This post has been updated to correct an impression that the manufacturer made a presentation to Sun ‘n Fun. I fact it was a discussion with pilots at an exhibit of the aircraft. Kirk Hawkins, chief executive of Icon Aircraft wants to disrupt aviation with his company’s new versatile, light sport A5 amphibious aircraft. Nearly a decade in the making, this little plane has a big price tag and even bigger mission. Hawkins wants it to change the way individuals think of flying and on a larger scale, to set the extremely litigious general aviation industry on a different course. But if there are to be… Read More…

The lawsuit filed on behalf of nearly eighty of the 150 victims of the suicide-induced crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 on March 24, 2015, directs attention to the training of the pilots who fly for the airline (now called Eurowings) and its big brother, Lufthansa. Full disclosure before I continue. From 2001 until 2008, I was the primary investigator for Kreindler & Kreindler, the American aviation law firm that has sued Lufthansa’s pilot training center, called Aviation Training Center of Arizona or ATCA. In October 2010, I spent a week living and flying with the cadets who would, as Lubitz did,  go on to become pilots with the airline. I wrote several… Read More…