General Aviation and Flight School News

Payroll that is. After some anxious moments and reports that Eclipse might possibly miss payroll, workers got paid and are back to….. well, making airplanes.
No report on the current (real) number of orders yet, we are certain this will become known before year end.
Maybe in a bankruptcy filing, some say.

Adding infrared and ambient light camera imagery to the already incredible synthetic vision adds a level of technology that is truly making general aviation airplanes move into a new era.

Cirrus integrated the infrared images into their 12 inch multifunction display while the synthetic vision is displaying on the PFD.
You will have to see this to believe it, a great enhancement.
Let’s just hope the marketing folks at Cirrus don’t bill it out as ‘takeoff and landings in zero zero conditions made easy’.

The elite leadership of NAFI (so they see themselves) is increasingly causing dissent in members.
Among aviation groups, or any group for that matter, they are already one of the poorest run and ineffective, and finally members are starting to speak up.

The members of course that have not been bestowed fantasy titles and awards have been at odds with NAFI for a long time.

Maybe this recent movement will change NAFI into an organization that is actually making a change and contributing to General Aviation in the positive way that it could.
Or, they could just keep going not mattering to anyone but the few with the fantasy titles.

The unstable credit market and overall economic downturn causes more grief in general aviation.
Mooney Airplane Company reports to have laid off 229 of its 320 employees.
Mooney claims that these actions are only of temporary nature.

Eclipse Avitation may stop production sometime early 2009 if additional financing of $200 million dollar is not secured soon.
There still are no indications of the magical numbers of the Eclipse order book solidifying or any of the alleged customers stepping forward to fund the ‘hundreds’ of airplanes they ordered.

It would seem a logical step for a large conglomerate that has venture interest to support Eclipse. On the other hand, if these large orders (like the one from Day-Jet) are largely vapor, Eclipse just might implode.