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United States aviation news

Union report: Allegiant Air planes suffer high number of mechanical problems

The latest round in Allegiant Air's public relations battle with its pilots' union opens this week with the union's release of its third report in the last year tallying maintenance issues on aircraft that interrupted flights or departures. The report by the Teamsters Aviation Mechanics Coalition, which is working with the Teamster local representing pilots, said the Las Vegas airli...

Savvy travellers reveal how to fly in a private jet for free

Private jets are usually thought of as an exclusive means of transport for chief executives, high-paid athletes or A-list actors. But a travel blogger has revealed how he and his wife got a taste of the high life and had a jet all to themselves without having to pay a dime. By flying in the lap of luxury, Gilbert Ott, 29, and Laura Burns, 28, didn’t have to endure queues or annoying se...

NASA Wants to Bring Back Supersonic Jet Travel

Since the dawn of the Jet Age, airline travel has evolved radically save for one aspect: We still fly at around 500 mph. The Boeing 707, usually credited with starting it all in 1957, cruised at 600 mph with an altitude ceiling of 41,000 feet—almost identical to airplanes now in production. NASA says technology is now primed for a leap forward—to supersonic flight—cu...

Check Out the Military’s Experimental Helicopter Plane

What takes off like a helicopter, flies like a plane, and looks like something Orville Wright might dream up on mescaline? The military’s next X-Plane! On Thursday, aircraft maker Aurora Flight Sciences announced that its LightningStrike design had received the prime contract to continue the development of the VTOL X-Plane project. (VTOL stands for vertical takeoff and/or landing.) The De...

Gyrocopter pilot nearly collided with airplane

A Florida man who flew a small gyrocopter through protected Washington airspace before landing outside the U.S. Capitol last spring was seconds away from colliding with a Delta flight that had taken off from Reagan National Airport, prosecutors said. In a court filing Friday, prosecutors said Douglas Hughes flew his one-person aircraft almost directly into the oncoming flight path of the 150-pe...

Florida golf course site of heroic plane landing by 18-year-old pilot

A fairway is often considered a golf hole's runway, a desired approach destination for one's ball flight. However, on a Florida golf course Saturday afternoon, the short stuff became a literal airstrip for a plane making an emergency landing. The St. Petersburg Police Department said that, on its way from Lakeland to Manatee County, a 1939 Taylor Craft fixed-wing airplane suffered mecha...

U.S. Delta Air Lines to resume flights to Russia from May 16

The U.S. airline Delta Air Lines plan to resume flights to the Russian Federation starting from May 16 this year, the company’s local representative Leonid Tarasov told TASS Friday. "We have flights from Sheremetyevo scheduled for May 16, and plan to launch them starting from that date," he said. Delta plans flights from Moscow to New York from Sheremetyevo’s Terminal D...

Aviall Sees Growth in Worldwide Markets

Boeing-owned parts distributor and service provider Aviall is seeing strength in every segment, buoyed by improved efficiencies as a result of implementing a new SAP enterprise resource planning system two years ago. “The results of this investment were evident in record fourth quarter sales and shipments,” said Ed Dolanski, recently promoted to president of Global Services a...

ANALYSIS: America's hypersonic missile revolution beckons

Long before hitching a ride to the moon aboard Apollo 11, then US Air Force test pilot Neil Armstrong was zipping around in a rocket-powered North American X-15, which to this day remains the fastest manned, winged aircraft ever built. That flight record of Mach 6.72 or 7,274km/h was set by pilot William “Pete” Knight in 1967. Now, some 59 years later, America still hasn’t ful...

Iran invites Boeing to talk about plane purchases: State TV

Iran has invited U.S. planemaker Boeing Co to Tehran to discuss purchasing jetliners aimed at revamping its aging fleet hit by decades of sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic, state TV reported on Friday. In February, Iran's deputy transport minister Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan told Reuters the country was ready to buy at least 100 jets from Boeing. Boeing said it was assessing the ste...

First U.S.-built A321 exits paint shop

Painting of the first U.S.-built A321 has been completed as it emerged from the paintshop in Mobile, Alabama in its JetBlue livery. This latest milestone shows that the first aircraft to be produced at the Airbus U.S. Manufacturing Facility is progressing well on its route to first flight and delivery in spring 2016.   The aircraft painting was achieved by MAAS Aviation. The company is re...

Air Force Thunderbirds prioritize diversity in cockpit amid puzzling decline in applicants

The Air Force’s vaunted Thunderbirds jet fighter aerobatics team is not diverse enough inside the cockpit. Brig. Gen. Christopher M. Short, commander of the 57th Wing at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, said in an email last month that of 15 pilot applicants for three openings, 14 are white. He asked fighter wing commanders to stir up more candidates who “don’t necessarily lo...