NTSB: Tour Operators Need More Stringent Regulation Following the midair collision of two floatplanes in Alaska and a tour helicopter crash in Hawaii, the NTSB says the tour industry should have an equivalent level of safety to commercial air carriers. Those crashes, plus another Alaska floatplane accident a week later, killed 11 people and injured 10. “I’m[…] Read this article
Best Of The Web: Commemorative Jumps Over Normandy As the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy continues, the AFP News Agency filed this short video of jumps from a pair of the C-47 aircraft flown in for the event. Later commemorative jumps included some 200 paratroopers. Read this article
Flying Public Has Mixed View Of The 737 MAX The troubled Boeing 737 MAX’s return-to-service date remains unknown but two polls suggest the flying public has a mixed view of booking flights on the airplane. A UBS survey found as few as 3% of passengers say they’d pass on a MAX trip while a Barclay’s Bank survey said 44%[…] Read this article
DJI Adds ADS-B To Its Drone Line Drone maker DJI says it will provide ADS-B In as a standard feature on all of its drones weighing a half-pound or more beginning in 2020. Sensitive to public fears about the risk small drones represent to commercial and private aircraft, DJI is trying to get ahead of the curve[…] Read this article
Normandy: The Eyes of the World Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force. You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade toward which we have striven for these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 2, 1944 That Normandy as a hallowed place and D-Day[…] Read this article
House Panel Recommends Aviation Workforce Programs The House Appropriations Committee has voted to fund two programs to develop high school STEM training that would also support aviation technician training, a jobs segment that’s suffering chronic shortages according to the FAA and major aerospace manufacturers. Both programs have been widely supported by the aerospace industry. According to[…] Read this article
Electric Glider Crashes Into Connecticut House The pilot of a high-performance electric motor glider escaped serious injury Tuesday after the aircraft plunged through the roof of a house near the Danbury, Connecticut, airport. There were no injuries on the ground. Local news outlets posted dramatic photos of the glider—an Italian-made Alisport Silent 2 Electro—with its tail[…] Read this article
Engine Issues Delay 777X First Flight The long-awaited first flight of Boeing’s 777X will be delayed further thanks to problems with the aircraft’s GE9X engines. A pair of the engines were installed on the airframe and started on May 29, but during the test, “an engine gave us a signal about its health. We had an[…] Read this article
Arizona Company Launches Balloon-Borne Surveillance An Arizona company called World View Enterprises says it’s within months of fielding balloon-based surveillance systems that will provide a less expensive alternative to satellite reconnaissance. The aircraft are called Stratollites and the company just completed a 16-day mission over four western states, according to Bloomberg. The untethered and unmanned[…] Read this article
