Embracing AVANCE-ment

Gogo Business Aviation, the American provider of in-flight broadband Internet and connectivity solutions for business aircraft, announced that its proprietary AVANCE inflight broadband connectivity solution has been selected by flyExclusive—the North Carolina-based charter operator and aircraft fractional ownership concern. To better serve its customers, flyExclusive will upgrade forty of its ninety-plus aircraft fleet with Gogo’s AVANCE connectivity platform.

Also: MiG-21 Fleet Grounding, New Gogo Antenna, Jet It Standdown, Gulfstream Record

Textron has unveiled the Cessna Citation Ascend, the newest model in Cessna’s proven and popular 560XL series. Made public on the eve of 2023’s European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBACE), the Citation Ascend—by virtue of its wholly redesigned cockpit, improved performance, and a more luxurious cabin—pleasantly disrupts the midsize business jet market. Representatives of Airbus’s Perlan Mission II announced its pilots and engineers had completed a successful flight test campaign in the Southwestern U.S., thereby clearing the way for a 2023 attempt to set a new aviation world altitude record for manned, level flight. The pressurized Perlan II glider—which, in 2018, set the subsonic world altitude record at over 76,000-feet—was shipped from the U.S. on 01 May and is currently enroute to El Calafate, Argentina. A sa

Also: China’s C919, Sierra Space, Ameriflight Drones, Bizarre Utah A/C Mishap

The National Park Service (NPS) and the FAA are rewriting the regulations by which air tours over U.S. national parks are conducted. Extant drafts of the agencies’ Air Tour Management Plans (ATMPs) call for radical and reactionary measures the likes of eliminating air tours in their entirety in some U.S. parks and, in others, cutting such undertakings by as much as 86-percent. Founded in 1992 under the guiding premise “You don't quit skydiving because you get old; you get old because you quit skydiving,” Skydivers Over Sixty (SOS) has evolved into an international organization comprising upwards of 2,650 members hailing from thirty nations. No... we’re not making this up... Attendees of July's AirVenture (and anyone visiting the nearby Fox Valley) can get a taste of some limited-run ale in celebration of the EAA's 70th anniversary. As part of a la

Fostering Flying in the Sunshine State

On 27 May 2023, EAA Chapter 534 hosted a Flying Start event, at which eight prospective adult student pilots were schooled in the particulars of the at-once arduous and rewarding business of earning an FAA Private Pilot Certificate. The EAA’s Flying Start initiative is a chapter-hosted program that welcomes, inspires, and educates aspiring pilots—ages 18 and older—vis-à-vis the didactic, practical, and regulatory conventions by which non-fliers are fashioned into licensed aviators.

Also: Ukrainian F16 Training, ICARUS Device, NOTAM Legislation, B-2 Safety Pause Unpaused

US Aviation Academy has set forth that it has launched its second Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) training location at San Marcos Regional Airport (HYI)—a public-use airport in southeast-central Texas’s Caldwell County.CAE announced that it is expanding its global network of simulator training centers to Central Europe. The announcement, made at EBACE 2023, set forth that CAE will presently open a new business aviation training center in Vienna, Austria. Operations at the new facility are slated to get underway in the latter half of 2024. The Allied Pilots Association (APA), the labor union by which American Airlines pilots are represented, authorized a strike in the wake of protracted contract talks with the air-carrier. The authorizing of a strike is the first in a long and complex succession of prerequisites that must be met prior to American Airli

Planegiarism

China’s first domestically-produced airliner, the Comac C919, made its inaugural revenue flight on Sunday, 28 May 2023. Operated by China Eastern Airlines, the flight conveyed some 130 paying passengers between Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport (PVG) and Beijing’s Capital International Airport (PEK). The 164-seat, narrow-body aircraft—of which China Eastern took delivery in December 2022—was manufactured by China’s state-owned Commercial Aviation Corporation of China (Comac).

Klyde Opines On the Glamorous Profession of Corporate Piloting

FMI: www.klydemorris.com

After 2 years in Storage, Etihad's Biggest Birds Return to Service 

After years of being packed away, Etihad has begun readying their Airbus A380 aircraft for passenger service once again. The aircraft were stowed away during the nadir of pandemic-era passenger loads, when the high costs of operation vastly outweighed the utility of keeping the aircraft in service. Now, as things have rebounded, the accountants have given their blessing to A380 service.

Global 6500 Aircraft With Riffing by General Dynamics Offered as Submarine Hunter

Bombardier published an interesting-looking antisubmarine version of its Global 6500 jet in a combined offer with General Dynamics’ Canadian arm. The aircraft is proposed for the Canadian Multi-Mission System, or CMMA, program. The end goal is a capable aircraft that can fill a number of roles beyond the apparent anti-sub duties. The CMMA is to provide command, control, communications, ISR, anti-submarine, and anti-ship capabilities in one aircraft.

From 2011 (YouTube Version): Aviation's Greatest Living Legend Talks About His Life In Aviation (Part 5, Final)

ANN is pleased to offer you yet another snippet from the public conversations that took place with Bob Hoover at Airventure 2011... where he was honored for a lifetime of aviation excellence. In this program, Bob continues his discussion about his life in aviation, in a segment entitled, 'Flight Test and Military Service.' Ask any pilot who he (or she) thinks is the best he ever saw and depending on how long they've been in the business, the answers might surprise you...