United States aviation news. 3443 news related to United States (US)

Gulfstream Gaining Ground on NextGen Upgrades

With the 2020 FAA and EASA mandates for ADS-B out equipage rapidly approaching, aircraft manufacturers are busy developing service bulletin and supplemental type certificate (STC) upgrades to help customers meet the deadline. For Gulfstream Aerospace, most of its models now have a factory-provided upgrade path, except for the GIIs and GIIIs, according to Jeff Gay...

Lufthansa jumbo reports near miss with drone over Los Angeles

The passenger jet was close to landing when a drone flew 200ft overhead, fuelling concerns about the safety of the craft. The pilot of a Lufthansa passenger jumbo jet has reported that a drone aircraft nearly collided with his airliner on its landing approach to Los Angeles, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The close encounter between the wide-body, four-engine Airbus A380 a...

Are maintenance problems at Allegiant Air the result of an airline growing too fast?

David Stuckenberg has flown thousands of hours as an Air Force pilot and a passenger on commercial airliners. He said a flight on Allegiant Air last month was his worst flying experience ever. The takeoff from St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport aborted at high speed, announced by a loud boom from a failing engine. It took more than three hours for Allegiant to find a replacement plane. A...

Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar opens its new facility

On Tuesday, 8 March 2016, the Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar (BHHH) at Biggin Hill Airport, Kent, officially opened its impressive new hangar facility. Elliott Marsh writes. BHHH’s long-awaited move into Biggin Hill Airport’s Hangar No. 204 concluded in Winter 2016 with the whole fleet relocated “across the way” to a larger facility on the Western fring...

USAF to begin converting L-model Back Hawks into HH-60Gs

The US Air Force expects to begin converting 21 second-hand US Army L-model Black Hawks to the HH-60G Pave Hawk standard for combat rescue missions “later this year”. Introduced during the Regan administration in 1982, the Sikorsky H-60-based Pave Hawk fleet has depleted from 112 to 97 helicopters since the type's introduction. Fifty of those remaining 97 platforms have sustaine...

FAA's 'drone smash risk to aircraft' is plane crazy

Statistically just one airplane will be damaged every 1.87 million years, says study. US government officials' grave warnings that drones could cause a disaster above the nation's airports are overstated, a study by George Mason University has found. We're told birds are a much bigger threat to aircraft than folks' unmanned aerial systems (UASs). "We estimate that 6.1...

Mountain Aviation first FAA certified airline approved for commercial drone operations

Mountain Aviation of Denver Colorado has received FAA approval as the first FAA certified airline authorized to conduct commercial unmanned aircraft systems (“UAS” or “Drones”) operations. After 23 years of operating private jets for business and leisure travelers, Mountain Aviation is expanding its product offering into the newly regulated field of commercial Drone ope...

Gama Aviation's U.S. Division Secures EASA TCO Approval

Gama Aviation’s U.S. aviation division received third-country operator authorization from EASA, becoming one of the first operators to receive the recognition. Beginning in November, the authorization is slated to become a requirement for commercial operators outside Europe to operate within the European Union countries/territories and the European Free Trade Asso...

Lockheed pushing $1 billion Mach 6 airbreather

Lockheed Martin’s unmanned SR-72 aircraft concept has surfaced again with renewed vigour, with company leadership now pushing a reusable, air-breathing hypersonic vehicle as an “affordable” way to validate a new propulsion concept for achieving speeds within the atmosphere between Mach 6.0 to Mach 20. Speaking at a Lockheed media event in Washington DC on 15 March, company chi...

Southwest Uses 737 Retirements To Drop Costs

Southwest Airlines is phasing out its Boeing 737 Classic aircraft by about 2017 and is finding ways to use engine inventory from that fleet to decrease its maintenance costs. Mandy Gower, Southwest Airlines’ powerplant supply chain manager, told Aviation Week that the airline employs MTU Canada and BP Aerospace in Irvine, Calif., to tear down its CFMI CFM56-3s that pow...

World’s First Solar Airport No Longer Pays Electricity Bills

Cochin International Airport, the world’s first 100 percent solar airport, is generating so much power from its massive solar array that the airport no longer pays for electricity. “We wanted to be independent of the electricity utility grid,” Jose Thomas, the airport’s general manager, told the CNNMoney. Cochin started its solar journey three years ago when...

Meridian Air Charter Adds Ultra-Long Range Jet

Meridian, the award-winning private aviation company based at Teterboro Airport in Teterboro, NJ, is pleased to announce the addition of a Falcon 7X (N221HJ) to its growing charter fleet of private business jets. This ultra-long range aircraft was completed in 2008, and seats up to fourteen passengers. It also has the capacity to sleep up to seven for long haul trips. It is based at Teterboro Airp...