Young Eagles Credits, Pilot Challenges Round Out Celebrations

With 4 months left in the EAA's 30th Anniversary Young Eagles Celebration, participating members still have enough time to make the most of special promotions, bonuses and awards. First, the bonus of double the Young Eagles credits ($10 per flight) will continue to be offered through July 31st of this year, allowing chapters and volunteers enough time to obtain them when there's better flying weather available. The EAA hopes that the added bonus will help to foster additional flight activity and chapter rallies.

New Display Debuts in 2023

After an enthusiastic reception at Oshkosh, ScaleWings's SW-51 Mustang returns to Sun ´N Fun 2023. The SW-51 is a light-sport, homebuilt aircraft designed by ScaleWings of Strasswalchen, Austria. The machine is a seventy-percent replica of the North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft of the Second World War and has set alight the imaginations and ownership aspirations of vast tracts of Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) enthusiasts.

Novel Architecture to Broaden UAV Operations

CAV Ice Protection Limited—a leading global supplier of airborne ice protection solutions, announced on 17 March 2023 that it had filed documents germane to the patenting of an anti-icing solution for small Uncrewed Aerial Systems (sUAS). CAV set forth that the new system has the potential to revolutionize the manner in which commercial drones are utilized in cold climates.

Belaboring the Obvious

Citing what he referred to as an "uptick" in recent aviation incidents, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg called upon attendees of the Federal Aviation Administration’s 15 March safety summit to investigate and address the "root causes” of a series of runway incursions and near collisions which have occurred at numerous U.S. airports since the beginning of 2023.  

SIGMET in the North

Flair Airlines, the Edmonton, Alberta-headquartered Canadian ultra low-cost carrier (ULCC) which promotes itself as being Canada's first and only independent ULCC, has, of late, suffered repeated tarnishings of its reputation. Following months of customer complaints pertaining to flight delays and cancellations, four of Flair’s Boeing 737 MAX narrow-body jets were repossessed by Airborne Capital—the entity from which the carrier leases its aircraft—over claims of lease nonpayment. The repossession occasioned extensive rescheduling of Flair flights which adversely impacted nearly two-thousand passengers mere days before the zenith of the profitable March spring-break season.

Also: Int'l Skydiving Museum, Axiom Space, WWII Airman Identified, NAFI Has Plans For Sun 'N Fun

US officials have released video that shows a Russian Su-27 fighter jet colliding with the aft-mounted pusher-propeller of a US MQ-9 Reaper UAV. The newly declassified video, which U.S. European Command released early Thursday, 16 March 2023, depicts—albeit less than transparently—the critical moments leading up to and immediately following the 14 March midair collision that allegedly resulted in the downing of the $20-million USAF drone. Aero-News Network is saddened to report that Sergeant First-Class Michael “Ty” Kettenhofen lost his life in a 13 March 2023 training mishap at Florida’s Homestead Air Reserve Base. Kettenhofen had served with the Army’s elite Golden Knights parachute demonstration team since 2020. Sikorsky is building a fully autonomous hybrid-eVTOL which will serve as a flying testbed by dint of which th

From 2012 (YouTube Version): The Corporate Pilots' Fun Airplane

Nestled among the multi-million-dollar business jets and high-performance turboprops at the NBAA static display in Las Vegas in October was something a little unusual... a motorglider. Alexander Papenberg, CEO of Stemme USA, was showing off the Stemme S10-VT at NBAA for a simple reason. "Lots of corporate pilots fly from A to B IFR during the workday, and on weekends they want to fly a real airplane. They come here, they look at it, and fall in love."

Also: Airborne-Special Editions Reports On EVEN MORE Cool Things Coming To SnF23!

Welcome to this special edition of Airborne. As we continue to prepare for the 49th rendition of the Sun ‘n Fun Aerospace Expo, now some ten days or so away, SnF BOss, Gene Conrad has kept the Lakeland staff busy with all manner of new updates and improvements. In this chat, we start with the good stuff! It's airshow time and there are few better reason o go to Sun 'n Fun than to watch the airshows that they present in many forms. The daytime shows, with the US Navy Blue Angels heading up the roster is a big draw,,, but so are many other performers that fly both NIGHT and DAY. The two night airshows have become huge favorites. Even better, the LightPlane area, alias Paradise City has it's own gig going in the evenings with the Sunset Aerial Circus which promises to liven up the sport aviation arena quite a bit. And then, there's the elephant in the room... PARKING! G

Also: AeroVironment's JUMP 20, Top Aces Buys into EpiSci, Augmented Reality TF-50, All-Electric eDA40

A UK-based medevac company has announced a partnership with PAL-V for the use of their Liberty flying car. The Liberty combines aspects of an aircraft with the terrestrial mobility of a traditional automobile, providing the best of both capabilities with access to speedy, ubiquitous road infrastructure. The PAL-V will see use as a fast response vehicle, with paramedics and doctors able to arrive on scene faster and more efficiently to begin treatment sooner than any other method. General Atomics snagged a new contract with the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) for 3 of their MQ-9B SkyGuardians. AFSOC now becomes the first US customer for the -9B model. Archer is heralding the final assembly of the first production Midnight eVTOL. The company reports all major aerostructures, to include the machine’s fuselage, wing, and empennage, h

The Subjectivity of Heroism

The pilots of two Russian Su-27 Flanker jet fighters ostensibly responsible for bringing down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) over the Black Sea on Tuesday, 14 March 2023 have been honored by their country. In a statement announcing the aviators’ imminent awards, the Russian Ministry of Defense contended that the two pilots had "prevented the violation" of a military exclusion zone established by Moscow. The statement went on to assert that the Su-27s flown by the feted pilots neither deployed their weapons nor came into contact with the MQ-9.