John was editor of Aviation Week's ShowNews for nearly two decades. He retired in 2020. His background in business journalism before joining Aviation Week includes stints at Reuters, the American Banker daily banking newspaper and as business news editor at the Milwaukee Journal and the Cincinnati Enquirer.
A lifelong aviation enthusiast, John has been a private pilot for 34 years and won an award at EAA Oshkosh for his restoration of a vintage British Auster army spotter aircraft. He is currently building a 1920s Staaken Flitzer biplane from plans. John attended his first Farnborough Air Show in 1952, when just eight months old.
Technology and innovation are the heart of EAA AirVenture—and this year Oshkosh lived up to its reputation as “the greatest aviation celebration in the world,” a place where industry’s best and brightest launch ideas and products. Sprightly light sport aircraft (LSA), sleek single-engine personal jets, affordable glass cockpits and diesel engines crowded center stage here at Wittman Regional Airport.
A tool to simulate a more efficient, greener air transportation system integrating all pertinent factors, on the ground as well as in the air, is being introduced by Thales. Known as Airlab, the simulator is conceived as a civil version of battlefield laboratories developed to study how new military technologies and concepts work in an interoperable network-centric environment. It is based on Thales’s own Battlespace Transformation Center in Elancourt, near Paris, and its new System Oriented UAV Laboratory in Bordeaux.
Exactly when Embraer's Phenom 100 very light jet will make its first flight is a $40-million question--literally. That's the sum the milestone event will trigger in progress payments from customers for the almost 400 aircraft on firm order. That day will be around mid-year, in just a few weeks' time, says Embraer Executive Vice President-Executive Jets Luís Carlos Affonso, who notes that customers have already paid $20 million in non-refundable $50,000 deposits.
