I just ran across a Seattle PI blog entry by James Wallace that was not at all kind to Vern Raburn or his work in creating the Eclipse 500 and market for Very Light Jets. Looking through Mr. Wallace's other work, I can tell that he keeps up on aviation pretty well. All the same, I wonder if he and some of the people he qotes are a little too energetic in their trashing of Raburn.

The staff here at AviationBull would like to congratulate one of our writers on the recent addition to his family!!! Jon just became the proud parent of an Aeronca Champ. Picture of the bouncing baby blue airplane are included below for your ogling pleasure.

Jon's Airplane

Jon, we wish you many happy landings!!!

For those of you that may have missed the Martin Jetpack demo at Airventure.

Please forgive an overambitious weekend project... we're in the midst of upgrading our CMS to a newer version so you'll probably notice a few changes here and there. If you notice any bugs, please let us know on the contact page.

I know many of us, in our initial training, were introduced to the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), but in the intervening two to twenty years, some of us may have forgotten exactly how powerful a resource the Aviation Safety program is.

Piper just announced the first flight of their new PiperJet on Wednesday, July 30th, marking another step in the development of the VLJ market.

The press release gave the feeling that Piper has successfully designed their jet to take advantage of the efficiency and reduced noise of a single, tail-mounted engine without major adverse effects in pitch control. It seems to hold a unique place in the VLJ market. It offers the economy of a single engine, but seeks to provide the luxury you might expect of some slightly larger jets.

Lycoming announced this week at Airventure that they are pursuing an engine designed for the LSA market. The IO-233-LSA is a derivative of the IO-235 engine already in production and will be configured to use both AvGas and auto fuel without ethanol. Initial performance numbers weigh in at around 100hp, 200 pounds, 2400 hour TBO, and 5.25 gph at 75% power.

Check out our LSA Engine Comparison Table for a pretty comprehensive list of the competitors.

I was very surprised to read that Eclipse Aviation founder and CEO, Vern Raburn is stepping down from his position to be replaced by Roel Pieper. (Raburn will stay with the company, working in a different position.)