Also: Cosmonaut Kicked Out, Airbus Scales Back, AF Silver Star, Russian A-60 Clobbered

A Samaritan’s Purse humanitarian flight was hijacked on Tuesday, December 2, while attempting to supply a mobile medical unit in South Sudan. Authorities were able to meet the aircraft on the ground and take the suspect into custody without further incident. The aircraft involved was one of the organization’s Cessna Grand Caravans that operates solely within Africa. The FAA has taken an unusually cooperative step towards pilot mental health reform, reducing the stabilization wait time for approved antidepressant medications from 6 months to just 3. Though this is, in itself, a basic change, it reflects years of industry efforts. Under the revised policy, airmen and air traffic control specialists may now submit Special Issuance medical packages after maintaining a stable dose of an approved antidepressant for at least three continuous months. T

Procurement Continues After a (Mostly) Successful Trial With the Helsing HX-2

Germany’s armed forces are moving ahead with what is shaping up to be a more than billion-dollar order of AI-enabled strike drones after a series of trials delivered hit probabilities north of 90 percent. If previous rumors prove true, this marks a stark contrast from earlier trials, which came back with performance numbers as low as 30 percent.

Also: Trailblazing Aviator Betty Stewart, Wind Farm Scrutiny, Chatham Ban Overturned, Airbus Shares Dive

A Thunderbird pilot, ID'ed alternately as Thunderbird 5 or Thunderbird 6, (but not yet confirmed officially) ejected from his/her Lockheed Martin F-16CM-52-CF Fighting Falcon Wednesday (12-03-25) during a training mission in California. The accident occurred near Trona Airport on an unoccupied dry lake bed area south of the airport in San Bernardino County. The pilot ejected safely just before the airframe impacted the ground. Air India somehow misplaced a 43-year-old Boeing 737-200 and forgot about it for over a decade. The Kolkata airport didn’t forget about the airplane though, and continued to add parking fees. The airline was oblivious until recently, when it received a parking bill that, over a 13-year period, accumulated to a total of 10 million Indian Rupees, about USD$120,000. Dynon has released SkyView HDX software version

Also: IAE Acquires Diamond Trainers, Army Drones, FedEx Pilots Warning, DA62 MPP To Dresden Tech Uni

The danger to the flight training industry and our future pilots is clear. Donald Frano, a member of the Central Florida Pilots Association, posted a statement as an urgent warning about the increasing number of airports using or considering using a third-party vendor to send landing fees to pilots based on ADS-B data. This began in Florida and is a growing threat that the aviation community needs to stand up to and strongly oppose. Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS), Chair of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation, Space, and Innovation, has thrown his full support behind the bipartisan Mental Health in Aviation Act (MHAA) by joining as a co-sponsor of the bipartisan legislation. The bill intends to destigmatize mental health issues in aviation, train aviation medical examiners, and make it overall easier for aviation professionals to seek and

Third-Edition Resource Guide is Getting Ready… But It’s Waiting on You

The third edition of the SportPlane Resource Guide—soon to launch as the expanded, fully digital eSPRG—is almost ready for release. The layout is there, dozens of instructional chapters are written, and hundreds of aircraft write-ups are complete. This edition will be bigger, more detailed, and easier to update than the previous 1,100-page print version (probably settling in at more than 2000 pages!), with the potential to far exceed even our own anticipations with S-LSA, E-LSA, ultralights, avionics, and accessories. The only major thing slowing it down is one simple piece: more data from manufacturers.

Dozens of Companies Unveiled Innovative Products Ahead of the 51st SnF Aerospace Expo

Kicking off the 51st SUN ‘n FUN Aerospace Expo, we hosted the second annual SnF Innovation Preview to give more than 20 companies just enough time in the spotlight to debut their new planes, products, engines, accessories, and more… In other words… it was a LOT of news, and it’s all still up for your viewing pleasure.

From 2014 (YouTube Edition): Exotic Rebuild Reveals Aerial Work Of Art

During EAA AirVenture 2014, ANN's Michael Maya Charles took the time to get a history lesson about a great airplane from days gone by. By 1929 aviation was being recognized for its ability to transport people and cargo to areas that were extremely hard to get to. This led the Fairchild Company to come up with a single engine transport plane known as the Fairchild 71. ANN's roving reporter met up with Marlin Horst who was responsible for the restoration of one of these classic Fairchild's. In this video, Horst recounts the massive project of first locating an airplane as rare as this, and then bringing it to a better than factory-new status.

With The eSPRG Only Weeks Away From Its Start Date, A-AF Will Help To Support Sport Flyers, Worldwide

With the all-new and all-digital SportPlane Resource Guide getting ready for publication early next year, the Aero-News Network is pleased to announce yet another addition to the Airborne video news programming roster… Airborne-Affordable Flyers. Dedicated to keeping people up-to-date on the most affordable aspects of sport and general aviation, Airborne-Affordable Flyers is one of our most exciting offerings yet. A-AF will delve into more than just the current LSA community, but look at all aspects of aviation to examine and evaluate the most enjoyable, and most affordable, solutions to flying, operating, and owning aircraft in the 21st century.

We’re Hiring Editors, Developers, Video Journalists, Oh My!

Yes, despite the last few years being one of the most unpredictable stretches in aviation media we can remember, ANN is still standing… and somehow, still expanding. The pandemic didn’t exactly make life easy, but we’ve come through it with enough energy to tackle our next round of projects. Fortunately for you, they are already stacking up faster than we can keep up with. Moving forward, we’ll be ramping up efforts on an expanded “Airborne Unlimited,” launching the third version of the SportPlane Resource Guide in a digital format, rolling out coverage for all the greatest airshows, and diving into new Aero-Reality programming and book projects. We’ve got the plans; now we need the people.

And That's But One Of Over A Dozen Major Developments Planned For The Next Year Or So

Aero-News Network is now available on Roku and Amazon FireTV! That’s right folks. You can now get your daily dose of aviation news… right on the ol' giggle box! This is an EPIC development for our network, one of many to come, and we’re thrilled to offer you this new way to watch our news programming. Whether you’re a traditional website reader, podcast listener, or YouTube subscriber, we’re dedicated to giving you quality, honest, aviation news that you can trust and broadening our reach and audience aggressively in the coming years, so that we may both Grow and Inform the aviation and aerospace world.