Also: flybmi Abruptly Ceases Ops, uAvionix, Ray Aviation Scholarships, ExpressJet Milestone

GAMA has released their 2018 year-end results at its “State of the Industry” press conference, this week. GAMA Chairman and Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. President Mark Burns announced that globally, airplane shipments increased 4.7 percent, to 2,443 units in 2018.

Airplane billings increased 1.5 percent, from $20.2 billion to $20.6 billion. Worldwide rotorcraft shipments rose 5.4 percent, from 926 to 976 units. Rotorcraft billings decreased slightly, by 0.7 percent. Aerobatic pilot Spencer Suderman was unsuccessful in his attempt to break his own record for inverted flat spins last week. Suderman set the current record at 98 turns in March, 2016, breaking his own previous record of 81 spins. In the recent attempt, he had hoped to beat that 2016 mark by a wide margin. "The plane spins faster at altitude than anything I have ever seen...about 1.4 seconds per rotation. I had to abort after 9 thousand feet of spinning. I simply couldn't breath against the transverse G forces," Suderman reported. Vertical Aviation Technologies claims that efforts are well underway to certify the new four place S-52L helicopter in Primary Category. The process, which has currently taken two years, includes a Type Certificate and a Production Certificate. A primary category aircraft is of simple design and is intended exclusively for pleasure and personal use, flight instruction, and rental. All this -- and MORE in today's episode of Airborne!!!

Airborne 02.22.19 is chock full of info in this Daily News Episode, Friday, February 22nd, 2019... Presented by Aero-TV veteran videographer and Airborne Hosts Skylar Vanel, Laura Hutson, Brianne Cross, and Christopher Odom, and is supported by ANN CEO/Editor-In-Chief Jim Campbell, Chief Videographer Nathan Cremisino, and Aero-Journalist Tom Patton, this episode covers:

• GAMA Presents 2018 Year-End Aircraft Shipment and Billing Numbers 
• Spencer Suderman Aborts Inverted Flat Spin Record Attempt 
• S-52L Hummingbird Close To Certification 
• European Regional Airline flybmi Abruptly Ceases Operation
• uAvionix Announces Qualified Installer Mobile Installation Network 
• EAA Awards Initial Ray Aviation Scholarships 
• ExpressJet Marks 10th Anniversary Of 1st All-Female, African-American Crew 

Get Comprehensive, Real-Time, 24/7 coverage of the latest aviation and aerospace stories anytime, at aero-news.net. And be sure to join us again for the next edition of "Airborne Unlimited" here on Aero-TV. Thanks for watching. See you, again, tomorrow!

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