Flying Magazine

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) said Thursday that it and its partners officially launched LIFTOff Louisiana—one of eight projects comprising demonstrations of electric, autonomous, and other novel, precertified aircraft being overseen by the FAA. LIFTOff is the latest component of the agency’s eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) Integration Pilot Program (eIPP) to get underway.

The National Transportation Safety Board has released the docket on the 2025 fatal air ambulance crash in northeast Philadelphia, containing several hundred pages of new information, analysis, and photographs gathered as part of its ongoing investigation. The accident flight was operated by Med Jets, doing business as Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, an international aeromedical long-distance transport provider based in Toluca near Mexico City.

Each day, the team at Aircraft For Sale picks an airplane that catches our attention because it is unique, represents a good deal, or has other interesting qualities. You can read Aircraft For Sale: Today’s Top Pick at FLYINGMag.com daily. Today’s Top Pick is a 2022 Tecnam P2010 TDI. CREATE A FREE ACCOUNT Sign up to keep reading Create a free account to continue. Already a member? Sign in below.

Virgin Galactic on Friday extended the deadline for the public to name one of its next-generation spaceplanes, giving space enthusiasts until Thursday to cast their votes. Virgin Galactic, which offers suborbital expeditions for paying customers, launched its first commercial mission in June 2023 and has not flown one since ’24, when it retired its earlier SpaceShipTwo-class spaceplane, VSS Unity.

The FAA is launching a new program that could see small uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS), or drones, integrated at greater scale. The agency Thursday announced it will select eight new state, local, tribal or territorial government participants to launch the second phase of its BEYOND program, which aims to safely increase drone operations in the National Airspace System (NAS). Phase 1 began in 2020 and ended last year. CREATE A FREE ACCOUNT Sign up to keep reading Create a free account to continue.

The investigation into the ground collision between an airport fire truck and a regional jet at New York’s LaGuardia Airport (KLGA) in March is looking at the possibility that two air traffic controllers in the tower left work early that night. According to a Wall Street Journal report on Thursday, a source close to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation has found the controllers have been placed on unpaid leave.

The Corporate Angel Network (CAN), a nonprofit organization that arranges free flights on corporate aircraft for cancer patients traveling to treatment facilities, has announced that Jack Pelton has joined its board of directors. Pelton brings decades of aviation leadership to the volunteer position. He serves as chairman and CEO of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and previously occupied the position of chairman, president and CEO of Cessna from November 2000 to May2011.

Former Spirit pilots left out of work by the discount carrier’s sudden collapse earlier this year are receiving some help with a critical part of the job search—getting their logbooks in order. AIROS, which assists aviators in consolidating and checking their records through a cloud-based digital logbook, decided in May that it would make its service free for ex-Spirit pilots. CREATE A FREE ACCOUNT Sign up to keep reading Create a free account to continue. Already a member? Sign in below.

LNAV/VNAV minimums are a bit of a mystery to most U.S. pilots. That’s probably because they’re rarely encountered, except at the relatively few airports with RNAV (GPS) approaches that have LNAV/VNAV minimums but no LPV minimums. However, as will be explained, I encountered them while flying an approach with LPV minimums when the satellite signal quality was insufficient to support LPV minimums. CREATE A FREE ACCOUNT Sign up to keep reading Create a free account to continue. Already a member?

A Piper PA-24-260 Comanche crashed off the coast of Alaska on Wednesday, killing all four occupants, according to officials. Per a news release from state troopers with the Alaska Department of Public Safety, the small airplane departed Merrill Field Airport (PAMR) in Anchorage and was bound for the community of Seldovia, located about 136 miles southwest of Anchorage on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. A preliminary investigation determined that the aircraft submerged completely after crashing.