AIN Blogs

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

AIN Blog: Back to the Basics
August 11, 2011 - 5:21am
R. Randall Padfield

Richard Bach, the well-known pilot and author of numerous books, articles and short stories about aviation (he’s probably most widely known for his book Jonathan Livingston Seagull), once wrote a story about a mythical flight school somewhere in the western U.S. and far away from civilization.
AIN Blog: Behind the Scenes at Business Jet Traveler
August 10, 2011 - 10:33am
Jennifer Leach English

Transformation is one of the most extraordinary themes of the human experience. We strive for it, experience it, witness it–sometimes even dread it. But one thing we can be sure of is that constant change and evolution surround us.
AIN Blog: Stocks and Stones May Hurt Your Bones, But Words Will Never Hurt You
August 10, 2011 - 5:01am
Charles Alcock
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Business aviation may still be brimming with righteous indignation over recent attacks by President Barack Obama (in the row over bonus depreciation) and The Wall Street Journal (over the Block Aircraft Registration Request issue), but it now faces bigger and more tangible problems.
AIN Blog: Torqued: The Case for Criminalizing Aircraft Accidents
August 9, 2011 - 10:09am
John Goglia

I get so sick of hearing pundits talk about how bad it is to criminalize aircraft accidents, how we need to be able to determine the cause of accidents without the threat of criminal sanctions such as fines and jail time impeding the free exchange of information. Some claim that the chilling effect of looming criminal inquiries would thwart the NTSB’s ability to determine probable cause and so on.
AIN Blog: The FAA Shutdown Wasn’t over EAS
August 5, 2011 - 8:17am
Paul Lowe

So it took a torrent of battling press releases, multiple sound bites and numerous press briefings before we finally learned the real hang-up over the FAA extension bill, and it wasn’t three little airports in West-by-god-Virginia and two other states.

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