An article at GreenMuze.com discusses a pretty interesting sounding aircraft: the SmartFish. the blended wing design immediately suggests a quest for greater efficiency. The capabilities they're boasting their plane is capable of are pretty amazing. The SmartFish website says the technology could be applied from anything to small UAVs to business jets to midsize business jets.

So, is this one of those eternally under development concepts or a potential leap in aircraft design?

I was pretty optimistic when the concept of the Very Light Jet was born. There were several neat designs and costs promised to be impressively low. Since then though, several start-up VLJ companies failed and many other projects are stalled or just creeping along. The VLJ hype has all but disappeared. How then has Cessna reached the impressive milestone of rolling out its 300th Citation Mustang?

I recently wrote about Colgan Air Flight 3407's tragic accident. Although Colgan themselves seem to think they're fine and it's good enough to blame their pilots, the FAA has thankfully taken a better approach. As mentioned by the AOPA, the FAA has issued "an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM)" about airline pilot qualifications. As I see it, the document is basically saying, "We know something is wrong and we want to fix it, but we're not 100% sure how to start. Here are some ideas, please let us know what you think."

What an opportunity for us! Whether you hope to fly for a living under the policies that will come out of this, or you just want to make sure you are safe as an airline passenger, this is the best chance you'll ever get to put in your two cents on how airline pilot qualifications should work.

The FAA officially released the final revisions to the Sport Pilot rules this Monday. Overall, they seem to have been greeted warmly by the AOPA and the EAA, though there are a few lingering points of dissent. Overall, it seems to me that the rules generally make the Sport Pilot rating easier to obtain and administrate and give Sport Pilots more opportunities in their operations.

That's right, as reported by the AOPA, President Obama's 2011 budget proposal does not contain any user fees for general aviation!

AOPA president Craig Fuller even prepared a video statement about the great news:

Cessna made some news recently when they delivered their first 'production' C-162 SkyCatcher to Rose Pelton, the wife of Cessna's CEO. According to Plane and Pilot Magazine, Cessna has over 1000 orders for SkyCatchers so you would think they would have firewalled the throttle on the assembly line and started cranking airplanes out as fast as they could...especially in a rough economy when the company needs all the cash it can get. Strangely, that was not the case.

As reported by the AOPA, Cessna is now delaying deliveries by 6-10 months!

Russia unveiled its newest fighter, and their first 5th Generation fighter, the Sukhoi T-50. The T-50 marks a new page for Russia in aircraft development sporting both stealth and touted super cruise capability.

Russia is developing the aircraft not only for internal bolstering of their air force but as a potential export. India has expressed interest in the new fighter as it is the only 5th Generation fighter aircraft available on the market today. The US's F-22 Rapter is a 5th Generation fighter, but it is not currently offered for export and the EU's Eurofighter Typhoon is considered a 4.5 Generation fighter with similar, not all the capabilities, to be classified as a true 5th Generation aircraft.

Have you ever dreamed of island hopping though the tropics? It is a personal goal of mine. One of the most interesting approaches in the islands of the America's is the approach to the airport on Saint Barthelemy island

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The beauty of the island is guarded by many challenges on the short 1600' usable strip. Two of the largest challenges are the bay on one side of the and a hill with a steeper grade than a standard approach on the other. For those of us preparing to fly there one day (I didn't say one day real soon) AvWeb has prepared a short clip showing some general tips to make your trip safe and relaxing.