The U.S. Senate released a draft FAA reauthorization bill June 22, the day after a controversial bill to continue FAA operations was introduced in the House of Representatives. Unlike the proposed House bill, the Senate version would keep air traffic control in the hands of the FAA. (www.aopa.org) More...
The world has been given a peek at Boeing's plans for a new small twin-aisle aircraft, unofficially dubbed the 797. Boeing (BA) released the first image of its new "middle-market airplane" at the Paris Air Show on Tuesday as a teaser for what will be the company's first new airliner since its 787 Dreamliner. (money.cnn.com) More...
The Families of Continental Flight 3407 Monday renewed their fight to preserve pilot experience requirements they got written into the law seven years ago, but this time they could be facing their most daunting opponent yet: the chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force. (buffalonews.com) More...
With a maximum speed of only five hundred miles per hour—many airliners fly faster—the S-3 Viking wasn’t about to be the subject of any movies starring Tom Cruise. However, the long-legged Jets proved extremely useful in a very wide variety of roles, whether as an electronic spy, submarine hunter, aerial tanker, cargo plane or even an attack jet. And many of those roles have not been satisfactorily replaced since. (nationalinterest.org) More...
Airbus will fit deployable flight data and cockpit voice recorders on new A350 XWB aircraft beginning in 2019 and on the rest of its long-range fleet soon thereafter. A deployable flight data recorder is designed to separate itself from the aircraft in a crash. They are particularly useful for crashes over water where accessing or even finding aircraft wreckage may be difficult or impossible. Although exotic in the commercial market, they have a multi-decade history in the military market. The… (www.avweb.com) More...
Russia Operated Captured U.S. Aircraft for “OPFOR” Evaluation. As we have reported previously, it is no secret the U.S. has made and still make use of captured or otherwise acquired Russian aircraft for test, evaluation and training purposes including the development of U.S. radars, countermeasures and early warning systems (earlier this year we published some really rare images of a Russian Su-27 Flanker dogfighting with a U.S. F-16 inside Area 51…) (theaviationist.com) More...
