Two Perish in T-6 Heat

The NTSB has released its preliminary report on a 17 September 2023 accident in which two aircraft then competing in the Reno Air Races—a North American T-6G registration N2897G and a North American AT-6B registration N57418—were substantially damaged and the pilots (and sole occupants) of both aircraft suffered fatal injuries following a traffic-pattern collision. The two accident aircraft were operated as personal flights under Part 91 of the Federal Aviation Regulations.

A Trend Worth Sustaining

The FAA’s 2023 fiscal year ended on 30 September, thereby closing the proverbial book on annual statistics the likes of total numbers of Part 121, Part 135, Part 91, and military flight operations; unruly passenger incidents; airport closures; flight delays and cancellations; and—of particular salience to this writing—fatal accidents involving Experimental category and amateur-built aircraft during the 12-month period ending 30 September 2023. While the rate of accidents based on flight-hours will not be made public until the FAA releases general aviation survey data in 2024, the incidence of accidents involving Experimental category/amateur-built aircraft in fiscal 2023 was the lowest on record.

At the Confluence of Today and Tomorrow

Airbus Helicopters's demonstrator FlightLab has successfully tested an electric flight control system salient to a new Human Machine Interface (HMI) destined for installation on the company’s CityAirbus NextGen eVTOL prototype. The milestone test occasioned an important step toward the advent of electric-powered Urban Air Mobility (UAM) aircraft.