AIN Blogs

AIN Blog: General Aviation Should Continue Message to the White House
September 2, 2011 - 11:58am
Paul Lowe
The White House needs to continue to hear general aviation's message. (Photo

When President Obama was in his business aviation-bashing mode earlier this year, the general aviation industry countered with a rally in Wichita that attracted more than 2,000 GA workers. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was there, and he lauded the importance of general aviation manufacturers to the state of Kansas and the U.S. industrial base as a whole.
AIN Blog: UAVs Fly as Feathered Friends over Unfriendly Territory
September 1, 2011 - 7:31am
Chris Pocock
The CIA developed Project Aquiline to fly a reconnaissance UAV over key intel
AIN Blog: Trials by Mother Nature
September 1, 2011 - 6:08am
Nigel Moll

NBAA put out a press release yesterday noting that there are “only 40 days left until NBAA 2011.” That's fitting, with Hurricane Irene’s liquid legacy threatening to linger for a biblical 40 days and 40 nights.
AIN Blog: FAA’s New Rule on Ice Bridging Is Not the Best It Could Be
August 31, 2011 - 7:54am
Matt Thurber

The FAA has finally put a regulatory nail in the coffin of ice bridging with a new rule requiring Part 121 airline pilots to activate deicing systems at the first indication of ice accumulation.
AIN Blog: China Begins Effort To Build Naval Aviation
August 22, 2011 - 10:44am
Curt Epstein

A century ago, the U.S. Navy purchased its first airplane after a series of tests in which a brave pilot–wearing inflated bicycle inner tubes as a lifejacket–demonstrated one could land safely aboard a ship and then take off from the same vessel. The date of that purchase–May 8, 1911–is considered the birthday of naval aviation. In the hundred years since, the aircraft carrier has evolved from a scouting tool to a leading strike weapon.
AIN Blog: Unmanned Aircraft Industry Operates on Brink of Acceptance
August 22, 2011 - 5:55am
Bill Carey

The briefing requests started three weeks out: “[company executive] available to discuss new products at our exhibit. Can we arrange a meeting?” In advance of the Unmanned Systems North America conference last week, I received nearly 40 such invitations, still only a fraction of the reported 510 exhibitors at the four-day event held in Washington, D.C.’s cavernous downtown convention center.
AIN Blog: Brazil Is Aviation
August 19, 2011 - 11:52am
Kirby J. Harrison
Labace ran from noon until 10 p.m. on its first two days, and there were busi

Last week the Associação Brasileira de Aviação Geral, better known as ABAG, sponsored the eighth annual Latin American Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition (Labace) in São Paulo. This was my fifth consecutive show. I never tire of it, and I will be back. That’s partly because Labace is aviation, but also because it is uniquely Brazilian.
AIN Blog: Are Safety Management Systems Over-regulation or a Necessary Evil?
August 19, 2011 - 8:27am
David A. Lombardo

The older I get the more I find reality forces me to take solace in the reminiscence of the good old days. Take, for instance, the impending requirements for aviation safety management systems. SMS takes up more than its share of bandwidth on the grid, and it is a smarmy technobabble term that makes me emotionally curl up in a fetal position clutching my IBM Correcting Selectric typewriter.
AIN Blog: Essential Air Service Is a Promise Worth Keeping
August 18, 2011 - 6:23am
Gregory Polek

A measure in the latest temporary FAA funding extension to completely cut the Essential Air Service (EAS) program in the lower 48 states by October 2013 will no doubt face some stiff opposition from the likes of Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and well it should.
AIN Blog: The Height of FAA Hypocrisy, Barr None
August 12, 2011 - 10:39am
Chad Trautvetter

Pages