A fatal midair collision between a Beechcraft Bonanza piloted by a National Transportation Safety Board employee and a Piper PA-28-140 Cherokee piloted by an FAA employee underscores the fact that the see-and-avoid principle alone is insufficient to guard against midairs when aircraft are flying under visual flight rules (VFR), the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) concludes.

Eclipse, in the final stages of certifying avionics systems before it begins delivery of the new Eclipse 550, has packaged some of the upgrades developed for the new aircraft as a retrofit option for existing Eclipse 500 very light jets.

Inflight connectivity specialist Aircell has enjoyed a fourfold growth in its business aviation division over the past four years as inflight Internet is becoming commonplace in fractional, charter and other operations.

While business aviation flights in the U.S. and Canada have remained flat to down overall this year, Part 135 activity continues to gain strength with improvements every month this year, according to the most recent data by aviation safety expert and industry analyst Argus International. Part 135 flights jumped 17.8% in July compared with July 2012. That follows a 12% improvement in June and a 10.7% increase in May. In fact, charter-activity gains have been in the double digits every month this year except March, which was up 9.3%, and February, up 5.5%.

UPS suffered the second fatal accident in its 25-year air package service history Aug. 14 when Flight 1354 went down on final approach to Alabama's Birmingham Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM) following a flight from the carrier's Louisville, Ky., hub, killing the two pilots. The Airbus A300-600F hit the ground about one-half mile short of BHM's 7,099-ft. Runway 18 on its initial approach. BHM's primary runway, the 11,998-ft. 6/24, was closed for routine maintenance at the time.

Vulnerabilities in interconnected civil aircraft

At some point, mainland China will need more than three international hub airports. Funneling the international traffic of a country of 1.3 billion people through Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou will not make sense forever, and even now the geographical distribution of the three is awkward. The hubs, each the base of one of China's three biggest airlines, are on the eastern and southern periphery of China's main population zone, so the country lacks a central or western gateway.

Second delay makes 2016 delivery target untenable.