general aviation airplanes for the first nine months of this year showed a steady growth over last year, with 2,842 planes delivered, an increase of 18.9% over the same period last year, according to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA). Even better news: Industry-wide billings were $13.2 billion, up 28.6 %. GAMA officials […]

It was the year of the jets at last month’s National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) convention. Not just any jets, either. The big interest was in VLJs, the Very Light Jets just now starting deliveries to customers. Oh, there were other airplanes at the convention and a lot of buzz surrounded them, but nothing to […]

Investigators with the NTSB say that a 13-knot easterly crosswind may have been a factor in the accident that killed Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor, Tyler Stanger, Oct. 11 when they crashed into a luxury high-rise apartment building in New York City. According to the NTSB, Lidle’s Cirrus SR20 was flying over […]

Mooney Aerospace Group, Ltd. is going private. The company, parent of the Mooney Airplane Co. in Kerrville, Texas, recently announced a merger with MAG Holding Corp, the holder of more than 90% of the outstanding stock of Mooney Aerospace. The remaining outstanding stock will be cancelled, with shareholders receiving 35 cents a share.

The FAA has just updated its free, on-line course, “A Pilot’s Guide to Ground Icing.” The course was created by a public-private partnership including U.S. and foreign government aviation agencies, companies, and educational institutions. Also available is “A Pilot’s Guide to In-Flight Icing.” Both courses are available on-line.